re: #178 DaddyG

Well said Stonemason. It is a typical organizational dynamic for a losing team to question its strategy and try to reform around a new coalition.

I have contended for a while that the more radical voices on the right side of the political spectrum are vocal now in the wake of a political drubbing in the 2008 election. There will be jockying up until the general election because they see it as an opportunity to take over the right from the Bush/Bush/Reagan power brokers.

The same thing happened to the left after Carter and after Clinton.

Meanwhile the winning team sets into hubris and a “we can’t lose” mentality.

Neither dynamic is healthy long term if the parties want to grow and stay in touch, but it is a natural course of events.

But it is a funny thing: the usual party response to getting its ass kicked is to move to the middle, towards the center of gravity of the electorate. But we are seeing the exact opposite this time around. I have no idea how this ends, but it is a plot line I have never seen before.