The Five Stages Of GOP Grief

Hey Zandardad, here's the Republicans doin' the Kubler-Ross thing:

Stage One: Denial, Pajamas Media's Roger Kimball.

Nevertheless, I continue to think McCain can pull victory from the jaws of defeat. Why? Not because of any complex statistical alchemy but for the simple old fashioned reason that I do not believe the instinct for self-preservation has been entirely bred out of the American electorate.

Stage Two: Anger, National Review's John Derbyshire.

I'm sour about the GOP too. What did it all get us, those 8 years of pandering and spending? If GWB had turned his face against new entitlements, closed the borders, deported the illegals, held the line on calls to loosen mortgage-lending standards, starved the Department of Education, and declined those invitations to mosque functions, would the GOP be in any worse shape now?

Stage Three: Bargaining, Volokh Conspiracy's David Bernstein.

Here's something I think the vast majority of Republicans/conservatives/libertarians can agree on: holding Obama to this pledge, made to the American public during the third debate:

what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.... What I want to emphasize ... is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches.

UPDATE: Not that I expect this to happen, but it would be wonderful if Senate McCain and the Senate and House minority leaders each congratulated Obama, and added, "we look forward to helping President-elect Obama fulfill his promise of a net spending cut."

Stage Four, Depression: FOX News commentator James Pinkerton:

And yet when it came time for the general election, environmentalists, the mainstream media, and Hispanics all went solidly for Obama, joined by a sufficient number of swing Democrats, who saw no compelling reason to cross the aisle and vote Republican. In particular, McCain got no “credit,” if that’s the right word, from good-government types for not bringing up Obama’s support for drivers’ licenses for illegal aliens–probably the single best populist arrow the Republicans had in their quiver, and yet an arrow that McCain never fired.

To top it all off, McCain voted for the Wall Street bailout last month–once again putting the establishment ahead of the Republican base, putting pundits’ praise ahead of populist swing voters. And so, by the end of the campaign, plenty of activist Republicans had figured out what McCain really thought of them, and acted accordingly.

With apologies to Frank Sinatra, McCain ran the campaign “his way”–and just like the narrator in that famous song, he paid a steep price. Maybe that’s what McCain wanted all along. It sure seems like it.

and finally Stage 5, Acceptance: Power Line's Scott Johnson.

Tonight let us salute and congratulate Senator Obama as the author of a brilliant campaign and pray that he achieves greatness in office. To adapt the imprecation of Stephen Decatur: May he always be in the right; but our president, right or wrong.

I'm thinking however that most of them are going to be stuck on anger for the next, oh, FOREVER. And look, I learned something from Psych 101 too.

So hey, Republicans? Guess what?



NEENER NEENER NEENER.

That is all.