Part I: As The Worm Turns. . .Violent Talk In the McCain Bunker. . ."There's Going To Be a Bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated." . . .Theocons At the End of Days!
You've seen all the stories over the last week. As Captain McCain, lashed to the the Great White Whale: Bush, sinks into the abyss, Republicans being drawing their knives and looking around for whom to blame:
Palin A "Whack Job," Top McCain Adviser Says
Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad
"There's going to be a bloodbath. . . .The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"
There are three factions in the Republican party. The Theocons, the Neocons and the Economic conservatives. Bush managed to cobble them together into the last gasp of the Reagan coalition. Now in defeat, they're at each other's throats. What does the future hold for the Republican party?
"I can see him now as he walked in his garden. Head bowed. "Lord protect me from all those who, while on their knees hide the knife they would like to plunge into my back." But, how can God help? All the Emperor's people are like that. On their knees and with knives.
It's never easy on the summit. An icy wind always blows and everyone crouches, fearful lest his neighbor hurl him down the precipice."
-- Kapuchinski, The Emperor
In the last hours of the death-watch that the McCain campaign has become, the Republican party is starting to panic, like roaches scurrying when the kitchen light is turned on. McCain is angry and cracking the whip to keep the troops in line.
John McCain loses temper with defeatist aides as he vows to fight to the last
In heated exchanges the Republican presidential candidate made clear that he will not tolerate the blame game that some of his aides have engaged in over the last week as Barack Obama retains a comfortable lead in national and swing state polls.
It appears that McCain has refocused the right in time for one more Quixotic charge to attempt to snatch victory from the onrushing jaws of defeat. But, in only 1 1/2 more days it will be all over. McCain will be finished, the campaign signs taken away, the staffers all can OFFICIALLY start sending out their resumes this time. Then the finger-pointing and recriminations will begin in earnest.
This diary is an intended look at the three major factions of the Republican party and where they are headed.
The Neo-Cons:
One of John McCain's advisers recently called his running mate Sarah Palin a "diva" after she went off-script at a rally, and suggested she was looking after her own political future over the current campaign. Now another adviser ups the ante in a conversation with the Politico's Playbook, labeling Palin a "Whack Job."
Neo-cons or "National Security conservatives, especially well represented among media blowhards, can be styled the "military wing" of the Republican party. They basically want foreign wars abroad and endless increases in defense spending at home. They are the ones you hear howling about the "threat of Iran" and urging unilateral military intervention in Syria. They are not a happy group.
For a while they were in disgrace with the decline of Bush and failure of the Iraq war, but Gen. Petreus rode to their rescue with "the surge worked!" Their hopes for this election were to rid a triumphalist "we were right!" rhetoric to the White House. The collapse of the economy dealt the last blow to this faction, since nobody cares about Iraq at the moment. But, they are all whetting their knives and preparing their post-mortems.
McCain was their candidate, and they supported him fully unlike the other two factions, but they sensed that the Republican base foisted Sarah Palin off on McCain instead of the man they all secretly wanted: Joe Lieberman.
Republican fears of historic Obama landslide unleash civil war for the future of the party
Aides to George W.Bush, former Reagan White House staff and friends of John McCain have all told The Sunday Telegraph that they not only expect to lose on November 4, but also believe that Mr Obama is poised to win a crushing mandate.
They believe he will be powerful enough to remake the American political landscape with even more ease than Ronald Reagan did in 1980.
The prospect of an electoral rout has unleashed a bitter bout of recriminations both within the McCain campaign and the wider conservative movement, over who is to blame and what should be done to salvage the party's future.
. . . .
But the real bile has been saved for those conservatives who have balked at the selection of Sarah Palin.
In addition to Mr Frum, who thinks her not ready to be president, Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's greatest speechwriter and a columnist with the Wall Street Journal, condemned Mr McCain's running mate as a "symptom and expression of a new vulgarisation of American politics." Conservative columnist David Brooks called her a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party".
The backlash that ensued last week revealed the fault lines of the coming civil war.
The Neo-cons are far from helpless because of their dominance in the media, but the infuriated base of the Republican party is turning against them in a big way.
They believe that Sarah Palin sank their candidate John McCain. Their emerging narrative is that John McCain was a perfectly good candidate, part Maverick(tm) (that "bipartisan" crap the media loves) and "war-hero" -- the perfect media narrative. If only he'd "followed his instincts" and told the base to shove it, he'd be cruising to election right now with Lieberman at his side.
You will hear a LOT of this kind of recrimination from people like David Brooks over the next few months.
This pointing of the fingers at Palin infuriates the Fundies who LOVE Palin. THEY believe that "our Sarah" was sunk by a combination media conspiracy, and McCain's failure to protect her and "use her right."
The problem is that the neo-cons are right in this instance. Reality is that Palin sank McCain with those Independents he needed to win to have any hope of election.
But, reality has never been a strong point for the Fundie base. They are reacting with bitter rage and threats of an inquisition against her critics.
Rush Limbaugh, the doyen of right wing talk radio hosts, denounced Noonan, Brooks and Frum. Neconservative writer Charles Krauthammer condemned "the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama", while fellow columnist Tony Blankley said that instead of collaborating in heralding Mr Obama's arrival they should be fighting "in a struggle to the political death for the soul of the country".
Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".
He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"
Mr Frum thinks that Mrs Palin's brand of cultural conservatism appeals only to a dwindling number of voters.
More on the fight between the Fundies and Neo-cons in Part II, plus where the Economic Conservatives weigh in.