Stimulation society.

More from that great piece by Silver:

Stimulation, however, is somewhat the opposite of persuasion. You're not going to persuade someone of something when you're (literally, in Ziegler's case) yelling in their ear.

The McCain campaign was all about stimulation. The Britney Spears ads weren't persuasive, but they sure were stimulating! "Drill, baby, drill" wasn't persuasive, but it sure was stimulating! Sarah Palin wasn't persuasive, but she sure was (literally, in Rich Lowry's case) stimulating!

Not to sound like an old coot but the younger generations are so much more stimulation-oriented than in the past. Technology is so quick that absolutely no time passes between thinking something and saying it. Imagine how differently the Cuban Missile Crisis would have turned out had JFK been part of the stimulation society and had been able to instantaneous react to what the Soviet Union was doing.

The necessity of persuasion.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has an interesting take on why the conservatives lost this election cycle:

There are a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion.

John Ziegler is a shining example of such a conservative. During my interview with him, Ziegler made absolutely no effort to persuade me about the veracity of any of his viewpoints. He simply asserted them -- and then became frustrated, paranoid, or vulgar when I rebutted them.

In all fairness, there are many on the left who have this same attitude. As one who leans more left and hails from a traditionally blue state, I can attest to the fact that I simply cannot understand why anyone would have problems with gays or lesbians or people of color. It takes a lot of effort to pull myself out of my belief systems so I can take the time to understand someone else's. Of course, I'm pretty good about avoiding being paranoid or vulgar when I do so.

McCain Wins MO!

Missouri finally called for McCain.

The election's been over for two weeks and no one really cared that we hadn't yet determined who won. Can we possible get any more irrelevant?

You betcha!

Sarah Palin just keeps on going and going...

Kudos to Dick Cavett of the NYT for providing us with this Palin gem:

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

If you say it in your head with her voice, it actually makes more sense.

The Republican bullpen.

There's been quite a few impressive ideas coming out of the Republican Governor's conference this week. A lot of talk about the elections and even more talk about the future. It's almost refreshing to here a Republican admit that the party has practically gone out of its way to turn away women, younger voters, people of color, blue collar workers, people with advanced degrees...am I missing anyone? The growing sentiment seems to be that a national party cannot simply represent white males south of I -70 and I'm interested to see how the GOP will rework their message to be more inclusive. The landscape is shifting beneath their feet and they need to move with it.

Pawlenty, Jindal and Sanford--all apparently lacking in what it takes to be a strong vice presidential candidate--had different takes on the problems with the party and different solutions. However, they all seem to be focused on both policy and the political process. Palin was another story. She seemed to talk the most but say the least. It's a shame--there are some strong Republican women out there but this year it seemed to be nothing but Dole, Bachmann and Palin talking about godlessness, rooting out the anti-Americans, and shoes. Come on people--can't we do better than this?

Better than 007.

More GOP thoughts.

Another interesting oped on the Republicans from David Brooks of the New York Time. Although, Brooks tends to lump the small government/lower taxes folks in with with the neo-cons which strikes me as incorrect. I was always under the impression the long-time members of the GOP were appalled by the shift towards neo-con values, particularly when the government started promoting and regulating these values.

I can't help but think the Republicans will be so much more appealing as a party if they take the past emphasis on small government/less spending/fiscal conservatism and rework it into something that fits with our day and age. Stop talking about Reagen (after all, did Reagan run on the platform created by Dwight Eisenhower?) and start finding a truly conservative message that resonates with today's voters and today's issues.