Educated Guess

One thing was very clear with this past election: Strictly negative, substance-less platforms are not the perfect political strategy - and may be on there way to a loud, obnoxious and well deserved death.

Rove politics are not dead, but they are severely damaged. They have shown a weak link - and that link is that when the candidate can generate positive news coverage about himself, people tend to ignore - and possibly even respond to - stupid, personal character attacks.

How bad was it this year?

There are a lot of different stats that can be explored, but the best is number is 52.

52% of all individuals that make over 250,000 dollars voted for Obama. They knew there taxes would be raised (the entire Republican platform) and they still voted for the Democrat.

When the Republicans cannot even grasp their own platform, their political style is gone. But interestingly, the far right - the people whose sole claim to fame is that they are generally voted in overwhelmingly by the uneducated racists that vote against their own interest - sees no problem with this strategy and are still spouting it constantly on Fox News.

Part of the reason for this is that the uneducated vote in the uneducated. So a lot of Republican politicians, particularly in the House of Representatives, are complete idiots. Obviously idiots are going to say stupid things. That idiot from Georgia who compared Obama to Hitler is a prime idiot example. What a colossal idiot.

But they are certainly not alone. There are a number of Governors, Senate members and other individuals that are not quite as dumb as those in the House and still using character slams to win their point. In fact, I'd say they represent over half of the Republican party.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

Republican political strategy may still be to demonize intelligence, but there are still intelligent people in the Republican party - people that do not care as much about social issues and simply believe that Republican tax policy is the best way to run the country. Whether these people represent 50%, 40% or 20% of the Republican party, there is no way they are going to be able to stand these moronic political tactics for much longer - especially if the Republicans keep losing elections.

And because of that, I predict that by the 2012 election, the Republicans may experience a huge split in their party if they do not change their philosophies. In fact, if they select another hard right candidate (Sarah Palin), I predict there is about a 50% chance the party splits in two, and some moderate Republican runs as an independent, taking all other moderates with them.

There is no way that intelligent Republicans, however many there may be, are going to be able to stand for these things any longer. Anyone that has... you know... thoughts... is going to have a difficult time believing that the best way to run the country is to make everyone hate everyone else.

When Republicans were winning, it was easy to ignore these tactics in the interest of getting things done. While I do not believe that McCain is a moderate, it is not hard for me to believe that he probably only enacted his character slams of Obama in order to win, and not because it was the right thing to do.

But they are no longer working, and if they are not working I cannot see any way that actual moderates are going to take it anymore, even if it means losing.

Discuss.