The Five Stages Of Republican Grief

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Okay, yes, I’m gloating. I admit it. I own it. But after eight years of the GOP running this country into the ground a bit of schadenfreude is cathartic. For background the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K…

Denial:

In a phone interview before headlining the Indiana Republican Party’s fundraising dinner in Indianapolis on Thursday night, Graham said Hoosiers are too smart to vote for Obama.

Democrats, he said, “can’t win fairly out here.”

Asked whether Democrats could win without cheating, Graham said, “No. They can’t win fairly out here ’cause their agenda is so far removed from the average Hoosier.

“We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it,” Graham said of Indiana’s 11 electoral votes. “I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it.”

link: http://www.journalgazette.net/…

Anger:

From the notes on this YouTube post:

Understandable anger at Pro-abortion pro-sodomite Barack Obama. Anyone voting for a Democrat has serious moral issues and has the blood of unborn babies on their hands.

Mr. Barack Obama, spending 20 years in Jeremiah Wrights church, listening to anti-white hatred day after day does not qualify you to be president of the United States. Barack Obama, someone who believes in murdering helpless unborn babies by abortion should not be president.

Barack Obama who believes in desecrating Holy Matrimony by allowing sodomites to blaspheme God by getting married should not be president

SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life. http://www.armyofgod.com

The Southern Poverty Law Center on Army of God:

The Rev. Donald Spitz has never been a pleasant man. Considered a wild-eyed extremist even among his colleagues on the radical anti-abortion scene, the head of Pro-Life Virginia and long-time principal of the Army of God Web site (www.armyofgod.com) applauds the murderers of physicians, clinic workers and secretaries.

He rails against “filthy faggots” and “lesbos.” Islam is “Satanic,” Arabs are “Rag-Heads,” and Muslims “should not be allowed to live in the United States.” New York City is a “sex perverted cesspool” that richly deserved Sept. 11.

link: http://www.splcenter.org/intel…

Bargaining:

Presented with 30 options for new economic measures, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has – at least for now – chosen none of them.

snip

On Sunday, hours before attending a big strategy meeting at McCain campaign headquarters, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Bob Schieffer on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that McCain was planning “a very comprehensive approach to jump-start the economy, by allowing capital to be formed easier in America by lowering taxes.”

But when the meeting ended, so did plans for a new economy push. The campaign now says no new policy announcements are planned.

link: http://www.politico.com/news/s…

Depression:

From this recap of yesterday’s Meet The Press:

BROKAW: “Let’s talk about the politics of all this. Paul Gigot, let’s begin with you. The McCain campaign. Here’s what Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin, had to say when he was asked about how the campaign is going — doing. … He was asked whether he believes it’s going well. And as you can see, he said, ‘No, and I don’t know anyone who thinks that it is.’ Would that be your judgment as well?”

GIGOT: “Well, I think so. Even within the campaign I’m not sure that they, they really believe that it’s going well. I think there’s, you know, they didn’t want to run a campaign about the economy as the main issue. They wanted to run a character campaign, an experience campaign. John McCain, seasoned, somebody who’s seen hard times, vs. the rookie, the neophyte, somebody who really hasn’t been around. That’s been blown out of the water by events on Wall Street, events in the financial system. And now John McCain is being forced to play on turf where he is not as comfortable … as he is on foreign policy and duty, honor, country. It’s been very tough for him. You’ve seen the campaign kind of move from idea to idea, and, and especially without a consistent narrative that the American people right now want to hear. How did we get here? What happened? What are you ideas for getting out? You can’t just blame this or that. Obama blames deregulation. Well, that’s simplistic. McCain says it’s Fannie and Freddie. Well, that’s part of it, but not everything. You need a larger narrative.”

link: http://www.madison.com/tct/new…

Acceptance:

From Christopher Buckley’s endorsement of Barack Obama: http://thedailybeast.com/blogs…

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

snip

Obama has in him-I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric-the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Schadenfreude aside, I’m sobered by the likes of Buckley. This isn’t an overwhelming endorsement, this isn’t a sea change of attitude. This is someone who cares deeply for his country and the direction it’s currently heading in. His endorsement of Obama is a mixture of a repudiation of McCain and a hope – no matter how slim – that somehow, some way Obama can overcome and lead this country moving forward.

That’s a tall order to fill.

But by the same token, I have no doubt that if anyone were up to that task, it would be Barack Obama.