They'll never learn.....

UPDATE: No one is going to know what lesson the GOP learned from this election for a while. First the party has to settle its internal warfare for control of the party between the "true" ideological conservatives, the moderates, and the social conservatives/evangelicals. Once that struggle is resolved, we'll see what lesson, if any, the GOP learned or didn't learn.

I continue to think the suburban moderates won't vote for the GOP until the social conservatives/evangelicals have less dominance. Those latter folks, whose stubborn insistence on imposing their views on the rest of the country has always been short-sighted and arrogant (in that they fervently believe only their way is the right way), need to get the message that our country is a democracy of inclusion, not exclusion, and that our country needs to allow different points of view when it comes to religiosity and its attendant moralism. Their type of puritanical moralism is passe'; the majority of our country has moved beyond their narrow views. Whether they can ever change to absorb this is very questionable. Inevitably, however, they will die off, and the younger generation, which is more broad-minded, will take over the GOP. Just not in my lifetime.

ORIGINAL COMMENT: We'll see. From my perspective, the message to the GOP was "Move away from the social conservatives, including evangelicals, as your base." This includes leaving Sarah Palin in Alaska, not running her for national office. The moderates, who predominate in the suburbs, aren't going along with the program advocated by those folks, and without the moderates, the GOP will keep losing. I suspect that after Obama has served two terms the GOP will see the wisdom of bipartisanship and the politics of inclusion, but I could be very wrong--the GOP may turn out to be intransigent. If so, their loss.

  I doubt it.

PALIN 2012 ?

I'm not even sure what that message is...

When you're looking to make Newt Gingrich or Michael Steele the chair of the GOP.  I don't believe you've gotten the message.
Duncan Hunter is retiring.  Why don't they select him?  He's way more conservative than Reagan ever thought of being.

We'll see in 4 years if they did. If they nominate Sarah Palin for President (some early polls indicate that she is an early frontrunner), then it is obvious that they didn't get it. In order to be competitive on a national level, they are going to need to get more competitive in suburbia. Appealing to a narrow subset of rural voters will leave the Republicans out of power for some time.

I understand that New Hampshire voted Democrat.  Maybe this will send a message to the Republicans to stay out of here and quit bothering us with all that campaigning. Then we have to send a message to the Democrat Party.

"Message"?  What "message"?  A hardliner will always be a hardliner, and that's from "both" extremes.  Call me a pessimist, but some folks are so hardwired into a narrow mindset that they can't give an inch to whatever doesn't agree with them.

Some pro-Obama folks won't concede that McCain isn't an awful man.  I might not have voted for him, but his concession speech was moving and articulate, and probably one of the most genuine things he's said of late.  And he did correct his supporters who called Obama a "terrorist", saying that Obama is a good, honest family man who just has different opinions from him.  Sure, he did some things that I can't agree with, but McCain is a good man whose direction I didn't agree with and whose judgement I came to question, that's all.

And some anti-Obama friends of mine have gone completely overboard.  Out of everyone that I work with, I'm the only one who voted for Obama, but almost everyone is taking it well.  While I was discussing the election with my boss, a co-worker of mine (very far right) came up and stated that Obama had "better wear kevlar" because she has "military and ex-military friends who are snipers".  WTF?  That's seriously f!#$ed up. 

I'm ready to ditch the extremes . . . .  I'm hoping (not holding my breath, but I'll wait and see) both Obama and McCain are good on their word to work together to fix the mess we're all in.

Lets ask this question again in 4 years when the national elections come up again. If the Republican Party thinks Sarah Palin is the answer, then no...they won't have gotten the message.

Can't be measured.  Smart people learn.  Fools don't.  We'll see.

The message that we're all liberals now, and we're gonna get along great, we can get rid of our military, and everybody in the world is gonna love us and show us respect (especially to the Oval Office) and we don't have to work anymore or make our mortgage and car payments and we will all be happy now that racism and intolerance is a thing of the past?  That message?  I think I've got it.

Which message is that, and were they listening?

They were certainly sent the message.  It remains to be seen whether they received it.

Far too early to tell.  The first signs of whether this is true will come in the 2010 election cycle. 

Cynically, I doubt it. My prediction is that the GOP will pander even more to the left, continuing to live in the dream world where liberals will “like” them. They will call it moving to the “center”, and Democrats will continue to rule