They always come back. Thought they were defeated after McCarthyism was busted? They came back.

Goldwater was defeated by 22.6 points in 1964. Political watchers declared the GOP dead. Four years later, Richard Nixon was elected.

Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. Political watchers wondered if the GOP could live it down. Six years later, Ronald Reagan was elected.

These men were all conservatives and they were all rightwing. Yes, I know Goldwater was somewhat libertarian, but he was rightwing, trying to overturn the safety nets of the New Deal and opposing the Voting Rights act.

The tent revivalists and snake handlers of the 1930s are successful megachurch leaders now. More Americans than ever are falling for that Old Time Religion. Huge numbers of Latino immigrants are leaving the Catholic Church and joining pentecostal churches. Mormons are opening churches in East Coast towns and cities that they never would have gone into 20 or 30 years ago.

The GOP will be back. The rightwing conservatives will be back. The overly-religious will be back. Never declare them sunk. They always bob back to the surface of American politics. They are well-funded by the multimillionaires in their own ranks and by billionaires who disagree with them but will use them as corporate bedmates.

Don't get smug. Be always wary.

but I am a little concerned with all of the additional spending he wants. Some of it might make sense but this country is in a deep hole and more spending is not a good long term answer.

Most of the 'spending' you are talking about will be paying off bills. Bills run up by Bush, the anti-government clown who is trying to 'starve the beast,' i.e., deprive the government of money so that it will close up regulatory agencies, shut down social safety nets and do anything other than lavish money on independent contractors-corporations.

As for health care, you are being ripped off daily by health insurance companies which operate outside the laws the rest of us have to follow. Why don't these laws apply to insurance companies? Because their lobbyists paid off members of congress to give them a special deal. I want the option of a national health plan. And it will cost me money - tax money - but it will be money I would have been paying to the insurance companies anyway. Am I afraid of "government-run health care"? No. My mother has it, it's called Medicare. She is a conservative, but she does not turn down Medicare. No working class conservative I know who hates taxes declines Medicare.

I hope my taxes will be raised to pay off this horrible debt and to pay for a national health plan.

For sure.

She will hit the lecture circuit and rake in big bucks just like Rudy Giuliani. Then a slot on Fox News. A radio show one or two days a week.

She may wind up with her own show if she hires someone to educate her about politics and the world outside of Alaska.

I remember thinking Burgess had gone over the top when I read "Earthly Powers," where the author portrayed a near-future world where religious dialogue is reduced to snappy talk show soundbites and a celebrity priest become pope.

Little did I know I would be living it 20 years or so later, when the airheaded beauty pageant loser vies for the presidency (in 2008 and 2012 -- she's running for president, not VP) while her celebrity war hero running mate reduces everything to "socialism" and "terrorism," so it will sound good on rightwing radio shows and distilled by slanted news organizations.

If I recall the book properly, cannibalism as a religious sacrament comes next. Hold onto your hats.. and your arms and your legs...

Chance the gardener

Liked to watch

TV

Give Chaunce a chance?

Read a good book instead.

Chance the gardener was an innocent. Sarah Palin is the opposite. She's a nasty, cynical, ambitious politician. She is the type who would use Chance the gardener. Bring him onstage and say "Yay, Chance! That's Chance the gardener, everybody. See how deep he is? Just an ordinary plain-speakin' guy like Joe the Plumber and he is soooo right about plowin' and plantin' and waiting fer spring. He's a real American!"

Chance was slow. Palin's quick. Chance was.. I guess mentally challenged. But he was born that way and was insulated from the world. Sarah Palin is deliberately ignorant. She has the ability to learn things, but she's too lazy to do it. She tries to get by on her looks, her nasty remarks about others and her incredibly self-assured ambition. So far, it's worked. I'd like to think she's come to the end of her line, but she probably hasn't. America loved a self-assured, conscienceless ambitious bastard named Bush enough to send him back to the White House. There is no doubt a huge audience of Palin-lovers out there. Some of those people are like Chance the gardener, but most of them are nasty selfish creeps.