Sleepwalking Losers

One of the fallacies I see in the conventional wisdom of those trying to assess the GOP presidential nominees is that they seem to think that the far right will back anyone in their effort to win the Whitehouse.  But why would they do that?   Backing Bush was an utter disaster for them, and Rudy McRomney doesn’t even have Bush’s far-right credentials.  And frankly, after the current disaster, I see no reason why they’d ever want to win the damn thing again.

No, I think they’re going to be wooed by the siren song of Newt or one of the other far-righties who can’t stand moderate “sell-out” Republicans.  Because that’s the only way they can continue to live in their dreamworld.  Diehard Republicans are happy winning elections at all costs and can support any damn thing they need to, but conservatives want to stay pure to a cause.  And while they can sleepwalk along with deficits, enlarged governments, and futile wars; they have their breaking point where they finally awaken in total shock and need to scurry back to their protective dens as quickly as possible.

And that’s the best way to think of conservatives.  They don’t care what goes on in the world around them, because they barely notice it.  And the more they can stay in their fantasies, the better.  And there’s no better way for them to stay in their fantasies than to lose elections by supporting hopelessly unpopular candidates.  The bigger an extremist their candidate is, the more they’ll howl when the system works against them.  The media will mock them, liberals will protest them, voters will reject them; and these guys will be in hog heaven.  

And the worst thing that can happen is for their candidate to win, be given a freehand by a passive media, and be allowed to prove to the world how embarrassingly stupid the conservative agenda really is.  And that’s what we saw with Bush, who made a complete mockery of conservatism.  Hell, the only success Bush has had was when he betrayed the conservative agenda, which is the only way he could win in either election.  And even now, they’re torn between continuing to support him out of habit, or blaming him for everything.  And if there’s one thing conservatives hate, it’s having their confusion so explicit.

And again, you can’t confuse these people with Republicans, who totally want to win with any candidate or platform they can do it with.  They foolishly bet everything on the religious southern vote, and the more they sink themselves into it, the more damage they’ll do with everyone else.  Because the religious southerners they’re appealing to don’t care about winning.  They just want to be right and to have everyone be just like them.  And that’s just not going to happen.

Not even the conservative leaders can help Rudy McRomney, as they’re the ones who screwed up getting everyone to follow Bush in the first place.  And sure, this won’t apply to every conservative, many of whom will do as they’re told.  But Republicans need every vote they can get, and the more far-righties show contempt for the mainstream GOP candidates, the worse it’ll be for all of them.  And the more McRomney tries to appease these people, the more everyone else will hate them.

But that’s exactly what the far-righties want.  They want to lose.  They want to blame others for losing.  And they want to keep sleeping.  And I have few doubts that this isn’t exactly what’s going to happen in 2008.  And if we’re lucky, reality won’t awaken them ever again.