Onward To November! Thirteen Thoughts On The Sorry State Of The Grand Old Party

(13.) The U.S. has moved so far to the right during the past eight years that people who would have been considered moderates in 2000 are viewed today as liberals and liberals are viewed as leftists.

(12.) That’s okay, because thanks to Bush-Cheney we live in a time of prosperity with stable energy prices and diminished dependence on imported oil, there is peace abroad and except for pesky community organizers, America is the envy of the world.

(11.) Where does this leave conservatives? If you are from the old school (Goldwater-Reagan-Noonan), you need to be heavily sedated. If you are of a contemporary vintage (Cheney-Dobson-Kristol), you are in the thrall of right-wing Christianist culture warriors who believe that the Iraq war is a God job.

(10.) My gauzy expectation that the first woman with a shot at the White House would crash gender barriers is dashed. How silly of me. Heaven forbid that anything happen should McCain be elected, but Sarah Palin’s religious and social beliefs relegate women and girls to chattel status.

(9.) It is time to banish Harry Truman analogies, especially when they are uttered by the governor of Alaska. “Give ‘Em Hell” Harry had served in Washington for a decade when he was anointed by FDR and had a proven record as an able legislator.

(8.) The political media is like a big amoeba with a penchant for eating itself. It scratched McCain’s tummy while Barack Obama duked it out with Hillary Clinton and then through the summer. It got a spine in doing the vetting of Palin that McCain didn’t do, but that lasted only as long as his deeply cynical and factually challenged acceptance speech, which it lapped up with unquestioning adoration.

(7.) Is it possible that McCain is the worst public speaker since Jimmy Carter? Minus the sincerity, of course. He sounded like a Rotary Club treasurer giving a financial report last night. Only treasurers aren’t supposed to lie.

(6.) If McCain has had a strategy it is to ridicule and attack because he certainly can’t succeed by focusing on the issues, especially the economy. But the more he whips his base into a frenzy the greater the risk that he will alienate the people who might actually get him elected — independents and swing voters, including those newly franchised “hockey moms” who may be on the fence.

(5.) Stop presses! This just in: Forget about all that base frenzy stuff. Forget McCain’s slavishly pro-Bush voting record. McCain says he really is really a real maverick who is committed to reforming the Republican Party, bipartisanship and changing Washington. And he’s got a bridge in Brooklyn he’d like to sell you.

(4.) The shameless prime-time theft of Obama’s talking points left party delegates in the awkward position of cheering for more of the steamed veggies that McCain crammed down their throats, which was pretty much the opposite of the raw red meat that Palin had cooked up to wild jubilation the night before.

(3.) So which food will McMaverick and Palin be serving on the campaign trail? Why both, of course, because the GOP certainly is far from ready to go vegetarian, let alone eat arugula.

(2.) Right-of-center pundits fell all over themselves to declare this rank schizophrenia, a cocktail of fear mongering and feckless fawning, as “brilliant,” “genuine,” “real politics” and so on and so forth, concluding that the election is now the Republicans to lose. I would suggest that it shows that not only has the one-time Party of Lincoln lost its soul, but it doesn’t have a clue as to how to get it back.

(1.) In a divine confluence of events, super-lobbyist and good Republican Party pal Jack Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison for corruption a few hours before McCain and Palin, deeply in the thrall of the dark side of the big money that Abramoff has come to symbolize, left the convention to begin their campaign for “change.” As in, can you spare any? Hundreds and thousands would be just fine.