Palin vs. Pawlenty

[elfs]

It occurs to me that, in the question of which Republican candidate should we back, we should back Pawlenty, and not Palin. Here's the problem: right now, the Republican party is a drunk. It's close to bottoming out. After thirty years of drinking down the business community's money such that most Republicans have forgotten that one of their responisbilities is to promote the general welfare, a task that applies for every American and not just the predatory class.

Here's the thing: if Pawlenty wins, well, things won't be so bad. If Palin wins, life will become a hellish landscape of Christianist predators.

On the other hand, if Palin loses, the Republican party will not have finally bottomed out. They might learn the lesson that backing the batshit nutters does not endear you to the majority of Americans, most of whom are not batshit nutters.

But if Pawlenty loses, the Republican party activists will go all in for sheer madness. They picked a reasonable candidate, and they lost. Since most of the activists live in a black-and-white world, the only lesson they'll learn is this: Palin could have won.

Yes, we'll have to live with that 29% of America that does not actually belong to the Reality-Based Community screaming and yelling and giving their money to FOX, and they'll be on the Internet forever, but untill that madness burns itself out, if that's at all possible, they'll never have power again.

My only concern is that we'll have to live with madness for a long time to come.

Comments

[l33tminion]

untill that madness burns itself out, if that's at all possible, they'll never have power again

Either that or someone totally batshit will win in 2016.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I am most unhappy with Obama's results. Closed Gitmo? Stopped the unconstitutional spying on citizens? Ended secret laws? Regulated those that came a hair's breadth from destroying western civilization? Nope on all counts. Not even going into his destruction of Nasa, a personal issue.

So the only way the republicans can lose is by their nominating some idiot partisan with a my-way-or-highway attitude and the belief that cutting taxes to zero will somehow magically make revenues fall from heaven. But the doofuses appear to be on course to doing just that. So it's nobody's fault but the nutcases themselves that they are going to lose it all.

[(Anonymous)]

If Palin wins, life will become a hellish landscape of Christianist predators.

==============

Just like Alaska while she was governor. Taxed the oil companies, sent the money to the citizens, got an 80+ approval rating. Really hellish.

[tagryn]

I think Romney is the most likely choice. He can be boringly robotic when he tries to play the politician, but when he switches over to the businessman role he's more comfortable with, he's actually listenable and even passionate. Even boring can get nominated: think Dole in '96.

Fortunately Gingrich self-imploded on liftoff. He might pull a comeback yet, stranger things have happened, but he appears to have a knack for letting his mouth run at the least opportune time, which is a very hard thing to overcome for a politico.

Its probably just as well for the GOP that the candidates who might actually do a better job than Obama, such as Daniels or Jeb Bush, aren't running. Unseating an incumbent is a difficult chore under any circumstances, and 2012 will be a uphill struggle even if the economy is still in the doldrums.

And, I wish we had a party whose real goal was to "promote the general welfare." Neither of the Big Two seems like much of an option, by that measure.