David Frum is 'Terrified' GOP is Heading for 'Defeat'

[Hissyspit]

Source: Editor & Publisher

'NYT' Sunday Preview: David Frum Is 'Terrified' GOP Is Heading for 'Defeat'

By E&P Staff

Published: January 04, 2008 1:50 PM ET

NEW YORK David Frum, the conservative writer and former Bush White House speechwriter -- currently working for Rudy Giuliani -- tells The New York Times Magazine this coming Sunday, "What I am terrified of is that the Republican Party is heading into a period of political defeat....I am terrified that we can lose the election in 2008. We can lose in 2012, and it will take us half a dozen years to do the rethinking we need to you."

He also tells Deborah Solomon, "What I am saying is that there is exhaustion, intellectual exhaustion on the part of Republicans and conservatives."

Frum has a new book, "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again." His candidate, however, got only 4% of the vote in Iowa. He says he made a New Year's resolution to "not to be pessmistic" but, asked if this applied to the state of the GOP, he added, "I didn't say I always keep my resolutions."

The Magazine features a cover story on the danger of voting-machine irregularities.

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003691921&imw=Y

[kurth]

1. "Intellectual exhaustion on the part of Republicans"?

LOL

[msongs]

2. "intellectual exhaustion"? intellectual bankruptcty is more like it. nt

[rasputin1952]

3. "Intellectual Exhaustion???

:wtf: How can you exhaust something one rarely exercises?

[silverweb]

13. That's exactly what I zeroed in on.

The GOP has a very limited range of topics within its comfort zone and is further hampered by a very narrow world view.

"Exhausting" itself in finding new ways to flay the meat from those dead bones -- to say nothing of getting the people to continue accepting that rancid dish -- had to be a pretty self-limited endeavor.

:rofl:

[Supersedeas]

51. raising the cigar from tray to mush-mouth is so tiring for them...bon-bons anyone?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. Why is he terrified? He likes the damage Repukes do to the U.S.?

These people are simply monstrous.

[RuleOfNah]

25. Terrified is code for 'Republicans going to jail'.

Terrified is code for 'Republicans going to jail' because they know who as been investing in the prison market and they are not looking forward to the level of service.

:popcorn:

[lovuian]

5. Be afraid be very afraid

when it is all said and done
Republican party maybe history

[sallyseven]

32. Don't count on it

they will steal some more elections Maybe a few well planted bombs you know the usual stuff. There is no end to their greed and power lust.

[Cobalt-60]

49. tease!

This is a dream I have.
And I believe it's an achievable goal.
There will always be a few pig rich districts and a few more pig ignorant districts that
like these *ssholes.
But there must be some critical numbers below which they become irrelevant.

[Algorem]

6. their cake is melting in the rain and they don't think that they can

take it becuz it took so long to bake it and they'll never have that recipe again,oh nooooooo!

boot to the head,ya-ya!

[TheWraith]

7. No shit.

They'll be lucky to survive as a political party.

[Berry Cool]

9. And to think that only recently (as late as 2006)

they were publishing books about how they planned to establish a permanent majority.

[trusty elf]

36. The word "shrubris" comes to mind.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Lying is mentally exhausting nt

[bleedinglib]

10. What I like about the progressive Dems?

When something is going wrong,were not afraid to challenge our leaders
We don't jump off the cliff just because some dumbass cowboy tells us to!
I'v been wondering since 1/20/01 when this reality would finally hit
those dipsticks in the balls?
I'm really proud to be a Pro-dem. I'm tickled just watching the reagan dems squirming in the muck & mire they have allowed to pollute the grand ole party.
I now laugh about how God was suppost to have put shrub in office?
Well, I believe God is going to bring them down with a BIG THUD, and it
will be another 50 years before they recover?
We need to make sure our new Dem. Prez. prosecutes all those bastards and doesn't let them off like Bill Clinton did??
I know D U will hold their feet to the fire?

Thanks everyone. Blib:spank:

[Rageneau]

11. This has happened before, Frum -- in 1932, when the GOP was last in power.

Republicans whine, wheedle, cheat and lie their way into power every 40 years or so and it takes them about a decade to prove themselves to be nothing but greedy, hateful, stupid pigs. Whereupon the people of the US turn them out for another 40 years of wandering.

They're due for a walk.

[Binka]

20. A Very Long Walk Off A Short Pier

Fucking Assholes. God how I hate these bastards.

[Cass]

12. So he now figures out they were highjacked as a party.

:nopity:

[Skittles]

14. you lost the last two elections but that didn't stop you bastards

did it?

[Hekate]

15. Poor, poor, baby. I don't know if I can stop laughing long enough to dry his tears...

:rofl: :nopity: :rofl: :nopity: :rofl: :nopity: :rofl: :nopity: :rofl: :nopity: :rofl: :nopity:

Go to Hell, Neocons! Too many have died for your greed.

Hekate

[Bravo Zulu]

16. When we start hanging them

that'll put the fear of dog into them!

[Binka]

21. Damn Straight

Fucking treasonous bastards!

[Brrrp]

17. "Conservative intellectual exhaustion"--a striking admission.

It means they have run out of ways to make their system of ideas move along. The conservative paradigm is frozen, lacking in life, lacking in the potential for development and growth. They are frustrated at every turn. Every project is stymied-- from the deconstruction of Social Security to the imperialist wars in the Near East. This is a startling admission from an arch-neoconservative. It should give those of us in the opposition great cheer.

[Amonester]

19. The neocons R full of billions (they stole)... but that's all...

It's like... That stupid, vapid, idjit frum never thought that having all the moneys in the world doesn't do sh*t. It's just paper. And when their paper goes down, because of their own endless lust for greed, no matter the consequences they never stop to think about the consequences of their immoral crimes, when their mountains of paper go down, they're OVER.

[tanyev]

28. They've run out of ways to keep the pyramid scheme moving.

[Th1onein]

40. Hey! They only ever played to the UGLY in everyone.

All they ever had was HATE, to motivate people. It's sad that so many fell for it for so long. They played the hate card time and time again (and are still trying to play it with the immigration thing--while their corporate buddies are outsourcing our jobs--it isn't the immigrants coming in, stupid; it's the jobs going OUT), and while the dumbasses are busy looking the other way, they are stealing us all blind.

[Cha]

18. The gopervs have exhausted

their lies and the m$$$$$m can't even cover them up. What a toxic wasteland and we only had to endure 8 years of bushit nightmare and untold deaths and a treasury that's bankrupt to have them so "exhausted".

And thanks to those in congress and the senate who enabled bush all through those years of corruption through thick and thin.. to what purpose?

[LeftishBrit]

22. Hope he's right!

'there is exhaustion, intellectual exhaustion on the part of Republicans and conservatives'

You mean they find it too tiring to use their brains? That would explain a lot!

[grantcart]

23. Much much worse than a defeat

What the republicans are facing is much worse than a whitehouse defeat. In 1964 they were defeated but Goldwater gave them the philosophical basis on which to build on, a thought out systemic way of approaching politcal problems; libertarian in spirit it focused on federalism, individual rights and limited central government. Reagan built on this and was their moses.

Bush has taken them back to oblivion. He has ruined their reputation and decimated their consensus. Not only are the republicans going to lose but they are not going to have a central philosophy to rebound on. In all seriousness Bush has caused the trivialization of republicans that could have an impact for 30 years:

1) He has set the social and economic conservatives against each other (on the immigration issue)
2) He has undermined the religious center of the party by running away from Baker and Powell on foreign issues making rational conservatives think that the party has been taken over by religious fanatics that have to be stopped. Guilliani and MCCain are put up by establishment republicans but are pro choice. Many catholics and others who were strongly anti abortion, but also concerned about poverty now have no reason to vote republican.
3) He has alienated the business republicans because he hasn't done anything to control spiraling health costs (cost of health care is a bigger factor in a car than steel).

But beyond what he has done to the Party, losing the whitehouse is the least of their problems. Because of the unusual number of vulnerable Republican Senators up for election we are looking at a minimum of 58 maximum 61 democrat senators next year. Given the high rate of incumbent re-elections this will have an impact for 20 years. Not only that but fewer top quality folks will run for the republican party in the Senate for a long time because they know they will be in the minority party for the foreseeable future.

Also at the state and local levels a landslide election wipes out all of the 'minor league' republicans who will be needed to repopulate their future talent levels.

All of this happened in 1964 and will be repeated but and here is the great difference; there will be no great coalescing new leader. Everyone that is running for Rep nomination is deeply disliked by 1/3 of the rest of the party. The squabbling and recriminations have just started and are likely to last a decade. And just to make sure it isn't going to be close they will harass and embarass Ron Paul enough to encourage a far right third party which may do well enough to hang around a few elections.

Quite a legacy George Bush quite a legacy. Actually breathtaking in scope. Only a man who really is listening to the direct voice of "God" could ever achieve anything so historic.

[ima_sinnic]

26. great analysis!

:thumbsup:

[rasputin1952]

33. Welcome to DU...

I have said for years that bush can/will destroy the GOP singlehandedly, but events have shown me that the there are a lot of hands that have torn the party asunder.

:hi:

[robbedvoter]

41. When you forge a party from the spit of hatred, spit is all that's left in the end

It's a miracle it lasted that long - ownership of the media and voting machines made it seem viable when in fact it was long dead - even before Bush took over. If you think about it, I988 was the last national election they actually won (I have no proof to the contrary).
But your analysis is spot on. Bush definitely aggravated all the chasms already existing between the religious nuts, the rich and the neocons. They now have candidates representing all these factions - none of them much liked by the base - except maybe Huckabee. And the rest are scared stiff of the prospective.

[Jade Fox]

43. Excellent, especially your point about

the impact on the long term health of a Party by big gains at the local level. That phenomenon was the unsung victory of Nov. 2006--the large gains made nation wide by state and local Democrats in that election.

[starroute]

44. I can see a glimmer of which way they might go

The Republican Party has always been the party of the rich and powerful -- but the centers of wealth and power have regularly shifted. Before Goldwater, there had been for decades a tension between the East Coast internationalist Wall Street types and the Midwestern isolationist industrial types. The Goldwater transition represented a party-wide repudiation of the East Coast GOP "moderates" like Nelson Rockefeller -- but rather than benefiting the Midwest, it resulted in a geographical shift of focus to the South and the cowboy West, probably reflecting the shift from the coal-steel-and-autos economy of the 20th century to the oil-based economy of the late 20th century.

To the extent that there's anything new in conservative thinking at the moment, it seems to be off on the libertarian right -- not so much Ron Paul himself as the people who are coalescing around his campaign. I don't know how they'll be able to get around the discrediting of unrestrained free-market capitalism, but let's assume they come up with something. In that case, I could see a major GOP defeat resulting in the Republican Party being ceded to the fundamentalists and a new libertarian party emerging. Or I could see those two factions battling it out to claim the name recognition and other resources of the old GOP.

Either way, both the oil-based economy and the military-industrial complex erected on it are clearly headed for the junkbin of history, so a new party representing the propertied interests of the 21st century would have to be based in new sources of wealth -- and that's where it really gets tricky. There are a lot of techno-libertarians in the computer/IT industry, but, despite Bill Gates and the founders of Google, the computer industry and the Internet in themselves cannot be the foundation of national wealth, not the way coal or oil were. And I can't see either non-extractive green energy or a new wave of nuclear plants serving that function either. Energy scarcity doesn't leave much room for getting rich by selling energy-intensive devices to the masses.

So the real challenge for the right at this point is to figure out who's going to be controlling the sources of wealth 20-30 years from now and concoct a philosophy that will explain when that happens why it's a good thing and how the world could be adjusted to work even more in their favor. But that won't be easy -- especially not if by then the Chinese are building all the cars and the Indians are coming up with all the innovative tech.

Still, techno-libertarianism combined with a strong entrepreneurial and anti-corporate bias looks like the most plausible direction for conservatism to go, especially if it also manages to get beyond jingoism, militarism, and mindless consumerism. But if the core of the GOP remains stuck on war and paleo-religiosity, as I expect it will, conservatives could be spending an awfully long time in the wilderness.

[scarface2004]

24. republicans suck ass!

they should be extinct the bastards!

[dchill]

27. There is nothing more scary...

than a terrified Republican.

[ToeBot]

29. Republican prospects haven't looked this bleak since Nixon's departure or even Hoover's defeat

And what really terrifies Frum and the rest of the criminals - there is no Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings to bullshit the party back into power. So all they can do is try to ameliorate the outcome, swing the vote to the least offensive Dem. The last thing the Republicans want to endure is another administration like FDR's. Who'd ya say was the front runner again?

[Vogon_Glory]

30. Feel The Fear, Frum! I Hope It's True!

Feel the fear, David Frum! I hope it's true, and that a merciful G*d inspires millions of American citizen-voters to sweep Republicans from office nationwide in a housecleaning that hasn't been seen in decades. Your lot has locked the GOP into an ideological and political straight-jacket of toxic politics and the tab has been mounting. You're now beginning to reap what you've sown! If G*d is kind, it'll be at least twenty years before a right-winger can even hope to get elected to higher office.

Or maybe things will be even more severe for the GOP than you think. Remember what happened to the Whig Party? Thanks to the Radical Right's takeover of the GOP, enough disgusted voters may well send the GOP down the same path to oblivion.

:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[Demeter]

31. What Profiteth A GOP If It Loseth the White House and Gaineth the Big House?

Just be sure that in the process they are stripped of their ill-gotten gains so that the Treasury may be restored to health. I won't ask for anything more.

[dansolo]

34. He was a Bush speechwriter

If there is any intellectual exhaustion, wouldn't that be partly his fault?

[flashl]

35. Are they repubs or neocons?

Before 2000, but especially after 2000, watching multi-generation repubs protest ‘loudly’ while trying to separate and extract themselves from the ‘sticky situation’ of opportunistic necons taking over their party have been interesting.

Although, the 2000 election is forever imprinted in the minds of most Americans, history will probably reveal that the 2004 election was the most egregious. Not only were dems and indeps working and sacrificing to get the neocons out of the WH, there were disenfranchised repubs working just as hard.
In the electorate, near the end of the 2004 election cycle, there was a fore gone conclusion that Kerry/Edwards was a certainty. Evidence of the second election coup of 2004 is surfacing and trickling in the news lately.

The fear that some neocon lackeys are acknowledging is probably because they sense that the mob from the looming economic fallout will seek blood and they will not have the protection of another neocon administration.

[yurbud]

37. you can only sell people a hatful of shit and call it a chocolate cake for so long

Some figure it out on the first bite, others wait till they get sick and their kids and grandkids and great grandkids are stuck with the bill for the shit cake.

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. They're lucky. They should be heading for jail.

[Th1onein]

39. How about just being HONEST?

You don't need to exhaust yourselves, Pubbies, thinking about why you are losing and are going to continue to lose, far into the future. It's real easy to figure out: YOU'RE LIARS and it's going to take a long, long time for the American people to trust you again! I, for one, hope they never do. You have broken this nation and snatched from underneath her the very building blocks of democracy and liberty and freedom, and all the while you've LIED and LIED and LIED and told the American people you were just trying to protect them, while stealing them blind.

FUCK you, Republicans. You reap what you sow, you pieces of shit.

[Jade Fox]

42. "Intellectual Exhaustion"? Bwhahahah!!

These are the people who think Ann Coulter is a brilliant thinker.

First ya gotta have some intellect before you can exhaust it.

[pleah]

45. When is the last time anyone actually listened to this guy?

[eppur_se_muova]

46. They are clueless even as to their own cluelessness ...

GOP pundits keep bewailing the dearth of new ideas they think they need to keep their party's teeth firmly on the jugular of Democracy. It's not that they lack ideas, it's that they have so many WRONG ideas -- and they are immune to enlightment, even when that enlightment comes from the School of Hard Knocks clubbing them over their collective heads with increasing rejection at the polls by voters who, for some reason, don't want their country to be a force for evil.

Intellectual exhaustion? I don't think so. Try moral vacuity.

[fortyfeetunder]

47. Over years of this nonsense

Even though the GOP became the haven for Dems who despised civil rights legislation, I recall in the 1980 election an emerging atmosphere of intolerance coming from the GOP. And look where it's led us -- negative campaigning, a resurgence of racism and sexism, divisive behaviors, and a string of ethnocentric babble from the GOP.

Folks are getting tired of it and want change...If the GOP doesn't change then it's doomed...'nuff said.

[Lisa]

48. what are you going to do if the Dems win, David -- crawl back to Canada?

Oh, Harper's on his way out too. Bad luck!

[DRoseDARs]

50. And I'm terrified he might convince some people to actually give a shit.

Stupid IS contagious, after all.