Blood In The Water - Mitt Romney And The GOP Are Doomed

My dreams are coming true!:

For Mitt Romney, the past week has been defined by bad polling news, brutal press coverage and some very public second-guessing from his own party.

...If there’s been a dominant theme in the response of conservative opinion leaders to Obama’s recent surge, it’s been this: How the &%$@ can this be happening?! On his radio show Monday, Rush Limbaugh put it this way: “If Obama wins, let me tell you what it’s the end of: The Republican Party. There’s going to be a third party that’s going to be oriented toward conservatism.” Laura Ingraham struck a similar note the same day: “If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down, start new, with new people. Because this is a gimme election, or at least it should be.”

...Based on what we’re hearing now, though, the Obama won’t win any new respect from the right if he prevails in two months. Instead, conservatives will regard him as the fluke winner of an election he had no business even being competitive in – the lucky beneficiary of the opposition party’s decision to field a flawed candidate who wouldn’t and couldn’t sell real conservatism to the public.

This is a similar sort of dynamic that happened in California in 1994, when Governor Pete Wilson staked his entire reelection effort on the polarizing, anti-Latino, Proposition 187:

[P]olls surveying community responses showed that Proposition 187 began with widespread support - a 37-point lead in July 1994, and 62-29 percent lead among likely voters by September 1994. Proponents of the bill estimated that California spent $3 billion per year on services for illegal aliens, about half of which provided education to children of illegal aliens.

Governor Pete Wilson, a Republican, was a prominent supporter of Proposition 187, which ultimately became a key issue during his 1994 re-election campaign against Democratic opponent Kathleen Brown.

...In the days leading up to the referendum vote, Latino students organized large protests of Proposition 187 across the state, including a mass boycott of high schools.

On November 8, 1994, California voters approved the proposition by a wide margin: 59 percent to 41 percent. ...Latinos totaled 8% of voters, although they comprised 26% of the state's population.

...After the bill's passage, activists on campuses, churches, and ethnic communities in California and across the country rallied to express opposition to Proposition 187.

...Noting a rapid increase in the Latino participation in California elections, some analysts cite Governor Wilson's and the Republican Party's embrace of Proposition 187 as a cause of the failure of the party to win statewide elections. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only Republican to win a California gubernatorial, senatorial, or presidential election since 1994.

It wasn't clear if the entire United States would, or could, follow the California path. There are good reasons to think it couldn't. There just aren't enough Latinos nationwide to constitute a dangerous-to-alienate voting bloc.

Nevertheless, there are alternative paths that end up in the same place. It's been crystal-clear since the 2003 Valerie Plame controversy that, much like the Bolsheviks in the old USSR, that the GOP considers party loyalty more important than loyalty to country. The alacrity of Romney's attack on Obama regarding the embassy attack in Benghazi and protests elsewhere in the Middle East show that the GOP has no interest in American solidarity on foreign policy. No interest at all.  And that (to some surprising) development has alienated the crucial mainstream media that dominate Washington, and therefore American, opinion. Maybe permanently! This is in addition to the many, numerous ways the GOP has been angering and alienating crucial segments of the American voting population over the years.  Women, for example. Or Latinos. Or gays (who are wealthier, on average, than the general population).  Or anyone else earning less than $250,000 per year.

More than one way to skin a cat!

Demographic developments will favor the Democrats in years to come, particularly the aging of the overall population, lop-sided birth rates, continued immigration, and all the rest.

Yes, Romney will lose the 2012 election, and the GOP will learn nothing from it. Then they'll rally with a new candidate in 2016, but lose again, and maybe henceforth - just like California's example! There is a real chance that George W. Bush's will be the last Republican presidency I'll have to suffer through in my incredibly-long lifetime!

Halleluljah!