gop bbl rofl

while a lot the talk in primary politics has been about the democratic party being unable to keep itself together, it seems doomsday predictors were calling it for the wrong party. the republican party is in serious danger of complete self-destruction this year.

i read an interesting interview with mike huckabee on huffpo today, in which he assessed the general political status of the evangelicals, gave a postmortem on his campaign, and drew a distinction between his ideas and those of other members of the party:

My experience in Arkansas was, a lot of the so-called conservatives said "Let's cut the budget." But they wanted to add prison sentences, they wanted to eliminate parole, they wanted to have harsher sentences for various crimes. And I said "OK, that's fine, but that's going to be expensive. So which do you want?" You can't have both, or you do what the federal government has done, and this is where I think Republicans have been especially irresponsible. Their approach has been [to] just kick the can down the road and let your grandkids pay for it.

over the course of the primaries, it has been telling to see members of these varying parts of the republican party squabble amongst themselves and rarely actually agree on solid policy prescription or true ideology. while the reagan revolution was able to bring together several disparate parts of the american ideological spectrum, their connection these days is extremely tenuous. this is especially manifest in the continued distrust of mccain from a significant portion of the party. that being the case, these are what i see as the growing constituent parts and their possible fates:

neo-libertarians (figurehead: ron paul) - these are the 'live and let live' conservatives. no taxes, no wars, no victimless crimes. i have an interesting feeling that as this movement grows in power and influence, the moderates and hard-liners will start to get really sick of one another. the hard-liners will likely defect toward the libertarian party and boost its ranks. the moderates are up in the air - i see this bloc as the one with the largest third-party potential, especially with the way ron paul is doing in primaries (he took 24% in idaho).

fiscal conservatives and the wealthy (figurehead: mitt romney) - until they can balance the budget, lower gas prices to 3 cents a gallon, and prove that most of them aren't greedy capitalists, good luck seeing these guys wielding that much clout anywhere in washington (besides through lobbying firms).

war hawks (figurehead: john mccain) - these folk ain't going anywhere, unless barack obama develops paranoid schizophrenia and decides to start nuking countries based on throwing darts at a world map. look out, french guyana!

christian nationalists (figurehead: george bush? that hagee dude?) - i think the fringe right of christian-oriented politics has seen its best days. it's possible we may see less of their chest-thumping after the release of the so-called 'evangelical manifesto,' but they'll continue to harp on 'family values' issues and our policy in israel.

christian socialists (figurehead: mike huckabee) - expect to see this bloc grow as christians nationwide continue to wake up from their collective 'who would jesus bomb?' mindset and start realizing that jesus was down with helping the poor, turning the other cheek, and non-ethanol-based green energy solutions. definite third-party potential here, as well, but more likely to switch to the dems. expect them to butt heads consistently with the paulites over just about everything. i wouldn't be surprised if mccain's running mate came from this group, to stop these types from jumping to obama.

neo-conservatives (figurehead: mephistopheles p cheney) - don't expect to see these guys in a position of power ever again. all the other groups listed above have realized that these jackasses are for the most part just greedy sophists and propagandists with flawed ideology sustained only by good public relations.

whatever happens, it's going to take a long time before the republican party is going to be able to put itself back together again. the gop, for the foreseeable future, is a headless chicken. until it finds a new single goal for large portions of the american people to cling to (because war and deregulation just don't cut the mustard these days), they're going to see some really hard times.