Credit Romney for a gracious concession speech, and for the good of the country hope he fades into obscurity a lot faster than has Sarah Palin.

Rallying the base has been played to its logical conclusion for the GOP.  It's time the GOP start nominating statesmen and leave the fringe lunatics in their home districts, however much they help Democrats to get elected when they get trotted out onto the national stage.  Give us four years of hype about Paul Ryan, instead of four years of coalition building under Jeb Bush, and we'll see a President Clinton in 2016, if not a President Warren.

I have another fucking kidney stone, so I have been in and out of a narcotic based stupor since Monday night.

I watched the concession speech and thought the timing and tone was right.  What Mitt cannot do, however, is to hide the fact that he feels he was born into tremendous entitlement, and that is very unappealing.  In that way he's probably like GWB, but a whole lot smarter than Dubya and much less likely to look like a deer caught in the headlights when presented with a challenging question.

Hils is not as polarizing as Obama, so I think the nomination in 2016 is hers if she wants it, and I suspect she does.  Warren has recaptured the language of why liberal politics are good for America.  She is the Paul Ryan of the Democrats at the moment, IMO.  If she bungled her claim to Native American ancestry that's a shame, because it shouldn't impede her political progress.  How many of us know squat about more than 2-3 of our 16 great great grandparents?  And yet that is only 3 generations back.  If you are from an old American family, as I am, your ancestry in this country goes back 14 or more generations.  I know lots and lots of people who claim to have Cherokee blood, or whatever, but most of them don't run for high office, and the claims are never checked.  So, I don't know how she responded, but she perhaps should have just said, "that was something we always said in our family, if it turns out to be untrue, then I stand corrected."

Yes, I loved that remark by Graham and posted it to my politics FB group as a "remarkably candid piece".  My guess is that we have at last turned the corner, and the gas is out of the balloon for movement conservatism.  Over the next 4 years there will be a big fight within the GOP, guns pointed inward.   For decades now the GOP has preached 'no compromise', and that will make it hard for the various sects to continue operating under the same umbrella.  My guesses are along these lines:

1) The Jeb Bush wing will try to move toward the center and court the Hispanic vote.

2) The Dixiecrats will still try to resist all compromise, but might lose their big financial backers.  The Tea Party, at its grassroots, has a large core of Dixiecrats who will not merge permanently with Ron/Rand Paul Libertarians (one of my very active FB friends is a Ron Paul supporter who voted for Obama, for example).

3) The Libertarians will resist all compromise and still be relatively impotent, except that their candidates and platform far too likeable to be discounted by a swath of America.  Rand Paul is the guy to watch out for here.

My guess is that wise heads within the GOP will keep a low profile during the shooting, and Jeb will allow the consensus to congeal around himself. Dixiecrats and Libertarians will be forced toward the center or marginalized.  And finally a few of the big money supporters of the fringe right will create some new, phony, astro-turf organizations to throw their money at.

"My guesses are along these lines:

1) The Jeb Bush wing will try to move toward the center and court the Hispanic vote.

2) The Dixiecrats will still try to resist all compromise, but might lose their big financial backers.  The Tea Party, at its grassroots, has a large core of Dixiecrats who will not merge permanently with Ron/Rand Paul Libertarians (one of my very active FB friends is a Ron Paul supporter who voted for Obama, for example).

3) The Libertarians will resist all compromise and still be relatively impotent, except that their candidates and platform far too likeable to be discounted by a swath of America.  Rand Paul is the guy to watch out for here.

My guess is that wise heads within the GOP will keep a low profile during the shooting, and Jeb will allow the consensus to congeal around himself. Dixiecrats and Libertarians will be forced toward the center or marginalized.  And finally a few of the big money supporters of the fringe right will create some new, phony, astro-turf organizations to throw their money at."

Entirely plausible. All of it. It's a little too quick to pronounce the death of the GOP as it is currently constituted, though. I remember in '88 there was talk that the Dems might never take back the White House because they had drifted too far to the left, and they've won four of the last six elections running very left-of-center candidates.
I think it may be more to do with the weak GOP candidates for President in the last two election cycles. It was all set up for Romney to win, and he blew it because he tried to appeal to everyone and appealed to no one other than the people who wanted Obama out of office.
No one knew who Obama was until 2004. Four years is a long time. I think the country is bushed of the Bushes, but I suspect Ryan or Rubio or Jindal or even Chris Christie as a longshot may be able to congeal the party into a viable entity for the White House by 2016.

"Obama is right of Nixon, by a lot."

But he's a socialist!!! That one always either cracks me up or infuriates me, depending upon my how much blood is in my alcohol system. Every civilized country is going to have an element of socialism. The public school system is socialist. The Interstate highway system is socialist. All municipal services are socialist. Which I guess means the next time my street gets plowed, I ought to wave my fist at the guy behind the wheel and call him a pinko.