'zactly.
This is why I get so frustrated with you guyz.
If you want to be leaders, LEAD dammit.
Quite tiptoing around the base like a bunch of political eunuchs.
Put a damn bridle on the populist horse and get back in the saddle.
If your memes are worth a damn, why then, forward seat, kick on, and let the devil take the hindmost!

pardon, Lev.

Yup Len.
E.D. is wrong, the base must be reformed inorder to reform the leadership, because the base dictates the leadership.
Beck and Rush are just cheerleaders for the lowest passions of the base.
Frum and E.D. and Conor are trying to lead, but they aren't legit....they represent what? .0001 percent of the electorate?
The base is a like a riderless horse that has into the barn and is gorging itself on a big grain bin of rightist populism. The grain is going to kill the horse, but Conor and Frum can't even get its head up out of the bin.

At least one third of non-hispanic caucs traditionally vote democratic....Carter to Obama.
Demmed race-traitors!
haha

Your pendulum theory is affected by environment.
Scientific advances and demographic evolution are going to damp the return swing.
If the GOP cannot broaden its appeal to minorities and youth, the declining WEC population can't carry it.
In 2008 for the first time minority children under 5 outnumbered non-hispanic cauc children under 5.
In 2030 non-hispanic cauc becomes a minority in the electorate.
As long as the GOP is pure white, they are doomed.

In 2008 WECs were 50% of the GOP in exit polling.
The current GOP candidates are 1 mormon, 3 WECs.
My hypothesis is WEC/GOP >> 50% now, because non-WECs are leaving the GOP to become independents.
I could prove this by buying a month of house bias from Rasmussen in order to see the crosstabs....but I'd rather spend the money on something else. ;)
Someone is going to do it, sooner or later.
And then the weeping an gnashing of teeth will begin.
;)

What is wrong with just telling the base the truth?
That is what CJ is doing. He say-- ok, you're racists.....but racism is wrong....and you have to get over it, or the GOP is going the way of the Whigs. Rush and Beck are feelgood narcotics for the base-- they say-- You are not the racist/fascist/social undesireable--- the libruuls are!
If the GOP is to remain viable you have to flatout admit that racism is wrong, homophobia is wrong, and trying to force IDT/creationism into high schools is wrong.
That is what Johnson is doing.
He is treating the base like adults.
I don't see his traffic falling off.

No you can't.
I'm sorry, E.D., but pandering to the base, like telling them "oh noes, youre not RELLY racists" is Fail.
You need to admit your base composition.
In a country where there is an accepted separation of church and state, a religious party is non-viable, particularily as the WEC demongraphic declines.
The party's enslavement to the base guarantees you can never front candidates except for WECs and Mormons....and those candidates have zero appeal to the demographics you need to court.
Conservatives have to chose who they are....if the GOP is WECs only...well then you're DOA.

But I don't see how this amounts to strategy......Rush and Beck are exactly representative of what older, less educated WEC christians want to hear, and what they are willing to pay to hear.
And currently WEC comprise 20% of the electorate and they all seem to be republicans.
Half of the electorate trends conservative....half trends liberal. But the GOP problem is they are locked out of the minority, youth, and college-educated conservative demographics, because of Palin, Huckabee, Rush, Beck, etc.
What Johnson is doing is fighting against branding-- he refuses to let racism, homophobia, creationism, and fascism be the "face" of the GOP. Because that brand drives off the youth, college-educated, and minority voters even if they lean conservative in ideology. It is true that at least half the electorate is conservative....but that doesn't mean they will vote that way.

I’ve read that the average Fox News viewer is 67 years old

AND a White Evangelical Christian.
The GOP has become a purely religious and purely white party...made up of WECs, White K-Lo Catholics, and mormons.
I think that is very unhealthy.

Fail.
Engage the demographic timer, E.D.
Your problem is the GOP has become a wholly religious party, and the leadership is enslaved to the WEC base.
You can only run WEC or mormon candidates on a platform of evangelical doctrine, which is distintly lacking in appeal to the demographics you desperately need.....college-educated, youth, and minorities.

Sully is right isnt he?
You arent standing athwart history yelling stop.......you are yelling REWIND!
Because scientific advances and demographic evolution are going to kill conservatism.
You are not conservatives.....you are regressives.
;)

why don't you change the name?
instead of calling yourselves conservatives, call yourselves regressives?
truth in advertising.

No Mike you are wrong.
The evolution of the demographic landscape is non-reversable......and so is scientific progress.
The rise of the Third Culture is going to kill conservative "traditional wisdom".
And then you have nothing....you tossed away fiscal conservatism and personal liberty to pander to WECs....now that is the only demographic you win, except for old people....and we all know what is going to happen to them.
;)

You have to do both....reform conservatism, and reform conservatives.

The only way forward for the GOP is calling out the racists/fascists/creationists/nativists like Charles Johnson is doing.
Treat the base like adults. Tell them indulging in social taboos like racism and luddism prevents the party from appealing to youth and minorities.
Tell them the truth.

/sigh

You have TWO problems. The ideological problem, and the demographic timer on non-hispanic caucs.
Where Rush and Beck hurt you is that they lock the GOP into the diminishing WEC demographic.
The GOP sacrificed fiscal conservatism and libertarian principles to retain power....you can restore those values...but.....
The GOP cannot attract minorities with rascism.....cannot attract the college-educated with creationism and anti-science dogma, and cannot attract youth with the uncool and the illiberal.

There is no altruism in nature.
The more successful the Obama adminstration is at gluing FOXnews, Beck and Limbaugh onto the conservative movement, the more conservatives lose market share.
This strategy has payoffs for all the players-- they are effectively stripping the rusting carcass of the GOP for parts.
FOX, Beck and Rush make money off of base "enthusiasm"-- Rahm peels off the non-WECs to become independents.
The only loozer is the GOP.

then take your own advice and stfu about sufism.

I’m down with the Sufis!

May I helpfully suggest that you know less than zero about sufism?
Sufism is not Islam-lite..........it is Islam-extreme.

And I don't think you have any useful memes left.
Conservatism is an empty purse in the 21st century.
People want more government, and actually, in the wake of the econopalypse NEED more government. Free market capitalism is exposed as survival of the greediest. Federalism is just localized mob rule. Manzi's small pockets of federalists would just be distributed Yearning for Zions, minature Jesuslands.
You need to reinvent conservatism.

No...it is a death spiral. The more you pander to the WEC base, the more the party repells the demographics it needs to survive into the 21st century...leading to further contraction of the party and allocating more power to the WEC base....
The CJ model is the one you should embrace.
People can be racists and homophobes and creationists.....they just can't scream about it openly or try to force creationism on other peoples children......or scream about it on radio or tv.
It is repellent.
I don't see Charles' readership dropping.
He is treating his commentariat like adults instead of retarded petulant children.

/sigh

you guyz are a bout as bright as a sack full of hammers.
your two problems are really one problem.
If you could grow the base you wouldn't be enslaved to Rush and Beck and the WECs.
But Rush, Beck and the WECs ensure that you can never grow the base.
Bad force-feedback cycle.

There are ONLY TWO possibilities I can see.....continue to pander to the base (E.D.) or call them out (CJ).
Is there some third alternative?

How is schwenkler 'tude any different from E.D. 'tude?

Let me peer into Matoko's Crystal Ball.....
Yup, its Palin!