J-Ger Bats .500

If you're planning on surfing over to the Campaign Spot, do yourself a favor and avoid this post, as it's not one of Geraghty's finer moments.  But this one looks like a pretty good political epitaph for Darth Queeg:

The further we get from the "I'm suspending my campaign, I'm going back to Washington, we have to postpone the debate" announcement, the worse it looks. I don't think it's unfair to say John McCain has no particular specialized knowledge on the topics related to the banking crisis and bailout. So looking back in retrospect, why did he go back to DC to get hip-deep in the negotiations? Did he really think that Senate Democrats were going to be eager to partake of a process that would make him appear heroic? Did he really think that this was a matter of him getting into a room with a bunch of Senators and saying, "hey, guys, let's not be partisan about this," and a deal would materialize?

With that move, McCain took his destiny out of his own hands and put it in the hands of Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank. He was effectively wedded to the negotiation process, a process that got uglier as the bill progressed. He even had a chance with the bill's endless porky "improvements" — he could have said, "I support the goals of this bill, but I cannot, in good conscience, vote for the bad joke that this supposedly vital legislation has turned into."

But he voted yes, Obama voted yes, and there was effectively no difference between them.

Kind of reflects how little difference there would be between a McCain administration and a Hussein administration, at least on domestic policy, especially with how much "bluer" Congress is going to be either way.  Even if Maverick followed through on tax cuts and a pro-growth economic agenda, it'd be DOA the instant it arrived on Capitol Hill, and the Pelosi/Reid Axis could probably pass Obamanomics anyway over his veto, assuming he bothered to wield it.  But it's far more likely that he'd do his usual thing of crossing the aisle, putting on the other team's uniform, and singing their fight song.  The GOP would shatter in anger, outrage, and recriminations and STILL get the blame for the ruinous economic policies inflicted on the country under McCain's ostensible rule. 

Think John Major and the British Conservative party after barely pulling out a fourth consecutive general election victory in 1993 and then getting massacred so thoroughly by Tony Blair and "New Labor" in 1997 that they fell to third party status and haven't so much as imagined even national competitiveness, much less regaining power, since.

As I said as much as eight months ago, the 2008 election was going to be a choice between a Lieberman Democrat and a Marxist Democrat.  Not surprisingly, when given no conservative for whom to pull the lever, voters are rejecting Donk Lite for the genuine article.  In the long run it will be a net positive for the GOP, since starting a year from now the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Politburo will assume full ownership (in more ways than one) of the economy they've sabotaged and will further defenestrate and will not be able to pawn off responsibility for the endless recession they've brought down on the American people.  The losses Republicans absorb in three weeks will be offset in 2010, and as the 2012 cycle begins, President Hussein's present messianic aura will have morphed into a Carteresque stench no amount of Enemy Media idolatry can erase.  ANNNND the GOP field will, for a refreshing change, be led by young, up-and-coming Reaganite governors like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, and leavened by more experienced former chief executives like Mitt Romney (if he changes his mind about another run) and Mike Huckabee (who's DEFINITELY going to run).

Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can bounce back up.  And sometimes the American people need to be taught afresh why they should never, EVER vote for Democrats.  The last two times that lesson was administered (by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) we reaped the bonanza of the Reagan and Gingrich "revolutions".

The caveat this time is whether we can survive the next four years without either getting nuked, EMP'd, or sinking so far down economically that the political dynamic becomes so ingrown that B.O. becomes the New FDR.

Richard Nixon once said that no president can completely screw up the country in just four years.  Jimmy Carter came close; if Barry O doesn't get his shot at it now, Hillary Clinton will in four years.  Not so much a case of picking your poison as when to schedule the lethal injection.

Wow, was I the one who started this post scolding J-Ger for succumbing to runaway pessimism....?