Republicans Into The Wilderness
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.