GOPers do a post-mortem

Reading about why Senator McCain lost the presidency on left-leaning blogs is kind of pointless. (Gratifying, but pointless.) So today I decided to go straight to the horse's mouth: Townhall.com, a site I usually only visit when I'm linked there by one of the aforementioned left-leaning blogs appalled at something posted there.

First, Michael Medved explores how McCain lost by getting almost as many Republican votes as President Bush did in '04 - Bush made up the difference with independents, which this year tended to break for Obama. I don't know if his stats are accurate, but it sure sounds logical. After losing the 2000 Republican nomination, McCain made a tactical decision to veer rightward. In his presidential campaign, he seemed to go totally off the rails in a bid to win over hard conservatives, to the point where he contradicted his own votes on Bush's tax cuts and other issues. For every vote McCain picked up in "the base," he probably lost two in the middle. Picking an extreme social conservative like Gov. Palin as his running mate was just icing on the cake.

And then there's Ann Coulter, who can actually be pretty funny when she's not being crazy. Case in point:

"This was such an enormous Democratic year that even John Murtha won his congressional seat in Pennsylvania after calling his constituents racists. It turns out they're not racists -- they're retards. Question: What exactly would one have to say to alienate Pennsylvanians? That Joe Paterno should retire?"

Of course Coulter's never been high on McCain - she's definitely one of the conservatives the campaign hoped to attract with the Palin pick. But it's interesting that her conclusion - "How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that 'moderate,' 'independent,' 'maverick' Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?" - is the exact opposite of Medved's.

And I don't even know what to say about this whole post-election crucification of Palin. Anonymously sourced McCain campaign people are leaking to the press that she's a shopaholic "diva" who didn't know that Africa was a continent and couldn't name all the countries in North America, even though she lives in one and right next to a second. Okay, first of all, there's no way that's true. So we're left with one of two conclusions...Either the leakers seriously despise Palin for one reason or another, or they're preemptively trying to undermine any future political career she might have. Either way, it doesn't point to a very happily run organization. Reason #957 why I'm glad they're not running the country.

I'm not gloating - far from it. It's just fascinating to see conservatives bicker, insist upon mutually exclusive interpretations of facts and in some cases outright call one another out. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were Democrats. ;)