By Ben Cohen

How a Republican loss could send the party into the wilderness for a very, very long time. From the Guardian:

There is increasingly a sense that what works for the Republican

base no longer works for the rest of the country, even in the heart of

red state America. Take Kingfisher, Oklahoma. The town sits in the

middle of a county that is one of the reddest in America when it comes

to presidential politics. It voted for Bush over Kerry in 2004 by a

staggering 85 per cent to 15 per cent. Even now the state of Oklahoma

remains spectacularly loyal to the Republicans. The most recent poll

showed McCain 24 points ahead of Obama. A previous one gave him a lead

of more than 30 per cent.

But even in Kingfisher the signs of
Republican disarray are not hard to find. Businesswoman Charlene Franks
is put off by the campaign that McCain and Palin are running. 'I am
voting for McCain but I don't really like it. It's the economy that
matters right now and groceries are getting expensive. We really don't
eat that much any more,' she said. Her views on Palin were not
complimentary either. 'She is not ready to be president,' Franks said.