Sunday, September 05, 2010

Meghan McCain - A Face of the Future GOP?

Coming from a family that for decades voted moderate Republican (I myself resigned from the party as the Christianists began to seized control), I still shake my head in disbelief at times at the foul thing the GOP has become under the demagogues of the far right who refuse to separate religion from the civil laws. And who, candidly display themselves to be totally un-Christian and better named modern day Pharisees. Given the changing views of younger generations towards gays and racial issues and the increasing degree to which younger voters are turned off by today's GOP, to have a future long term, the GOP must change. True, it may win a few more election battles using the current anti-gay screed and similar messaging that resonates with the older portion of the party that is literally dying off with each election cycle. But long term, one would think that someone within the Party would be looking beyond the next election and perhaps a decade down the road. One who seems to be doing that longer view approach is Meghan McCain (Margaret Hoover and some others seem to see the long term hand writing on the wall as well) who has a new book out. Here are highlights from a review in the Washington Post (obviously, she's no darling to the far right loonies):
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Her memoir is as much a scathing critique of the Republican Party as it is a passionate tale of life on the campaign trail. McCain takes repeated jabs at the intolerant ethos of today's Republicans. She rails at feeling left out: The party, she says, has been hijacked by the right wing and has rejected -- to its detriment -- the moderate politics that she and millions of other young conservatives espouse.
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[S]he is both "passionately pro-life" and "passionately pro-contraception," and chastises conservatives for their narrowness of vision on the issue. "They go on and on about how evil and wrong abortion is, but don't like to talk about how easy it is to not get pregnant."
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When McCain met Sarah Palin, she "felt shaken and troubled," worrying like many others that the Alaska governor was not prepared for the national stage. . . . She blames the choice of Palin on a secret cabal of campaign advisers and particularly excoriates Steve Schmidt, whom she describes as "our bullying campaign manager."
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Once the Palin clan climbed aboard, the Pirate Ship started to sink. "From the minute Sarah arrived," McCain writes, "the campaign began splitting apart. And rather than joining us, and our campaign, she seemed only to begin her own."
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She ended the campaign feeling alienated from her party and worried about its domination by the Christian right. Calling herself a passionate Christian, McCain fears the party will shrink and possibly become irrelevant if it narrows its agenda to "accommodate only one moral code." On the night of her father's defeat, she felt gloomy enough to imagine the worst for the party. "That night," she writes, "I was standing at its funeral and saying good-bye."
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I remain convinced that long term the Christianists will be the death of the GOP. The question is one of when and how someone with charisma can wrench the party back from the Christo-fascists before the party becomes irrelevant.

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