How can anyone really want or expect "small government" in a country of over 300 million people?

What kind of fantasy are these people living in? And don't tell me about the views of the founding fathers on this one. In 1776 the population of the U.S. was less than 1% what it is now.

Small government--smaller than what? Smaller than the corporations from whom it has to protect the general populace? Smaller than the foreign governments it has to deal with to keep the oil coming? Small enough to be unable to respond to a hurricane and the sinking of a major U.S. city?

I would venture to guess that "conservatism" survived as long as it did because the basic well-being of the population was ensured by what had been put into place by the earlier liberalism. In other words, people have lived off the fat of the New Deal for three decades and that made them a lot less likely to notice how badly the conservatives have failed them.

McCain learned his lesson in 2000: Don't alienate the social conservatives if you want to be the GOP nominee.

Unfortunately for McCain, it's a lesson that was no longer the main consideration under today's economic conditions.

I can see clearly why he decided early on to go with the Dobson wing. In the primaries, he was afraid of losing to Huckabee. Now that Huck is out of the picture, we can laugh, but at the time it struck me just how likable the guy is. Like, I have no patience at all for these bible-thumpers but listening to Mike Huckabee, I got this really warm fuzzy that made me forget where he was coming from politically.

McCain probably saw that appeal and knew he had to cut Huckabee's base away from him.

The other element is that he probably thought he would be running against Hillary Clinton. Back in the heat of the primaries, as some of my friends were bemoaning the drawn-out Democratic primary, I suggested that it might be to the Dems advantage because the Republicans would be making their decision without knowing who they'd be running against.

So McCain didn't expect that he'd eventually be running against someone who would attract so many GOP moderates to the Democratic side. Remember, Hillary is such a polarizing figure--rightly or wrongly, in part because of sixteen years of slander from the right wing, and basically everyone who will vote for Hillary already has.

So McCain did the math: Scoop the socialcons away from Huck and don't worry about the moderates, they'll be with me anyway.

Of course, once the math changed, McCain should have changed his strategy. The fact that he didn't is really indicative (as if we needed any more evidence) of how ossified his thought processes are. The fact that McCain is where he is now is itself evidence of his unfitness to be President.

Watching Goldfarb get asked again and again to substantiate his statement with even one bit of evidence or example... I ask myself what took the mass media so long.

Imagine if this kind of hard questioning had been applied for the past eight years.

"Well, we all know that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, we all know the connection."

"Okay, what's the connection? Osama Bin Laden is in Afghanistan, Saddam is in Iraq, one's a religious fanatic and the other is a secular dictator. What's the connection?"

"Well, it's well known that Saddam attacked Israel with chemical weapons."

"Sure, we know that but what does that have to do with 9/11?"

"I think we all know the answer to that."

Cut to commercial break and pre-empt a disastrous war in Iraq.

This campaign has been about building a long-term 50-state strategy; the fact that it will probably win this time is a bonus.

If Obama seriously challenges McCain in Arizona--let alone beats him there--Republicans will remember it in the future. The fact that their best hope in 2008 lost (or almost lost, depending how it plays out) on his home turf will nag at the back of their minds in all future election strategies. It will influence them to devote resources preemptively next time around. Obama is teaching Republicans, present and future, that nowhere is safe.

This is why Obama kicks so much ass. Unlike the Dems have done in the past few election cycles, he hasn't allowed the Republicans to dictate the terms of the contest i.e. hold all your solid states and fight over Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

I guess someone told McCain to leave it all on the road. Didn't specify whether that's the high road or the low road.

The one thing McCain could have pulled out of this campaign, once he's lost, was that he didn't play the big race card. Once he had lost, he could have said, "Well, at least I stuck to that principle."

Now that principle is gone. He's thrown away even the slightest inner comfort he might take from all this.

Sad.

If you want to blame someone, blame 538 Florida Democrats who decided they weren't going to vote this time around.

Blame the people who thought Bush and Gore were same-same and didn't do the most basic homework to see how different they were.

Blame Gore for running a lackluster campaign and distinguishing himself from someone so obviously different and inferior to himself.

Blame massive voter fraud by the Republican-controlled Florida election machinery.

Back in 2000, I thought, "Well, at least this will teach the Democrats they can't take progressive voters for granted." Took them two election cycles but they learned.

If Gore hadn't lost in 2000, would we have Obama today? And if we didn't have Obama, it would be Hillary. And would Hillary be on the verge of winning? I doubt it.

You can't blame somebody for running when they feel that they have a constituency that isn't being served by either of the major parties.