2) The Far Right doesn't saddle McCain at the GOP convention with a neo-Fascist vice-presidential running mate and platform.

Otherwise, the GOP will be toast for at least a generation.

If you'd ever been in Maryland, you'd realize that there are conservative, moderate and liberal Democrats here—which is why the state is able to run as a one-party state. We have a Democratic governor who is having difficulty getting his budget approved by an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature- they don't just rubberstamp the way Republicans did for 5 years for Bush.

the republicans had their chance to change American but threw it away for K-street jobs and short term pork. Politics at the national level is quickly resemble politics in the District of Columbia, Maryland, or California.

The real question is what the U.S. be like as a one party state. It is hard to consider the Republicans relevant when their presidential nominee is too lazy to read his briefing books and too stupid to understand them even if he did read them.

Gingrich pushed thru voluntary term limits which few or none observed once the terms were up! They were pretty much a joke. The speaker himself was driven out by his own party before he was ready to go.

That is an MSM view…they need something to fill the front page after all. The world is not always in crisis. You have to have perspective. (e.g. the 1930s and the Great Depression were a crisis that shook the world. The 1990s were years of milk and honey).

kritt11: ” the accompanying perks when left in office for too long.”

I would add the very good long-term news that the Hastert-era GOP “pigs at the trough” are retiring in droves. The GOP also under Gingrich pushed through term limits. The longest serving Congressional figures are invariably Democrats, who have been at the trough for decades in many cases…their seniority blocking new people and new ideas from below.

I was advancing an argument…based upon the British Conservative experience…as to why in the “long term” a Democratic sweep in 08 could be great for the GOP. There is a risk in this, of course.

A President Obama could be a new FDR, a titan who grasps the challenge of a difficult period and makes the country better for it.

More likely: Based on Obama's 130 “Present” votes whenever a controversial issue appeared in the Illinois senate…Obama has no inclination for the tough decisions that will be necessary in the next few years.

The result: Disillusionment across the Left, as Obama gives nice speeches about race, and nothing much else happens. Cheering across anti-American Europe as the US retreats with its tail between its legs. Furious spinning by liberals as to why this is a wonderful thing.

Then the images of insurgent RPGs taking down the last lonely US Black Hawks leaving Iraq. President Obama gives another wonderful speech about race.

As I said: Bad for the US. Long term gold for the GOP.

The world is always in crisis.

In the long term, it may be far better for the GOP if the Democrats sweep the board in November (not for the US but for the party).

My Paradigm:

In the UK, the Conservatives have for years moaned about John Major's surprising victory over Neil Kinnock after deposing Margaret Thatcher. Many wish they had lost.

At the time this win seemed great. Problem was: Major got stuck with an economy that was tanking…a pound that got hammered and had to humiliatingly leave the Eurozone…and worst of all: Kinnock resigned, to be replaced by a chap who died…and then came Tony Blair.

Blair had Obama magic…but he was the real deal! Machiavellian and charismatic. He came in when the economy was recovering…hammered the Conservatives (and his own Looney Left) mercilessly year after year…and the Conservatives have been in the wilderness ever since.

Long term: If Obama beats McCain…he is stuck trying to fix a battered economy with an untested economic team…he will have to raise taxes to fix the deficit with a Democratic Senate and House (GOP Senators mocked Obama's economic plan by tabling legislation mandating all of it TWO WEEKS ago. Reid shut it down)

Worst of all: the Vietnam helicopter on the embassy moment will come on President Obama's watch! A Democrat…elected on an immediate withdrawal plan that will accelerate civil war…presiding over a humiliating withdrawal (American troops will, of course, be under fire all the way — and if you know anything about retreats in military history, they can be brutal).

Bad for the US, undeniably. But a clean Democratic sweep in the Fall could be long term GOLD for the GOP.