POLITICS: What Does This Mean for the GOP?

*Posted November 11, 2008*

We've lost big, and pundits everywhere are saying that it's time to cool down and discover what we truly believe in. Despite the big electoral gap, is it really curtains for the GOP? Take a look at the excerpt of analysis by my buddy, Glenn Beck:

"Listen to what we're up against but listen to the reason why Obama -- when everybody says, "Oh, well, Obama won; it was a mandate." He won. He won resoundingly in the electoral college. But 55 million people rejected the redistribution handout politics of Obama. Obama won. Let's give him credit. Ran the most effective, most expensive political machine ever. But in order to win, look what it took. First Obama had to break one of his very first campaign promises to limit financing to $84 million. Instead he had to raise over $650 million. We don't know yet how many -- and we may never -- how much of that came from illegal donations. John McCain's campaign was limited to $84 million and many states he was outspent 5:1, and it was this close. And remember John McCain was one of the worst presidential candidates conservatives could have ever fielded. Not only was McCain outspent, Obama's unpaid television coverage was overwhelmingly positive. On the three network evening newscasts, 65% positive for Obama/Biden while coverage of McCain/Palin was 36%. And even though television companies readily accepted McCain's cash to air his campaign commercials, they didn't like the message. Between the end of the primaries and the end of October, network news broadcast 84 stories criticizing McCain ads and 32% had a negative tone towards Obama. Late night comedians targeted McCain/Palin for jokes, jabs, putdowns seven times more than Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Remember that to get elected, Obama had to publicly repudiate all of his past positions or at least give lip service on guns, abortion, illegal immigration, school vouchers. At least verbally Obama had to move to the center to these issues, on these issues to win. More proof that we are not the country of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. More proof. How many people say he's going to govern from the center, not from the left? I'm not saying that he would change how he feels on these issues or even how he'll vote on them or how he will act as a President but like Bill Clinton, he had to at least talk like a conservative during the campaign. Obama was the media candidate. He appeared on over 50 magazine covers. He was on the front cover of TIME over six times."

That was from his morning show the day after the election, and while some of it may seem like crazy right-wing ranting, he makes many valids points. Obama had to raise 8 times the amount of money to beat McCain. And while the electoral gap was huge, the popular vote was much closer. Now if McCain was really a strong candidate, he would've overcame the liberal media and all that. But it's not like they were all telling lies, there was a lot of stuff that whiny libs could dig in to. They just chose not to do the same for Obama. The point is, the country is not all of a sudden center left. We are still a center right country. We are just waiting for someone to be the proper face of our party like Obama was for his. It certainly wasn't McCain. But the media analysis brings up a good point...