The Limbaughs and Coulter and Dobsons can cry all they want. They can imagine the future in which they will return the GOP to some version of Bushism with a little immigrant bashing added in, but the Republicans have selected their future platform, and it's the one we must learn to defend against. It's also one we should take seriously as a threat. Because McCainism can beat us in blue territory. I know this because I live in a state where it already has, under it's other name, Schwartzenaegar-ism.
Rush, Ann, and James are treating the ascendance of John McCain to their party's supreme position as an abberation. Just some old guy from the 60's whose moderate positions are a throwback to a pre - Norquist/Dobson GOP who will go away and take his apostasy with him if they just sit out 2008. Sorry, guys, no dice. McCain is the future of their party, and their voters, with the wisdom of crowds, know it instictively. And I don't mean McCain the man, but McCain the set of policies.
Progressives who look at the demographics and see that the GOP's reliance on gay baiting, Hispanic bashing, and environmental denial were going to cast them onto history's dustbin, and relished 4 more election cycles of running against Romeny-esque troglodytes are being naive and underestemating our enemy.
OF COURSE these positions are losers. Even Rove knew this in 2000 when he wrote Bush's phony moderate stands on emissions and reached out to Hispanics. The Dixie Die Hards may hate it, but a leftward shift to accomodate inclusion of immigrants, the fight against global warming, and moderation on social issues is necessary, and the GOP aren't too dumb to see this. They've already made the switch, and McCain is it.
They will need to do this to keep their economic, authoritarian, and militaristic goals aloft. And this moderated conservatism works in getting votes. Arnold Schwartzennager is living proof that this kind of conservatism wins, even in blue states like California. Ignore the McCain that's currently pandering to the Right to get the nod. Pay attention to the one we'll be fighting in the general. It's going to look a lot like Arnold. And this is what we're going to be facing from now on, so it's tim eto learn to fight it.
Make no mistake. Our enemy in the future will not look like George Allen in 2006, a clown from the past we can beat every two years by reminding voters that gays and Mexicans are people and science isn't fiction, and the earth IS really getting warmer. The future GOP will take many pages out of our book. These are the folks we will have to beat, and McCain is our first practice run. Let's get to it.