I have a slightly different take on McCain. I think the alliance made by Reagan between the various factions in the GOP is falling apart. Romney was the obvious establishment choice from the country club wing of the party. But he was detested by the social conservative wing. Romney is from a competitor faction of Christianity (Dude, he's a mormon). Huckabee had the backing of the social conservatives, but is hated by the establishment for his populist views. Huckabee is also a sign that the Social Conservatives want more than lip service from the GOP. David Kuo has an interesting take on that.

Ron Paul was the choice for the old school conservatives that actually believe in fiscal responsibility, limited government, and limited foreign wars. But that would screw up establishment plans to keep the pork barrel express flowing and social conservative plans to legislate morality. So his campaign was doomed from the start. Fred Thompson and Giuliani were never able to attract a broad enough base.

So that left McCain as last man standing. But in order to solidify a base he's had to openly adopt a lot of establishment positions he earlier rejected and pick Sarah Palin to appease the social conservatives. I think that process has left him less than ideally positioned to win the general.

Great post.

You often post about elite schools. What's your backstory? I assume you were rejected by an Ivy school and thus your superfluous syllabication. You're the Magellan of circumlocution. In every post, you strain to remind people that you're clever, but you're a steaming heap of same old, same old, as in your preceding post where you compared Palin to Churchill. You necons tried that with Bush. And you tried to compare the Intergalactic War on Terror to WWII.

My suggestion to you and your ilk is, as always, enlist. Join Blackwater. Became a mercenary.

You.

Iraq.

Hurry.

that's ok, John McCain's shoes are $520 Ferragamo loafers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-wilkinson/a-week-in-john-mccains-sh_b_115692.html

I'm sure his wife bought them for him. He probably has one pair in the closet in each of his nine homes.

Even the story about Palin, the "outdoorswoman," is a lie. She's likely as much an outdoorsperson as Cheney, who slaughters birds kicked out of cages, one after another after another. My assumption of yet another Republican canard is a photo I saw of her in a fishing boat with an UPSIDE-DOWN fishing reel. She was a beauty queen and like most people, as she ages, she becomes more and more of what she was: she's still a beauty queen, picked for her appearance.

Why aren't more conservatives disgusted that their party nominated a person devoid of qualifications for the vice presidency (again)? Lets all face it football season is here and they are focused in on that for now. Republicans played their joker card pretty face Palen. Some Republicans have had a good personal profit gain Halibuton and so on for eight years they feel sass money in their pockets and with that authority they blame it all on the Democrats for any trickle down effects of their profits on their war. It's the old patriotic bait and switch trick for the naive republican party.

If and when, I'll be more than happy take the evil socialist conveyance (The Acela) to D.C. We can hoist a glass (or two).

I agree that consumerism is a disease. I view it as a virus, and unfortunately, it's no longer confined to the West. A few years back, I was in a small country in the lower Himalaya and noticed that the trail to a popular pilgrimage spot was littered with candy wrappers. I picked one up, and it said, 'Made in India'.

How in the world can we have a Veep candidate who is supposed use to his modest background and his connection with Main Street when his frickin' eyes were pulled halfway up into his scalp?

I guess its his choice whether or not to get work done on his face, but were I come from aging gracefully really reflects a modest, mainstream background. What do you think his boys in Scranton think about their Joe becoming Joan Rivers?

is the main reason that Obama is the superior candidate to John McCain. Obama has a history of supporting the exploration of alternative forms of energy. By increasing offshore drilling we are only putting a fig leaf on the problem.

With McCain, we truly get more of the same, a candidate who will continue the hegemony of oil interests and corporate war interests here in the U.S.

I'm not crazy about Obama, but he is the far better choice than McCain, who is now so beholden to social conservatives that he would roll back progress for the poor, for women, for minorities, and for gays -- which is exactly why most the "trolls" in this thread want him. The reason that they are mostly inarticulate is not that they are dumb -- although some of them certainly are -- but that their main interest is the furtherance of social/cultural issues and destroying the Wall of Separation. They want a Christian state. They want the interests of Israel to be as important as the interests of the less powerful here in the United States for the fulfillment of scripture.

No wonder they sound stupid. They can't address their real issues because they know that those issues will be rightfully criticized as faith rather than reason.

Notice when they are asked how old the earth is that they never answer. They prefer the biblical version. They also rarely speak about their major agenda of outlawing abortion.

They are covert rather than open and so is "youbetcha" Palin.

Poor Magellan got "stiffed" in the Philippines which is a salutary lesson for staying away from foreign parts. Sad to say, he didn't complete his journey but I'm doing quite well in exasperating you. You don't like my ilk! Really? You don't know my family, clan or class but your dismissiveness is hurtful. I recognise your genius, your Maigret-like instincts, for working out that I'd been rejected by an American university of the superior type. I've had to retreat to Inishbofin ever since, communicating at twilight with the seabirds and with any passing whales. At the crepuscular time I dab some "L'Heure Bleu" perfume on my pulse-points and gaze longingly westward, lamenting the fact I'd never made it to Ivy League or even Little League, and lived happily ever after.

Lovely autumn day here, bigguns, and I've planted a witch hazel, although a garden write has suggested that the scent is exactly the same as parrots. That's a bit mystifying and you have to wonder what some people do in their spare time. I don't like parrots and their human equivalent. I have to rush back to my hovelnow so please excuse me.