How Do "Conservatives" Recover?

[Cary]

This is just an intellectual exercise, and not something I am hoping for. It's pure curiosity.

I know conservatives have been down before and in the '60s, after Goldwater got thumped, they were even lower than they are today. Obviously the Vietnam War and the '60s, generally, managed to move the country to the right. Then you have Watergate, which brought in Carter and that led to Reagan. . .

If Obama ends up being half as great as I expect him to be, and Republicans take another hit in 2010, do we have an end to "conservativism" as we know it today?

Right now I see "conservatives" clinging tenaciously to their ideology and actually getting pissed at me for asking them how they plan to adapt. I don't see how this bodes well for them, and I cannot fathom the possibility that they could actually regain power.

My answer to my own question is that they don't recover. If they can't adapt, they're screwed. Sarah Palin? Mitt Romney? Huckabee?

I don't see it.

[Taverner]

1. Like Vampires and the Master on Dr Who, Conseratives never go away

As long as people feel greed and hate, there will be a Conservative Party

[Cary]

2. Marginalized? Or do they ever regain power? n/t

[w4rma]

3. Yup. Evil will always greed and hate will always exist. Maybe those sins make a comeback. (nt)

[Fire1]

4. Sad but true. I hope to be gone from the U.S. by the time they

get back in office. I hope I have an eight year window to get my ducks in a row.

[YOY]

5. Yeah but the master actually knows how to party, Taverner...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGoTxNrhrk0

Republican just hang around geriatrically in dopey white cowboy hats and chant USA! USA! USA!

That and his plans of domination are actually theoretically sound...whereas Republicans....

[Taverner]

7. True that, but he IS a time lord who has witnessed the end of the universe

[YOY]

8. Alright so his excuse for being off the rocker is warranted...where as Republicans...

Not so much.

[Cary]

10. Not sure what the Master is, but these ne'er do wells are mortal

And they're not impressive. :)

[YOY]

19. He's Dr. Who's nemesis. Same race, same powers, but insane and malevolent.

Like the Doctor he is basically immortal up to a certain number of reincarnations...each with different quirks.

[rug]

6. They skin kittens until they feel better.

[Wapsie B]

9. Their Southern Strategy got them this far, to move on will take a whole new breed of conservative.

The conservative fundies, neocons, angry, greedy types gave them power for quite some time. But they rode that hoss about as long as they could. I don't know if the Rockefeller Republicans would ever regain power however.

[pinto]

11. Goldwater's overwhelming defeat left the Republican party to a compromise candidate, Nixon.

After the Nixon victory, Goldwater conservatives and libertarians remained on the fringe. They eventually coalesced around Reagan, a small government mantra, and the Republican Southern State strategy. While they won the White House for Reagan, their policies of trickle down economics and the functional dismantling of essential federal bureaucracies failed, and has been widely discredited across the political spectrum.

What was left for the Republican party was extremism. Wedge politics. God, guns and gays, as they say.

Where the Republican party goes now is an interesting query.

It is neither the party of Goldwater or Lincoln. Their Southern Strategy is in tatters. The West grows increasingly Democratic. And they are left with the ruin of their own extremism in American politics.

Do they find a moderate, old school center, a la Eisenhower? Do they look for another Reagan? Do they go hell bent on their extremist mode, one that is increasingly being discarded by the electorate?

It'll be interesting to watch.

[Cary]

18. Good reply.

Thanks Pinto.

I think they will remained mired in the extremism, with their thumbs up their butts wondering why no one agrees with them.

[Romulox]

12. By co-opting the Democratic Party. "Maybe we don't want to be Stonecutters no more!"

[ProgressiveFool]

14. Saw this one, no need for me to post... it's already happening /nt

[county worker]

13. We go so far left that the majority vote against us.

It will happen. Reagan was elected out of rejection of Great Society type programs that did not bring results along with the lousy economy and the Iran hostage crisis. Just switch names, Obama for Carter and you got another GOP win.

I said it in 2000, that conservatives will lose when people hurt enough and now I'll say that liberals will lose when people feel that money and taxes are wasted.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Easy.

In fact they're doing it already.

They redefine and deny everything so that they can eventually cherry-pick what they will co-opt.

[cynatnite]

16. Go left of the Dems...

That's the only road they've got, but they won't. They'll stick to their guns no matter how isolated and out in the wilderness they get.

Repub party will atrophy and die.

[Joe the Liberal]

17. I already know how, it's happening now................

They will, quite simply, change the (R) to a (D). They will become Democrats In Name Only (DINO), they will still have their right wing ideologies and everything else that makes them Republicans. They see that more people vote for Democrats so why not just pretend to be one to get elected?