if you want to get something done, you can't overshoot, but then you don't want to undershoot either.  The pugs have n o brand at all and yet they got a lot of votes.  Brands can be deceptive, I think going for competence and excellence is the place to start. With the right people you can get stuff done competently and that would be refreshing for everyone.  

You know what's interesting about that poll?

All year there were concerns about how Obama was underperforming the generic Democrat, and how bad the Republican image was.  The first part of that was true up until the very end, but I had no idea that more people approved of than disapproved of their party right after their convention.

Maybe that's the solution.  Just have a lot of conventions.

WILL be the death knell to the GOP.

Hopefully that is what they will do and will run Sarah Palin in 2012.

are likely to be their next issues, as they are the only hot button issues which favor the GOP. This will be their midterm strategy, and if it works and they gain seats in 2010, tho they'll probably not get a majority but increase, they'll run on it in 2012. I think 2012 could be their equivalent to 1984 as they will still be in denial about the death of their ideology, the way Dems were in 1984 about liberalism. It took until 1992 to find a centrist candidate enough to win. It may be 12 years till the GOP does so, hopefully more.

has been made fairly convincingly by many people.  For many years we Democrats have seen our brand slide towards oblivion, almost in direct correlation with the move towards the mythical "middle road".  Clinton's candidacy failed largely because of this.  Not that I'm complaining.  I think it's to our advantage to have the right and left move away from the "middle" because it draws a better contrast between our policies.  McCain was the ultimate "middle of the road, mavericky" whatever, but he tried to get there by switching positions every so often.  This does not work very well in a video rich culture.

What remains of the congressional Rep minority is more far right than ever, and consequently more out of touch than ever. If the number of votes Stevens drew despite 7 felony convictions is any indication, the Rep party intends to die a long, slow death, kicking and screaming the whole way. Sucks to be them.

The strategy of "shifting to the outer edges" has to first take into account the pre-existing spread of the party across the spectrum. It has been working for Democrats because it is a reaction to decades of electing Democrats who tried to succeed by making themselves into little Republicans or by approaching each issue as a possibility for compromise away from the interests of their constituencies.

The Republicans, in the same era, systematically purged their party of moderates and enforced an unbending orthodoxy on its officeholders. After initial success (based on the perception of many Americans in the 1970s and 1980s that the liberal worldview was exhausted) the Republican party became what it is today: A far-right party with an ossified philosophy that has stayed in power this long only through fear- and hate-mongering, and control of information more like an authoritarian regime than what Americans knew before.

Their present efforts to "return to their ideals" is the opposite of what the Democrats have done. The Democrats have rediscovered their old ideals that will serve a broad majority of Americans and benefit the whole nation and the world. The Republicans can only engage in further purges and message control (and extremist tactics such as election fraud and propaganda) that appeal to fewer and fewer Americans. They are not only making themselves into a regional party. They are making themselves into an extremist, sliver party that will survive only through continued control of information.

Oops, I should've read this before posting a diary on it.

Please veer to the right.  Oh pleeeeeease veer to the right.