And Greta van Susteren asked Steve Schmidt about the now infamous towel incident reported by Newsweek.

Schmidt’s response: “Never happened.”

Those on the right that are still high on the Palin kool-aid, need to take a look at the exit polls. She doesn’t appeal to moderates and if they keep insisting that she is the future of the GOP, they will be in the minority for many yrs.

Over at Slate they are having a very good discussion about the future of the GOP that is worth reading.

THe Right owns talk radio. They’re putting a lot of effort now into whining about the Fairness Doctrine. WRONG! Forget about fighting over the radio!

The largest talk radio audience is Rush Limbaugh — 2-3 million per day. Add to that all the others and you might reach 5-6 million. AND…you can only listen when they happen to be broadcasting, e.g. Rush 1-3 PM in Boston, unless you take the trouble to listen to a recording (which I doubt happens a lot.) You’re also largely in your car when you listen (people watch TV more than listen to radios at home — do many even HAVE radios now at home?)

So…while the GOP big-wigs are trying to defend their radio turf, the vast majority of real people are either watching TV or…ON THE INTERNET!

Who owns the grassroots on the internet? The Democrats. Look at fundraising; look at recruitment; look at the age demographics; etc.;etc.;etc.

Like any other war, is you can keep the enemy pinned down and defending territory you don’t value very much, you’re free to pillage the good stuff. George W. doesn’t really know much about the “internets”, and congressmen have shown even less knowledge than Palin displayed on world geography.

There are 1.3 BILLION emailers in the world. In the US, nearly 75% of our 300 million+ population have access to the internet. Messages can become viral in less than a day. Fundraising and collections the same. (The day following the election I received several Obama emails asking for more donations for “the cause.”)

Memo to GOP: Now that the voters have essentially thrown the bums out (you!), you’d better get with the 21st century. You’re riding down the pot-holed, traffic-jammed interstate on the burned-out hulk of the confused-talk-express BUS — and the Dems are working from home on the internet.

I’d say it’s even money that she replaces Ted Stevens as Senator.

It just sounds like staffers are trying to make excuses for McCain’s loss of the election. There are enough reports out there that Palin was restricted in what she could say and the campaign was pissed that she wouldn’t stick to the talking points. She was a wreck in interviews because the staffers caged her in. Take a look at her ineterview with Glenn Beck in march (i think) on youtube to get a better sense of what this woman is really like.

Another angle to these reports is that the good-ole-boy establishment of the GOP and the MSM are threatened by this woman portraying real change in our government. She went in and really reformed Alaska to an extent, for better or worse. She got rid of corrupt officials in the Republican party at home. She faced down the oil companies and won. That sort of real change is scary to those she might take it away from.

It will be interesting to see Palin in a couple of years when she is not being held back by a campaign. I think she will surprise a lot of people.

Yes, the Libertarian Party ticket failed on number of levels. So it is entirely possible the radical wingnuts – marginalized by Barr’s nomination – will regain favor and screw things up beyond repair in 2010 and 2012. But I don’t think so.

I met nearly every state LP chair and found most to be reasonable individuals, doing their best to placate the base while reaching out to moderate voters. We do have a message that resonates with most Americans, it is just that we’ve never had a messenger with the right personality and people skills to sell it.

Like you say, RHM, lots of things can happen and voters do have short memories.

You must be in Massachusetts smoking…………….

I don’t think so. Lots of things can happen and voters have short memories. I hope they regroup and rebuild their party to the point where people like me would consider voting for them again. But that may be wishful thinking.

My prediction: the Republicans MIGHT have a president again in 2024. They’ve done that much damage…

I’ve been blogging seemingly non-stop about Palin. The cartoon is me “beating a dead horse.”

Personally, I don’t think the LP will EVER be relevant in a national election. They just can’t ever seem to get their shit together and are unwilling to compromise an anything – no matter how ridiculous.

For example, the IRS and Dept. of Education are never going away. But instead of trying to reform them (or scale them down) the LP insists on completely dismantling them. Like a little kid clinging to his teddy bear.

Anyway… Who do the Republicans put up against Obama in 2012? And, is there really any possibility of the Libertarian party being relevant?