In other words, he's afraid Democrats will behave exactly as the Republicans did from 2001 - 2006.

In explaining why Republicans should focus on "saving" vulnerable GOP incumbent senators, he argues that without 45 seats or so, Democrats will "reward friends and punish enemies," "silence conservative talk radio," "police the activities of right-leaning think tanks," and demonstrate a "militant" and "angry intolerance" for dissent. In other words, the pitch is this: "Vote for Republican Senate candidates, because David Frum has an overactive imagination."

It's projection. That's the equivalent of what conservatives dream of doing to liberals.

And, if you look at how Republicans ran government in 2003 and 2004, they sure tried a lot of things along those lines.

"Vote for Republican Senate candidates, because David Frum is projecting like the little girl in The Exorcist."

Fixed that for you Steve.

Or maybe he's just another fReichtard getting an early start on the persecution narrative. Kicking out the incompetents that currently infest the federal government won't be a much-needed house cleaning. It'll be THE FIRST SIGN OF THE RISE OF THE BIG ANGRY BROWN PEOPLE!

When some right-leaning "think" tank gets a visit from the SS after they go a little bit too far with the heated rhetoric it'll be THE FIRST SIGN OBAMA WILL CRUSH FREE SPEECH IN REALAMERICA!

And of course, when Obama does or says anything that Frump doesn't like that'll be A RUTHLESS ANNIHILATION OF HIS ENEMIES!!

Man, I'm glad the GOP keeps telling us the Dems are the lily-livered girly pants party. Otherwise I might start to think they're the WATBs.

Republicans will "reward friends and punish enemies," "silence NPR," "police the activities of left-leaning organizations," and demonstrate a "militant" and "angry intolerance" for dissent.

Fixed it. Frum is projecting typical GOP behavior onto Democrats and he doesn't like it.

What goes around comes around.

A Democratic landslide is something to think about. I mean look at what happened after the 1964 election when there was a Democratic mandate in the 89th and 90th congresses.

Medicaid
Medicare
Voting Rights Act
Head Start
Immigration and Nationality Act
Age Discrimination in Employment Act
Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act
National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
Freedom of Information Act
National Historic Preservation Act
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
National Trails System
Public Broadcasting Act (PBS and NPR)

I sure hope we don’t get that kind of progress again.

Gordon Smith is running so far to the center that he does not identify himself as Republican in the ads running in Oregon; he highlights all the nice things Sen. Obama has ever said about him; and resigned as McCain's campaign co-chair here. None of it helps. He's going down.

Let's make David Frum's worst electoral nightmares come true.

Another gem from Frum's article:

The United States needs Republicans and conservatives to monitor the way Democrats wield this extraordinary and dangerous new power -- and to pressure them to surrender it as rapidly as feasible

So... Frum thought it was OK when the Republicans did this over the last 8 years. Didn't hear him warn about needing Democrats and liberals to monitor.

I guess he feels that Republicans can be trusted with that power grab, because they know what they're doing -- Democrats not so much.

Not to mention that he supported the "Verb. Noun. 9/11" candidate.

So what if the GOP is destroyed. What's so bad about that? I've been advocating it for years.

The GOP remains in denial. They blame McCain for their woes, but their policies and actions over the past decade are being rejected, not their candidate for President. They simply cannot fathom what everyone else sees clearly: Their platform is anachronistic, anti-American, reactionary, and bankrupt.

I saw Frum's column as a job application for the anti-Palin (pro-Romney?) forces in the GOP. He's clearly staking out territory, rather than offering up any literal path to salvation this year.

Still, it's interesting seeing the Republican coalition not simply fracture, but actually break apart in the open, prior to Election Day. I can't remember this ever happening before, even in the Democratic party, which is the one the pundits always accuse of ritual suicide.

ALL of the GOP crossovers supporting Obama belong in the anti-Palin camp. Adelman, Frum, Sullivan -- there is nobody supporting Obama this year who will support Palin in '12. Conversely, all of the hardline anti-Obama loyalty-oath Republicans (Kristol being the head cheerleader) will be solidly behind Palin, at least until they decided she can't get them where they want to go (which is back to the White House).

Steve: I think you could do the Dems a service by actually tracking these movements now, because it's going to be useful stuff in three or four years. E.g., if you see a number of pro-Palin supporters from '08 lining up behind Huckleberry (or anyone else) in '10 or '11, you'll know who the right is backing, and that Palin is out of contention.

I would be interesting to see if Frum could convince Republicans that Democrats would act like them. After eight years of imitating a school of jellyfish, it would seem unlikely. However, Republicans are vulnerable to the "Everybody does it" mantra.

I know it has been mentioned earlier, but it just boggles the mind how Frum is so afraid of Democrats doing exactly what the Republicans have been doing for years.

Unbelievable the degree of cognitive dissonance. All you need to do is remove all references to Democrats and replace them with Republican and it pretty much describes the Bush administration.

Trillions of dollars are now under direct government control. It's not wise to put that money under one-party control. It's just too tempting. You need a second set of eyes on that cash. You need oversight and accountability. Otherwise, you're going to wake up two years from now and find out that a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House have been funneling a ton of that money to their friends and allies

"silence conservative talk radio," "police the activities of right-leaning think tanks,"

I'm thinking he's worried about finding work after this but it won't be because of the Dems.

The RW noise machine of "tink" tanks and talk radio will be reduced in intensity due to the lack of money among major Repub donors thanks to the market meltdown.

I expect hacks like Frum to be hacks. The disgusting part is when theoretically respectable media outfits like the Washington Post give the likes of Frum a forum to hack off in public.

If a sweeping Democratic victory will "take the entire Republican Party down," then I say: "Bring it on!"

McCain is "..losing in a way that threatens to take the entire Republican Party down with him."

Quick - throw them enough rope!

Seriously, nothing would be better for America than breaking up the unholy alliance between fundamentalist religious crazies and plutocrats that is today's Republican Party.

Sarah Palin may actually represent the future of the Republican Party. If so, let's contact the political cemetery where the Whigs are buried, and tell them to open another grave.

Funny. He had no problem with the idea of one-party government when Rove was promoting his Thousand Year Reich. Which lasted...6 years.

New meme: Republicans: like Nazis, but fortunately a whole lot less competent.

The national GOP can't credibly run to the center after the Bush years and McCain's deeply divisive campaign. But embattled GOP incumbents might have a chance--if they triangulate, both against certain Dem control of the White House and Congress, and against the national GOP.

Leave David Frum alone. Frum is Rachel Maddow's bitch now. Let her decide what to do with him.

For a few years a while back, it seemed as though the "real" SuperBowl was the AFC Championship game, whose winner would then eat the NFC entry alive.

I look forward to a time when the real national election decides which Democrat is our nominee. Of course, the GOP did also.

Steve,

You're right that it is much too late for the Republicans to change their strategy, but if they could have done that, they would have done it before or during the Presidential primary and come out of the primary with a Presidential nominee they could all get behind. The problem isn't an incoherent strategy. It's an incoherent party.

I still think that the success of the conservatives grew out of an alliance between the movement conservatives and the Christian Coalition - an alliance we call the Reagan Revolution. It appears to have effectively ended with the disappearance (politically) of Ralph Reed and the death of Jerry Falwell. The political alliance between the Republican conservatives and the Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals, neo-evangelicals and charismatics has fallen apart. It was in fact declining during the late Clinton years.

Rove and Bush were able to activate the social conservatives in 2004. The reelection of Bush in 2004 was similar to the recreation of the Austrian Empire as the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. In both cases it became two nations with a single head of government. (I wouldn't want to push that analogy too far.) The inability of any one candidate to win the Presidential nomination in 2008 marked the end of the alliance that had created the Reagan Revolution.

The Republican Party in 2008 has not been able to rejuvenate the alliance that maintained the Reagan Revolution. But the Republican Party has continued the strategy that was central to that alliance because they have nothing with which to replace it. McCain is trying to run on that strategy again. That's why he chose Palin. Only the choice of the clearly incompetent Palin drove the center and moderate Republicans out of the party to Obama.

The incoherence is not in the campaign strategy. It is much deeper. The incoherence is in the Republican Party as a whole.

I'm curious. In light of my post above describing the collapse of the Reagan Coalition, does any of this process resemble what happened to the Federalists in 1800 and after when Jefferson won the Presidency, or the collapse of the Whigs in the 1850's?

The trouble with the Frum thesis and the 1964 comparison NewMexiKen made is that in 1964 both parties were heavily divided. The Democrats had a lot of progressives, but most of the Southern Racists were still Democrats, and the Republicans had a substantial group of Center-Right 'moderates' who were strengthened by the election, the Scott-Dirksen-Case-Javits-Rockefeller group (and surprisingly, Nixon was close to that group). So all the legislation you mentioned was substantially bi-partisan, with the Progressive Democrats and Republican moderates working against the Southern racists and Republican crazies.

This year, the election is likely to drive the Republicans even farther to the right, since the 'safe seats' for the Republicans include people like Enzi, Barasso, Cornyn, Roberts, and Inhofe. I'd gladly keep the Colemans, Smiths, Collins' and Sununus around and 'trade them' for the group above, but that's not going to happen, except for Collins. Other than Collins, I think the two most 'moderate' Republicans likely to keep their seats are *shudder* Alexander and Graham. (I don't know Johanns of Nebraska or Risch of Idaho, who should win open seats their party held, but I doubt if they are moderates.)

This means that the advances that Obama will be bringing will be supported on a strictly partisan basis, which is not such a good idea. (Even the FDR landslides kept a lot of moderate and even strongly Progressive Republicans around -- we forget, for example, that Fiorello LaGuardia was a Republican, as -- at least originally -- were George Norris and the LaFollettes.)

From kth

The national GOP can't credibly run to the center after the Bush years and McCain's deeply divisive campaign.

This is going to be the major problem in recreating an effective national conservative party after this election. It is also going to be the major source of hubris for the Democrats.

The hubris will be the source of renewal for the conservatives.

Just a guess, of course.

I found this to be the most illuminating part of the whole article:

"And so, in this last month, the McCain campaign has Palinized itself to make the most of its last asset. To fire up the Republican base, the McCain team has hit at Barack Obama as an alien, a radical and a socialist.
Sure enough, the base has responded. After months and months of wan enthusiasm among Republicans, these last weeks have at last energized the core of the party. But there's a downside: The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle..."

So... The Republican core alienates and offends the "great national middle". David, go back and reread yourself, and then ask yourself this question: Is it any wonder you are losing?

Mr Frum neglected to mention the ReEducation Camps for Repubs, the Labor Battalions of country club members laying track in North Dakota, the forced abortions of white Texans.

But on a serious note, the parts of the Repub Party that will still exist after this election are the TalkRadio and EvangelicalValues parts. The 'intellectual' part will be culled except the most rabid (Goldberg, Ponnuru). The most reasonable of them have ideas of expanding the Repub base (Frum, Douthat)--but fail the Palin-loyalty test.

Future Repub platforms and candidates are going to reflect the thought that this election was lost because the party strayed from the 'true faith'. It will become more and more wing-nut based (Commentary Magazine). In other words, it will become the party of the former Confederate States of America.

I've read similar crap from the WashPost that the "increasingly angry liberal blogosphere" is going to use its influence on a liberal congress to shut down talk radio, get rid of guns, etc, etc,.
This is TOTAL projection. They wingnuts are the angriest most vile group of influence peddling sycophants in the world. Somewhere built into their DNA is the natural assumption everyone is just like them.

However,how many people blogging here are going to write angry letters to their congressman demanding the righties be punished for 8 years of fuck-ups???
And actually expect to have influence on them.

Only bloggers on the unhinged religious right dream such dreams. People who project like that are scary as hell.

David Frum, the Janet Folger of the Beltway. Stay tuned for his book, "Letters From Bethesda."

As others have said, this indeed represents astonishing projection by Frum. Also, yes, this is his job application: tell the Republican senators and representatives who lose that it's all McCain's fault, and if the Republicans had listened to Frum and put some of the money wasted on McCain into the lower campaigns, the lower-level candidates might have won. One or two of those losers will run to get their seats back, and, being Republican, some of them are no doubt stupid enough to fall for such a pitch and hire Frum.

Lastly, in Bruno's quote, "Otherwise, you're going to wake up two years from now and find out that a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House have been funneling a ton of that money to their friends and allies", I suspect that to Frum the really scary word is "their".

OkiefromMuskogee:

Quick - throw them enough rope!

And tie an anvil on one end.

tAwO 4 That 1,

Are you telling me that I have to remove the anvil I already have attached to the other end of the same rope? Is there a shortage of anvils and anchors I should be concerned about?

I want to assure anyone who is concerned that no actual anvils were injured in presenting the metaphor above.

Frum is an ideological, dangerous nut who, like some of them, can sound reasonable to an audience unfamiliar with their darker works.

The GOP is reapin the whirlwind it has wrought. It always wanted to be seen as the grown up party, now its going to take a grown up punishment for its failure.

...Democrats will "reward friends and punish enemies," "silence conservative talk radio," "police the activities of right-leaning think tanks," and demonstrate a "militant" and "angry intolerance" for dissent...

Steve, you write that like it was a bad thing. I hope fervently that Democrats do indeed all of those things.

What Frum also ignores is the negative Republican turnout consequences of cutting bait on McCain-Palin. As unenthusiastic the party/country is for McCain, send a signal he's already lost and we could see their side's turnout approach that from a midterm rather than a presidential year.

Actually, I think putting the Fairness Doctrine into communications law permanently would be the best way to bring political conversations back to reality. Limpdick would take his lifetime supply of Viagra and Oxycontin to the Dominican Republica where he could drown his sorrows cavorting with 10-year old boys and girls, Michael Savage could go back to mopping floors or whatever it was doing before he became a professional slimeball, Hannity and Beck could retire on their multi-million dollar fortunes, and the rest of the Orcs could crawl back in their holes and pull the rocks over them.

What a nice idea!

Everyone else seems to be suggesting what could happen in the case of a Democratic landslide, so here's my take on it.

The GOP has been, since at least 1980, a big tent containing 3 groups- the religious right, militarists, + plutocrats (theo-cons, neo-cons, + money-cons, if you prefer)- which really didn't like or trust each other, but who would each use the others' votes to get access to the halls of power. You began to see the alliance fray during this election cycle, as each wing had its own favorite candidate: the plutocrats loved Romney, the militarists loved McCain, + the religious right loved Huckabee.

McCain ran the best primary campaign, + became the nominee, w/the unenthusiastic backing of the other two wings of the party. His selection of Palin as a running mate satisfied the theo-cons, but alarmed both the neo-cons + money-cons. Now, the utterly miserable general campaign which McCain has run is causing the three wings to snipe viciously at each other.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see at least one of the three wings break off to become its own party. Of the three, the most likely group to bolt is probably the theo-cons, since the neo-con + money-con wings seem to primarily agree only that they look down upon them. But a revival of the traditional plutocrat GOP- big on money issues, more or less libertarian on social issues- isn't out of the question either.

Whatever happens, I think that the GOP as we've known it over the past 25-30 years is kaput.

I won't miss it, + neither should our beloved country.

-Z

My prediction for what will happen to the Republicans is that the monied interests will give up on the nut-cases, and will decide that it is simply easier and cheaper just to buy up a whole bunch of Democrats to look after their interests.