Palin basically says Bush blew it for the entire GOP this election.

[akuma587]

LordTheNightKnight said:

akuma587 said:

Galaki said:
You know, you may say Palin is stupid and all that, but she's the governer.
Now, if she was stupid as you thought she was, she wouldn't be THE governer.

The same for Bush, he may give you the impression that he's stupid, but who's the one being fooled?

Just because the American public elects someone does not automatically make them smart.  It doesn't matter if she is THE governor.  Hell, Alaska voted for a convicted Senator over a Democrat, so they aren't exactly unbiased.

Hell, in Texas people would probably vote for a Republican who had molested children over a Democrat in many parts of the state.  Your logic completely ignores that people are inherently fickle and biased, not to mention that the average person has mild to severe brain damage.

 

 

Dubious associations and accusations are even worse than what you are claiming.

Besides, Bush isn't that dumb, just that he often doesn't bother to think rather than being unable to. It's a subtle difference, but it's the difference between stupidity and genuing ignorance.

I'm not sure what exactly you are getting at in relation to the current discussion.  In relation to the Bush-McCain association, I was amazed at how much McCain willfully associated himself with Bush.  If I was McCain's political advisor, I would have told McCain to distance himself from every unpopular decision that Bush made, whether or not it upset the conservative base.  The conservative base may elect you in the primary, but you won't win an election with just them supporting you.

A perfect example is the Bush tax cuts.  It was just plain political suicide for McCain to stand by them so readily, especially in a time when the average person is hurting badly due to a sour economy.  It comes off as elitist to support keeping these tax cuts for the rich, not to mention that people regularly refer to them as the "Bush tax cuts."  What did McCain expect?  You can't be a cheerleader for your predecessors policies and expect the American public to just overlook it.

Its even further complicated by the fact that McCain voted against the tax cuts.  People jumped all over Kerry for the "voted for it before I voted against it," and this is the same kind of pitfall McCain walked himself right into.  His campaign advisors were just plain idiots.  They ran a traditional Republican campaign with a non-traditional Republican in an environment that was hostile to Republicans.  Its like trying to jump a cliff with a bus full of propane tanks rather than take an alternate route.  They set themselves up for failure on Day 1.  The Democrats didn't even have to do much work to convince people that McCain supported Bush.

I am baffled to this day why McCain moved so far to the right during his campaign.  That is not who McCain was before the election season, that is not the kind of behavior that would get him elected in the current political climate, and that is not the kind of decision to make when you are running on the same ticket as the unpopular incumbent.  McCain is a maverick, but he was not a maverick at all during the campaign season.  He was supporting a platform that he himself wasn't genuinely for, which was just plain stupid.

Adjusting your policies to fit with those of your party base during the campaign season is a sure fire way to lose an election.  The voters in the middle are the ones who put you in office, not the voters who would vote for you anyways.  People can bemoan the dishonesty of the Democrats in tying McCain to Bush, but McCain was helping them do so at every step of the way.  I like McCain a lot, and think he is an incredibly honest politician, but I was shocked at how traditionally Republican his campaign was even thouch McCain is not a traditional Republican.  I don't know what the hell he was thinking, unless he wanted to actually lose the election.