David Frum: Sorry, Senator. Let's Salvage What We Can. (WP)

[huckleberry]

This is the guy who Rachel smacked down on her show last week....

By David Frum
Sunday, October 26, 2008; Page B01

There are many ways to lose a presidential election. John McCain is losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him.

A year ago, the Arizona senator's team made a crucial strategic decision. McCain would run on his (impressive) personal biography. On policy, he'd hew mostly to conservative orthodoxy, with a few deviations -- most notably, his support for legalization for illegal immigrants. But this strategy wasn't yielding results in the general election. So in August, McCain tried a bold new gambit: He would reach out to independents and women with an exciting and unexpected vice presidential choice.

That didn't work out so well either. Gov. Sarah Palin connected with neither independents nor women. She did, however, ignite the Republican base, which has come to support her passionately. And so, in this last month, the McCain campaign has Palinized itself to make the most of its last asset. To fire up the Republican base, the McCain team has hit at Barack Obama as an alien, a radical and a socialist.


snip


McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot. I spoke a little while ago to a senior Republican House member. "There is not a safe Republican seat in the country," he warned. "I don't mean that we're going to lose all of them. But we could lose any of them."

In the Senate, things look, if possible, even worse.

more at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302081.html

[The River]

1. Couldn't Happen To A More Deserving

party of greedy, hate-filled morans.

[cosmicone]

2. He is worried about loss of a tax exempt status for AEI n/t

[HughMoran]

3. I read that last night - holy cow! "McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences"

He's really taking McCain and the Republicans to the woodshed - and I can't argue with his reasoning - it's quite sound! :)

[vaberella]

4. Palin is now a verb, "Palinized" n/t

[coalition_unwilling]

9. Small note but "Palinized" is a

past participle (or a participial adjective) from the infinitive "(to) Palinize."

[vaberella]

18. You're too much, you know that?!

Grammarians make me sick. :puke: :rofl:

[coalition_unwilling]

24. Good grammar is the best antidote to

"Palinization." :)

I do apologize for my failure to put a smiley after my first post.

[GoesTo11]

5. McCain has already authored his legacy

Dirty campaigner. Divider. Racist. Liar. Country last.

10 days of decency (which I don't expect) wouldn't change what he has done.

[WeDidIt]

6. And "forever tied to race baiting". n/t

[Overseas]

7. Yes please take the whole damn Republican party down

including arrogant elitist jerks like Frum.

He's the smug idiot who ruined a decade of diplomacy by tossing Iran and North Korea into the fanatic religious type of phrase-- AXIS OF EVIL.

He's criticizing McLiar for going all fundamentalist? Well Frum started it with his idiotic phrase.

We need more subtle people who understand diplomacy.

Guess Frum's an armchair bomber like so many of those arrogant snobby Country Club First Republicans.

[renate]

8. it bothers me that Bush won't be blamed for this--McCain will

The incompetence with which McCain ran his campaign is responsible for a lot of what's going on in the down-ticket Republican races, but really it was Bush/Cheney/Rove who first put the stink on the Republican brand, starting a few years ago.

But once again, someone else will pay most of the price for Bush's mistakes. His legacy as a president is still stained, but the Republican party will focus most of the blame for what's happened to them on McCain. I mean, :nopity: I certainly don't feel bad for McCain--he deserves to be ostracized--but I wish Bush hadn't found a fall guy.

[Essene]

12. correction: Sarah Palin will

mark my words.

by election night, the story from the GOP will be that she lied to mccain, misrepresented her history, etc.

they will hang bill kristol and those who also misrepresented her track record.

they will hang mccain campaign people around her.

they will also knock mccain for allowing this all to happen, but she will be the blame.

[bluethruandthru]

10. Ha! He's worried about the angry, militant, left wing

of the Democratic party..the left wing blogosphere and the MSNBC evening line up! Hahahahahahaha. You weren't so concerned about "fairness" when you had the entire Faux news channel and right wing blowhards blanketing this country's radio airwaves..were you Frum?

[CitizenLeft]

11. he made this argument on Larry King last week...

...saying that the RNC should shift money from McCain to save as many senate seats as possible. That freakish bigoted idiot Bay Buchanan nearly flipped her lid, screaming that McCain could still win, and the hell with the senators, they're on their own (wow), making an absolute fool of herself (as only she can do).

[jclay]

13. He's got alot of nerve

implying that the new breed of "angry democrats" will try to usurp power. Sounds like a classic example of psycological projection.

[JimWis]

14. I saw a political discussion on C-Span that featured David Frum

and Bob Shrum (a democratic campaign adviser). Both were giving vibes that this thing is over and Obama will win. During audience Q&A, someone asked Frum - what will be the October surprise? Frum laughed and said we have already had the surprise - indicating in so many words - Obama is way ahead. Anyway - thought it was interesting.

[bluedawg12]

15. Irony. Frump crony neocon billy the k picked pukin

these guys talk out of both sides of their mouth.

You can find a neocon lying about the smae thing three ways at any moment in time.

They love the Straussian perpetual conflict theory and power is their god.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Frum

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Kristol

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2004/01/30/frum_perle/index.html

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. Hmmm... this sounds familiar, Mr.Frum

<<Unchecked, this angry new wing of the Democratic Party will seek to stifle opposition by changing the rules of the political game.>>



see Gingrich, Newt, DeLay, Tom, and Armey, Dick -- then lecture us about changing rules and stifling opposition.

[senseandsensibility]

17. He's afraid of MSNBC's evening lineup

and uses it as an example of the angry new Democratic Party. He actually writes that. You have to read the whole thing. It's unintentional comedic gold.

[high density]

29. Angry. Yup, I'm angry.

I'm tired of watching idiots that do not like government trying to govern the country.

[THUNDER HANDS]

19. if he really wanted to reach out to independents and women

he'd have chosen either of Maine's two senators.

[CalGator]

22. he's not 'mavrick' enough to challenge his party's anti-choice stance

He couldn't go with his top choices (Lieberman, Ridge) or nearly any woman Senator, so he was left with Failin.

[BleedingHeartRN]

20. If I'm not mistaken...

isn't Frum the sycophant who got fired from the Bush admin. for taking credit for coining the phrase "Axis of Evil" and then turned around in typical bootlicker fashion and wrote some sniveling apology of a book?

[rvablue]

21. "The Palin Curse": from the hockey rink to the U.S. Congress!!!

[Cha]

23. Excellent! And now the monster they imported

to be the on the team as vp canidate wants to go rogue.

Their clothes purchases mean shit.

[formercia]

25. Programmed by his masters in Hanoi to self-destruct in the event.....

We couldn't ask for a better Manchurian Candidate.

[tblue37]

26. His description of the "angry" and "divisive" political culture that would result from

letting one party (in his article, the Democrats) take control of all 3 branches of government would be funny if it weren't so infuriating, because what he describes is actually what the Republcians did when they took control of all 3 branches of the government for 6 years. Republicans project like nobody's business, don't they?

[Occam Bandage]

27. Frum is a soulless jackass, but a smart one. I love/hate his writings.

[MindMatter]

28. Hey, Republicans ... Have you ever considered?

The difference is not that McCain was a bad candidate or that he ran a lousy campaign.

McCain's not substantially different from Bush, and his campaign is not significantly different from Rove's Swift Boat approach.

What is different is that the grass roots of the Democratic Party rose up to eject the brain dead DLCers whose philosophy was:

1) Act like junior Republicans; and
2) Only compete vigorously in states with a total of about 275 electoral votes/

The fact is that issue by issue, Americans agree overwhelmingly with the progressives. Obama has been a great candidate, but this victory was there for the taking any time in the recent elections. The Party just needed the faith to get back to our core principles.

[Overseas]

30. David "Axis of Evil" Frumm is being too modest-- he helped a lot in smashing the GOP

as VogonGlory says in this post on the Frumm article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7610194&mesg_id=7610307

And I agree. Frumm and all those snide, elite Republican arm chair warriors in the Country Club First squad deserve a lot of the credit for destroying the Republican party. They've done a lot, under the diabolical guidance of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, to pull our country off its bearings and bankrupt us at the same time. Enriching themselves on each shock they inflict. Siphoned billions of dollars up to the top 2%.

Republicans have been aggressively promoting a wasteful, short-sighted corporate, permanent-war agenda with the help of right wing gasbags like David Frumm. His cute little Axis of Evil phrase set back decades of diplomacy. The invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation have destroyed our reputation for some basic respect of international criminal law.

The dizzy McPanic campaign was just a little odd fizzling at the end of a disgusting several years of Republican rule in which David Frumm played a very important supporting role.

[LynnTheDem]

31. David "wit us or agin' us" Frum says

"liberal Democrats, a more militant style and an angry intolerance of dissent and criticism"...


So we're kinda saying "Americans need to watch what they say"? Or "dissent is treason, by aiding and abetting our enemies"?

I think you're a bit confused, davie.


:wow: