How things look from Wingnuttia

I’m a liberal, so I try to see things from the other guy’s perspective. (I know, it’s probably not fixable. Useful anyway.) But even I’m having trouble digging down to the mindset that would enable a rational human to think the things they’re thinking in Rightistan these days.

They think Sarah’s tops.

They really don’t think she was a drag on the ticket at all.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain’s bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.

Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt the party’s ticket, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Six percent (6%) say she had no impact, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Lots of chatter about Palin running in 2012, too. Man, I hope that works out for her. She’d be popular with the know-nothing Christian base, and precisely no one else. It could be the opportunity to extinguish the Republican Party for good.

Republicans lost because they weren’t conservative enough.

Please, let this meme take.

Moderates to blame for GOP losses, conservative leader says

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council told CNN that conservatives need to take back control of the GOP if the party is to return to its winning ways.

Normally as a campaign goes on, you need to play to the center to attract the moderate voters. The 2004 elections were a bit anomalous, in my view. It was the one time when playing to the base was more successful than playing to the center, probably because the uncertainty of the Iraq war kept enough voters holding to the status quo. McCain’s campaign team apparently thought this was going to be a pattern, but no. People like Perkins either don’t realise this, or they’re just trying to grab some power within their party. It’s not a good long-term strategy.

The gay marriage issue is a winner

Given the success of Prop 8, I can see where this is coming from:

GOP leader: Rebuild party based on ‘sanctity of marriage’

When asked by Chris Wallace what “conservative solutions” the GOP would bring to their current minority-party status, Pence said social issues like “the sanctity of marriage” will remain the backbone of the Republican platform.

“You build those conservative solutions, Chris, on the same time-honored principles of limited government, a belief in free markets, in the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage,” Pence said.

The Indiana representative cited the ballot measures against gay marriage that passed on Election Day as evidence of the continuing presence of conservative values.

Okay, short-term I can understand this. Long-term, it’s got no future. It will look worse and worse as younger voters with more liberal social values come down the pike. Obama’s win in the election happened in spite of the GOP throwing up all this culture war stuff. That kind of stuff is so 90’s. (Or else the economy took precedence, and the culture war b.s. will work again when things improve. I hope the former.)

Evolutionarily, this is an interesting time for right-wing watching. They’re generating memes at a furious rate, and it’ll be interesting to see whose version of the Republican future will win. But these memes are losers. If they settle on them, Democratic leadership will likely continue uninterrupted.