McCain's campaign is in danger of fracturing

[T_i_B]

I'll leave you lot to work out how accurate this article actually is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/31/barackobama.johnmccain

Before their Denver extravaganza last week, Democrats feared their nominating convention might dissolve into a gruesome riot of intramural conflict. The primary season wounds between the Clinton and Obama camps had not fully healed and some feared open fighting between the factions would overshadow Barack Obama's coronation. But after a somewhat unsure start, they averted disaster. Bill and Hillary Clinton both rallied their supporters to Obama's side with full-throated endorsements. And then came Obama's stirring acceptance speech, with which virtually no dazzled Democrats could find fault. For the Democrats, it was mission accomplished.

In truth, the talk of division was overblown. As Time magazine's Amy Sullivan recently noted, today's Democratic party is as unified as it has been in a generation. The long-running feud between the party's moderate and liberal wings is dormant, with the liberals holding sway. Consensus reigns on nearly every key policy question, from leaving Iraq to ending George W Bush's high-income tax cuts.

But look who's divided now: the Republicans. As John McCain heads for St Paul this weekend - with his photogenic but almost comically inexperienced running mate, Sarah Palin, in tow - it is the GOP that struggles to find real unity. John McCain now leads a party saddled with fierce internecine disputes about everything from civil liberties to budget policy to America's role in the world. While these Republicans may lack a soap opera akin to the Clinton-Obama psychodrama, their ideological stitching has come dangerously loose. It is McCain's challenge to ensure that the seams don't burst open before election day.

How times have changed. During the first half of the Bush era, the Republican party brooked about as much dissent as the North Korean Communist party. But nothing breeds division like failure and the collapse of Bush Republicanism has a long list of party factions pointing the finger at one another.

[liberal N proud]

1. Oh lets truly hope they explode into full meltdown

It couldn't happen to a more deserving group

[ixion]

2. "The long-running feud between the party's moderate and liberal wings is dormant"

I wouldn't go so far as to say "dormant", I think progressives are pretty pissed off at the moderates right now, but they're trying to make it work.

[mwb970]

3. The part about Ron Paul and Bob Barr is interesting.

Meanwhile, those on the party's growing neo-isolationist fringe can rally around the libertarian hero Ron Paul, whose failed presidential primary campaign was largely premised on his opposition to the Iraq War and which drew support from many traditional conservatives. Unwelcome inside the Xcel Centre, Paul will stage a rally across the river in next-door Minneapolis. By comparison, anti-war protesters were a negligible force in Denver.

McCain's message in St Paul will also be muddied by the presence of another libertarian, Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman now running a third-party candidacy. A quirky character memorable for having been tricked by Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat into believing he had eaten breast-milk cheese, Barr is reinventing himself as the champion of principles that he says the Republican party has betrayed. Barr emphasises the erosion of civil liberties through such measures as expanded government eavesdropping powers, which McCain supports, and says the Republican party has been corrupted by lobbyists. Many analysts agree that his candidacy will draw conservatives from McCain's base. Barr may cause his pro-Republican home state of Georgia to become competitive, a nightmare for McCain. McCain can still win in November - barely. But in a poisonously anti-GOP political climate, he cannot allow votes to leak from his party's conservative base.

Somehow the Republicans don't seem so unified to me. Maybe they will all rally around Gramma Palin, but I doubt it.

[bulloney]

5. The 'librul media' have ignored the Republicans' factions led by Barr and Paul.

Especially the one with Paul. That's been stewing through the entire campaign season. It will be interested in seeing if it comes to a head at the Republican convention. If it does, the media will undoubtedly downplay it.

They've made so much of the Hillary & Obama chasm and hoped they could talk it into being a self-fulfilled prophecy at the Democratic convention. It didn't happen.

What now, media gerbils?

[mwb970]

10. They'll have a hard time ignoring the Paul counter-convention.

Assuming Gustav allows it to happen.

By the way, if Gustav does hit NOLA and the RNC is called off or postponed, will we hear from Pat Robertson on the meaning of such an obvious sign from God? He usually tells us what God has on his mind, which seems to always favor Republicans, like the "bush blowout" of 2004 that God tipped him off on.

[Ian David]

4. They're throwing it all away... and for what? An inadequate white female? n/t

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. Time for the circular firing-squad (n/t)

[HughMoran]

7. Can't wait for the meltdown after the first bad polling numbers

:D

[AwakeAtLast]

8. I'll make the popcorn!!!

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

Who's gonna bring the beer? :beer:


:hi:

[NoFederales]

9. The M$M has been stupidly wrong for so long, why believe this? nt

NoFederales