"-- the right-wing intelligentsia is still reciting its worn-out ideological mantras, claiming that an Obama victory would mean the death of "freedom," the triumph of socialistic "big government" and abject surrender to our enemies."

Yes ---- FREEDOM! That's what conservatism is all about. FREEDOM!!!!!

And we all know what the most important freedom is...

FREEDOM FROM ORAL SEX!!!!!!!!!

I'm not counting my chickens yet, but the prospect of the demise of the neo-cons is certainly the silver lining to the dark cloud of the economic collapse they enabled. Hell- aggressively abetted.

The neo-con ascendancy was based on a marriage of convenience between the American Taliban and the people their own god 86ed from the temple backed in the day. As long as the money rolled in god's warriors were happy, and as long as fundies delivered the votes and allowed the greedheads to plunder at will the latter were perfectly willing to let the religoius nuts have their nasty little culture war. But like all marriages of convenience the irreconcilable differences emerge when circumstances render things inconvenient. And the divorce is, as divorces tend to be, ugly. Ever since the 2004 election it has been obvious that the only thing that would destroy this unholy alliance is an economic meltdown.

Things will get worse before they get better, no matter who becomes president. But who knows- maybe the plutocrats will get taken down a few notches along with the rest of us, we might get a more compassionate and less intolerant Christianity, and a sane, secular and practical conservativism can rise out of the ashes of Rovian beast the GOP became under the banner of neo-conservatism.

I always wondered why it was that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Dubya never came up with a succession plan for what would happen after 8 years were up.

Well, duh.

If your only aim was "gimme what's mine" (AKA rape & pillage the U.S. economy), who cares who comes next?

Or, if you've already rigged the election process, so it doesn't make any difference how unappealing your ticket is.

This isn't about "ideology," it's about stealing from the American people. Don't let them contnue to get away with it. Vote, folks!

The Republicans ran our ship of state into an iceberg, so it's amusing for now to see then attempt to save themselves by rearranging the deck chairs.

But remember who did most of the dying on Titanic. The first class passengers got priority in the lifeboats.

The emptiness of these arguments reveals that American conservatism no longer has any purpose except perpetuating its own power and concentrating as much wealth as possible in the hands of the already wealthy.

As if it ever had more of a purpose than that? Particularly from the 20th Century onward, the GOP's hard little heart concentrated on those issues, with varying degrees of success. Most of the last century was a Republican century, after all, so how can we honestly take their rhetoric seriously, when contrasted with their praxis?

The challenge they have always faced is they can't simply come out and say "We are for concentrating as much wealth as possible in the hands of the already wealthy" -- one doesn't win elections that way, alas.

The rest of their program was created to camouflage that core ideological principal -- other issues to distract and seduce voters into acting against their actual class interests. It wasn't a conspiracy so much as the cynical recognition that if you mobilized people against blacks, immigrants, anarchists, communists, pacifists, internationalists, unions, gays, intellectuals, secularists -- you could get them to swallow the rest of your agenda, pitting the "real" Americans (e.g., white, native-born, capitalist, militaristic, jingoistic, middle-class, straight, anti-intellectual, religious) against the "unreal" Americans. It still smells like fascism to me, unfortunately, the ideological borders of the Republican ideology, and that's going to not bode well for their future as a party, or the rest of the country, forced to deal with them, or their ideological successors.

I think "conservatives" have not been honest conservatives in this country for a very, very long time. The decline has deeper roots than the last eight years. My hope is that if people are awakening to the false conservatism of the Republican Party, perhaps they'll also awaken to the false liberalism of the Democratic Party, and push for real reform, real change, and move us into this century in some position other than prone.

As a long time GOP member, I see the following at work:

1. For many years, the GOP dreamed of Goldwater in 64, and Calvin Coolidge before that. The dream was to assemble a Congress and White House which would repeal the Great Society, and then at least parts of the New Deal. Control of the courts would role back the Warren era, to at least 1954 (stopping at Brown).

That dream died in 2000, when George W. Bush convinced his party to adopt *compassionate,* i.e., big government, conservative as a *tactic* to get in charge and then start working for change. His convention speech in 2000 should receive greater attention than it does, because he laid out a number of programs he would *not* roll back (similar to Reagen, in his 1980 debate with Carter, only more formalized). It was a repudiation of Gingrich in 1994, and Reagen and Goldwater before that.

Conservatives have never recovered from that convention. The dream of cutting government, to match cuts in taxes, is dead. The government is bigger than ever.

2. Other forces were at work. Our culture of deferral caused incumbents of both parties to borrow rather than spend. It became impossible for Republicans to cut cherished programs for their favored constiuents (e.g., Medicare for the elderly, farm subsidies for farmers), even as, in the case of Medicare and other entitlements, those programs dwarfed all else. The Republicans still had tax cuts, but these were ephemeral; if you don't cut spending, it's just a tax deferral, not a tax cut.

3. This year, there are two shipwrecks. The first is the general campaign. The second is the crack-up - remember, the Titanic broke before it sank - between evangelicals and high net worth moderates. I have heard moderates complain about Palin and say they would have voted for McCain if he had chosen a Lieberman or a Ridge. Yet, this overlooks the existence of the *evangelical base.* It may be too late to come to this realization in 7 days, especially with early voting, but moderates with high income would probably be better off with a Sarah Palin at the bottom of the ticket than Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and Charlie Rangel in charge of their wallets. There are flickerings of understandings on that, but I can't tell if they will fully register in time.

4. As for the Peggy Noonans of the world, two things are worth mentioning.

First, their criticisms of Palin are rather tinny. Noonan says she is "just bad" for conservatism, in part because of her Ayres bashing, but she seems not to realize that *McCain* undoubtedly made this strategic choice. George Will says the party needs more than love for Sarah; it needs a platform. Yet again, how is that her fault? McCain is at the top of the ticket; it's his responsibility.

Second, there is some sore loserman here. David Frum of NR complains that Palin is worse than Dan Quayle. Christopher Buckley says his father would never have supported Palin. Both are wrong. I know what I'm talking about with Quayle; I'm from Indiana and watched every minute of the '88 coverage. He didn't have 1/10 of Sarah's talent, and besides, Sarah's most troublesome moments all preceded her successful debate. Palin is saving McCain's bacon all across the country; far more people want to see her than him. Additionally, National Review fought tooth and nail on Bush/Quayle's behalf, in part because GHW Bush was ahead and they didn't want Quayle's problems to bring them down. These fair weather friends find it all too easy to bury McCain/Palin and win cheap applause from the MSM because they are a few points behind in the polls. This tactic takes no guts.

5. Whither the Republican Party? Good question. It may just wait for the Democrats to go too far, then hope for a '94 type reaction. Or it may even pull off a come from behind win this year. But as for conservative principles, I don't see how they can reclaim them, without proposing meaningful cuts to *popular* spending programs. Maybe the country itself will get serious enough to give such a platform at least a fair hearing. If not, we'll have a liberal party and one that has no real idea why it even exists.