What If ... John McCain Loses?

To start what I hope will be another semi-regular series, today I will write our first "what if ..." post. As is probably clear from several of our past entries, I love looking at far-fetched and sometimes even impossible scenarios. Even if the chances of one coming true are very minimal, it is interesting to sometimes weave through possible political scenarios. These types of discussions make me think a little bit about an old Marvel Comics series of the same name that I occasionally read when I was a kid (and it may still be in existence, I am not sure), where issues would delineate fantasy situations like "What If Kraven the Hunter Had Killed Spiderman?" or "What If the Punisher's Family Hadn't Been Killed?"

Forgetting this aside which paints me as an enormous dork, we can apply the same thinking to politics, only here, I am going to look at situations that may well materialize, and not ones based solely on past events. Speculating on, for example, what would have happened politically and socially in this country if the butterfly ballot had never been used in Florida in 2000 might well be fun, but it is not terribly instructive. Conversely, if we look at what could happen politically to the Republican Party if John McCain loses this November, we might well learn some valuable things.

And that is precisely what we are going to do here today. This is entirely reasonable, as, to borrow a line from one of my all-time favorite minor Seinfeld characters, Sid Farkus (the bra salesman who was going to sell Kramer and Frank Costanza's male bra -- the bro/manzierre -- until Sid asked Frank if he could date Frank's estranged wife Estelle), barring an unforeseen development, either Barack Obama or John McCain is going to be the 44th President of the United States. Therefore, in this post we are going to try to flesh out the likely political aftermath and fall-out if John McCain is defeated in November. In the next few days, I will write a similar piece examining what could happen if Barack Obama were himself to lose, but there will some overlap, as will be apparent. In the end, it is my hope that you find this subject as interesting to think about as I do.

Republican despair will like follow a McCain loss much like it dogged Democrats from 2000 to 2006

It is probably not a stretch to say that John McCain will lose this election. Since the end of the primary season, and probably even well before then, there have been few polls showing him with any type of lead, and probably absolutely no polls which show him ahead of his Democratic challenger by a healthy margin. McCain is unquestionably the underdog in the race, as President Bush is wildly unpopular, Obama has consistently financially out-raised the Arizona Senator, and the Democratic electorate is much more energized now -- and throughout the primaries -- than the GOP side is in supporting McCain. Hence we are not exactly starting out in unlikely terrain -- there is a very good chance McCain is going to lose.

So, what happens next if McCain goes down? One of my favorite expressions is that when you win, all of your successes are blown up to mean more than they really do, and all when you lose, all of your negatives are magnified to mean more than really do. There truly is a wide canyon between winning and losing in anything, and politics is no exception. When Democrats were badly beaten in the 2002 midterms and lost their tenuous Senate majority, the gloom and doom that first reared its ghoulish head after the 2000 fiasco (an election many Democrats expressed in post mortem should never have been close in the first place), came out louder and more despairingly. After George Bush was re-elected in 2004 and the GOP picked up a bushel of Senate seats, the devastation held by Democrats was overpowering with many of them -- this author included -- speculating that the Democratic Party could be dead and out of power for 10 years, a generation, or even permanently. Karl Rove further validated the apparent truth behind these feelings when he crowed that he and Bush were cementing a permanent Republican majority in Federal Government, and the bleating sheep in the media bought this storyline hook, line and sinker.

In reality, Democrats' defeats were not the sign of anything permanent, as 2006 well-proved. Rather, they were individual elections where, for several different and unique reasons, Democrats were badly whipped and the GOP was apparently wildly successful. Thus is the line between winning and losing. But in retrospect, it was not simple. Let's briefly look closely at what transpired in these cycles. In 2000, Al Gore actually won votes than George Bush and lost, as we all know, because he officially fell 537 votes short in Florida. However, what fell under the radar that election was that Democrats did extremely well in the U.S. Senate races. Holding just 46 seats in 2000, Democrats picked up six Senate seats, while losing just two. Tom Carper knocked off longtime incumbent William Roth in Delaware, Bill Nelson beat Bill McCollum in Florida, Mark Dayton smashed conservative incumbent Rod Grams in Minnesota, John Ashcroft lost to a dead man -- Mel Carnahan -- in Missouri, and Debbie Stabenow and the lovely Maria Cantwell barely edged out incumbents Spencer Abraham and Slade Gorton in Michigan and Washington. Also, a then-unknown Democrat named Brian Schweitzer lost a surprisingly close contest to two-term Montana incumbent Conrad Burns. Only one Democratic incumbent -- Chuck Robb -- was defeated (the other lost seat came when John Ensign took the retiring Richard Bryan's slot). Had Al Gore won, it would have been an amazing night for Democrats (Dems also gained a net of one House seat), but because he lost, the Senate gains were an after-thought and basically forgotten.

Similarly, in 2002, the Democrats' losses were not as bad as they seemed. The 50-49 loss in Missouri and the 50-47 loss in Minnesota can be traced to a bizarre series of circumstances: after Senator Paul Wellstone died, a rally held in his honor turned nasty and overly partisan. This rally single-handedly turned the vote in favor of Norm Coleman on election day, and it probably handed Jim Talent his win over Jean Carnahan in the Missouri special election (given how Carnahan had first been sent to Washington after her husband the Governor died in a plane crash, and she was appointed by the sitting Governor). Therefore, the losses were not representative of a sea change.

And Max Cleland's loss in Georgia, as painful and unpleasant as it was for Democrats, was perfectly explainable. Cleland had won by one percent in 1996, and simply faced a hostile conservative electorate with a moderate record. The reprehensible ads by Saxby Chambliss did not help Cleland's cause, and Governor Roy Barnes' pursuit of a possible change to the state flag jacked up rural white turnout against both Barnes and Cleland, but in the end, Georgia had become too red to sustain Cleland electorally.

Cleland's result helps explain the seemingly (and truly) awful results for Democrats two years later. The retirements of popular southern incumbents in Florida (Bob Graham), Georgia (Zell Miller), Louisiana (John Breaux), North Carolina (John Edwards; though admittedly he may well would have lost his seat had he run for re-election), and South Carolina (Fritz Hollings), combined with President Bush's large popularity at the time, spelled doom for the Democrats. These losses were combined, the final stages of the southern political realignment that had begun so many years earlier. Many of the very last southern Democrats who remained popular in their states had decided to retire at the same time, paving the way for Republicans to win a near clean-sweep in what was conveniently a presidential year where a popular incumbent from Texas faced off against an impossible-to-like Massachusetts liberal elitist. Not to mention that Tom Daschle was defeated 51-49 in large part because his opponent had the good fortune of sitting below George W. Bush on the South Dakota ballot.

Sorry to go off on a tangent with these results, but they well demonstrate that as painful as losses were for Democrats in 2000, 2002, and 2004, they were not nearly as damning of the Democratic brand as they seemed at the time. Having a bad loss is one thing, but assigning too much weight to its meaning is quite another. This is the danger that faces any losing party, and it is often hard to fight those base instincts which make you feel compelled to follow them. Unfortunately for the Republicans, it is very likely that if McCain loses, Republicans will fall into this trap themselves; in fact, they already have.

Blaming McCain in the aftermath of a loss is inevitable

In the aftermath of a loss, a good deal of introspection by Republicans is likely in order to determine why Obama defeated McCain. While there will be some GOPers who will correctly attribute Obama's strengths, the culture of corruption which has plagued many high-ranking Republican members of Congress and elsewhere, and President Bush's unpopularity, it is my sense that most Republicans will focus their fire elsewhere: namely, on John McCain. Like with Democrats who blamed Gore and Kerry's personal foibles for their losses, many Republicans will point the finger at McCain on political grounds, arguing that McCain lost because he was not a true Republican or conservative enough. This will be natural. McCain has never, even today, been widely respected by key sectors of the Republican Party who do not trust the Senator for a host of reasons. Furthermore, McCain won mostly because of the fractured GOP primary where Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee ended up splitting the conservative vote to allow McCain to grab key wins in New Hampshire and Florida, thereby effectively sealing the nomination. In the aftermath of his loss, many Republicans will reason that McCain was a bad Republican from the get-go, was unable to rally the GOP base fully behind him like Bush did in 2000 and 2004, and therefore lost to Obama.

Republicans have already begun misreading their 2006 losses

As I noted above, I think that this has already begun, and it began in November 2006 immediately after Democrats won back the House of Representatives and the Senate. Many Republicans have refused to look in the mirror and point the finger at themselves as the culprits for the 2006 results. Instead, we've seen a host of prominent Republicans say that they lost because they had abandoned their fiscal and social core principles over the last 15 years, therefore losing the support of Americans. In Congress, Republicans have until very recently, stuck with President Bush on nearly all issues despite the President's enormous lack of support or standing with most Americans. This is a big mistake, and one that I believe may well continue if McCain were to lose. Given McCain's lack of standing among many stalwart Republicans, it is in fact very likely to occur.

The impulse to blame McCain will be even stronger given the strong likelihood that not only will Republicans fail to win back either house of Congress, but it is probable that they will lose even more seats in 2008. Currently, the map seems to suggest that Democrats will win at least four Senate seats and 10 House seats, but I happen to believe that the numbers will be even higher in favor of Democrats, and could be gigantic if Obama were to score a decisive national victory of five or more points. This will only increase the despair expressed by Republicans immediately following the election, a resignation which will lead many Republicans to support pushing their party even further to the political right.

As an aside, I personally believe that this is exact wrong way to look at things from the losing perspective. The GOP is in such dire straits at this moment, and should they lose, it will be not solely because of McCain, but also because of the direction the nation has gone in in the last several years under President Bush. Among many, many things, the Iraq War has not gone well throughout most of its duration, the nation is in an energy crisis, the dollar has lost tremendous value, and partisanship has reached an apex under Bush.

These are not the rantings of a political fanatic, they are fact, and they are among the many reasons that Democrats succeeded in 2006, and are poised to do so again this November. The 2006 midterms were the result of Bush's failures, and Democrats learning from their past mistakes and adapting. They exploited retirements and whereas in the past they recruited liberals for seats across the county, they wisely recruited moderate and conservative Democrats for red districts. This latter new tact paid off for them handsomely. Republicans should thus glean valuable information these lessons for their own instruction rather then give into the base impulses of political resentment and anger.

Perhaps the most important thing to learn -- and what the Democrats themselves clearly began to understand -- is that elections are won not at the margins, but at the center. President Bush won in 2004, and Republicans scored impressive wins in Congress between 1994 and 2004 because they well-captured those moderate voters in the center. Simply working to appease your base, either right or left, is a recipe that will ultimately create problems. Failure did not occur for Republicans right away, but it ultimately happened because Republicans had staked too much on extreme right wing strategy and policies. When the President -- their national spokesman -- faltered badly, they left themselves wide open, and and the Democrats merely exploited that weakness. They weren't that brilliant; heck they had been flailing and failing cycle after cycle after 1995, but their job was, in a sense, relatively easy by 2006.

The 2006 elections dramatically altered the two parties' make-up by diversifying the Democratic Party and marginalizing the GOP

Yet, these lessons are likely to fall on deaf ears should the GOP suffer spectacular losses in the November elections. Besides what we are already witnessing in terms of rhetoric on the part of GOP congressional leaders, the Republican Party's national membership and leadership is extremely instructive and worthy of close scrutiny. Because there are so few moderate Republicans left in Congress, it is only natural that the GOP will heed the calls of its members to continue moving towards the right instead of towards the center where elections are decided.

Indeed, the 2006 elections were not just disastrous for Republicans because they lost Congress, but also because they signaled perhaps the final decline and banishment of moderates from the GOP's ranks. In 2006, many non-conservatives Members either retired or were ousted across the northeast, leaving just one congressional Republican in all of New England and a handful in the tristate area. Conversely, Democrats continued the process of successfully diversifying their ranks by elected a large number of blue dog Democrats and assorted moderates and conservatives from red districts.

But the proof is in the pudding: to get a better idea of this, I am going to break down all of the congressional districts in the county along PVI (Cook Partisan Voting Index) lines. Let's see how many Republicans sit in Democratic districts and vice-versa.

Republicans in blue districts

D+0 -- Tom Latham (IA-04)

D+1 -- Bill Young (FL-10), Vito Fossella (NY-13)

D+2 -- Heather Wilson (NM-01), Peter King (NY-03), Jim Gerlach (PA-06), Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dave Reichert (WA-08)

D+3 -- Jim Saxton (NJ-03), James Walsh (NY-25)

D+4 -- Mark Kirk (IL-10), Frank LoBiando (NJ-02)

D+5 -- Chris Shays (CT-4)

D+6 --

D+7 -- Mike Castle (DE-AL)

D+8, 9, 10... None

The total comes to 14 Republican members of Congress in districts that have an aggregate Democratic-leaning PVI rating. Several of these Members like Tom Latham and Jim Gerlach have been able to quietly build niches for themselves in Congress, others like Heather Wilson and Chris Shays have been strong campaigners and have barely survived several times, and others still like Bill Young and Jim Saxton have constructed long career for themselves, and are basically unbeatable in their districts. Only two of them come from districts of D+5 or more: Chris Shays and Mike Castle.

These numbers are absolutely pathetic and should be troubling to any Republican. Of these 14, two seats -- Fossella's and Walshs's -- are almost assured of flipping in November, as both men are retiring (Fossella under bad circumstances), and the Democrats have strong nominees in each facing weak GOP opponents. Saxton is retiring, and the Democrats have recruited an excellent nominee (thought the race is a toss-up as the district has unique geographic which could favor the weak GOP nominee). And with Wilson leaving Congress after running for the Senate (and losing her primary), and Kirk, Reichert, and Shays all facing very tough races this year, all of their seats could potentially flip. At an absolute worst case scenario, half of these seats could be gone this time next year. More likely, I see four or perhaps five of them flipping -- still a good results for Dems and a bad one for GOPers. This would leave nine of ten GOP Representatives sitting in Democratic seats out of close to 200 Members in the caucus.

Let's compare the state of the GOP here to that of Democrats in red districts before we draw more substantive conclusions.

Democrats in red districts

R+0 -- Vic Snyder (AR-02), Carol Shea Porter (NH-01)

R+1 -- Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-08), Tim Walz (MN-01), John Hall (NY-19), Michael Arcuri (NY-24), Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Henry Cuellar (TX-28)

R+2 -- Allen Boyd (FL-02), Tim Mahoney (FL-16), Bart Stupak (MI-01)

R+3 -- Jerry McNerney (CA-11), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20), Bob Ethridge (NC-02), Mike McIntyre (NC-07), Jason Altmire (PA-04), Lincoln Davis (TN-04)

R+4 -- Harry Mitchell (AZ-05), Joe Donnelly (IN-02), Dennis Moore (KS-03), Bart Gordon (TN-06), Ciro Rodriguez (TX-23), Steve Kagan (WI-04)

R+5 -- Melissa Bean (IL-08), Bill Foster (IL-14), Charlie Melancon (LA-03), Dan Boren (OK-02)

R+6 -- Bud Cramer (AL-05), John Salazar (CO-03), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Zach Space (OH-18), John Spratt (NC-05), Alan Mollohan (WV-02)

R+7 -- Baron Hill (IN-09), Nancy Boyda (KS-02), Ben Chandler (KY-06), Don Cazayoux (LA-06), Heath Shuler (NC-11), Tim Holden (PA-17), Rick Boucher (VA-09)

R+8 -- Jim Marshall (GA-08), Chris Carney (PA-10)

R+9 -- Brad Ellsworth (IN-09)

R+10 -- Travis Childers (MS-01), Stephanie Herseth (SD-AL)

R+11 -- Ike Skelton (MO-04)

R+12 --

R+13 -- Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL)

R+14 --

R+15 -- Nick Lampson (TX-22)

R+16 -- Gene Taylor (MS-04)

R+17 -- Jim Matheson (UT-02)

R+18 -- Chet Edwards (TX-17)

The total here is a whooping 51 Members in GOP-leaning districts, with an impressive eight of them in seats which are R+10 or more. Try to conceptualize this for a moment. R+10 means that the district averages 10 percentage points higher to the GOP side in presidential elections. Think about that a minute. These are seats that go to the Republican presidential nominee by huge margins. And not all of them have been around forever: Childers was elected this May, Lampson in 2006 (after serving in the House prior to Tom DeLay's redistricting plot redistricted him out of his seat), Herseth-Sandlin in 2004, and Matheson in 2000.

Right off the bat, I acknowledge that several of these individuals won their seats under unique circumstances involving corrupt or otherwise seriously flawed GOP incumbents. This list includes Gillibrand, Space, Cazayoux, Carney, and Lampson. Furthermore, many of these Members -- 18, to be exact -- won in the tidal wave of '06, and therefore, some of them will probably have close races this fall. There is no question that specifically, Shea Porter, Boyda, Cazayoux, Carney, and Lampson are going to have a tough time winning.

But this should not take away from this list broadly illustrates. It speaks volumes to the Democrats' outreach that they have just over 50 Members of their caucus in districts that are Republican, with over half in R+5 or greater districts. This is nothing short of amazing, even if it is partially the product of a rare wave election. Indeed, most of these men and women, even several in the infancy of their career, have already carved out electoral niches for themselves, and face minimal opposition this November. Others like Skelton, Pomeroy, and Edwards are basically unbeatable in enormously Republican districts. Sure, just about all of these seats will be gone when some of these men decide to hang it up, but the fact that they have held on this long says a lot about the political diversity of House Democratic Caucus and the national Democratic Party in general. Further, there are also plenty of Republicans whose districts will promptly turn the year they decide to "spend more time with their families."

Taken together, the 14 vs. 51 number says a great deal about the present state and future direction of the parties. Going further, whereas only two GOP reps have D+5 or greater districts, 28 Democrats are in R+5 or more districts. And I have no even gone into this year's map, where a plethora of Democrats appear even or slightly ahead in red districts.

I realize that the House of Representatives is only one part of each Party's political identity, but it is a very big part. The Democrats have clearly done a better job of reaching out, recruiting, and ultimately electing conservative Members and keeping them in office despite the lean of their respective districts.

The Senate paints a narrower, but similar picture.

Republicans in states won by Gore or Kerry

Iowa -- Charles Grassley

Maine -- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins

Minnesota -- Norm Coleman

New Hampshire -- Judd Gregg and John Sununu

New Mexico -- Pete Dominici

Oregon -- Gordon Smith

Pennsylvania -- Arlen Specter

A total of nine of the current 49 GOP Senators are in states that either Gore or Kerry won. But to be fair, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and arguably Pennsylvania are not deep blue seats. Therefore, I would say that only five of these Senators -- Snowe, Collins, Coleman, Specter and Smith -- represent blue states, as these are the five that were won by both Al Gore and John Kerry. Perhaps not coincidentally, three of them face tough re-election races this year, and there is a very good chance Coleman and Smith could lose.

Onto the Democratic side!

Democrats in states won by Bush in 2000 or 2004

Arkansas -- Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor

Colorado -- Ken Salazar

Florida -- Bill Nelson

Indiana -- Evan Bayh

Iowa -- Tom Harkin

Louisana -- Mary Landrieu

Missouri -- Claire McCaskill

Montana -- Max Baucus and Jon Tester

Nebraska -- Ben Nelson

Nevada -- Harry Reid

New Mexico -- Jeff Bingaman

North Dakota -- Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan

Ohio -- Sherrod Brown

South Dakota -- Tim Johnson

Virgina -- Jim Webb

West Virginia -- Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller

Let's discard Iowa and New Mexico again, as they were split in the two elections. Excluding those two, there are 18 Senators who represent states that President Bush won twice. That is over one-third of the entire caucus. So much for the argument that the caucus is dominated by liberals, huh? I concede that Colorado and Virginia are probably not as red as they once were, but it is tough to dispute that they went GOP in the last two presidential elections.

These Senate comparisons merely reinforce what the House numbers showed. At this point and time, Democrats have done a superior job not just in winning elections in tough terrain -- this is important, but a secondary cog in our broader argument -- but also in building a diverse political organization. And the chasm between the parties will in all likelihood only get wider after this November. Democrats are well positioned to win GOP-held seats in Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, and New Hampshire, and they have good shots in Alaska, Mississippi, North Carolina, Minnesota, Oregon, and Maine. On the House side, with retirements, unusually strong first-term (Democratic) incumbents, and other threatened GOP incumbents running for re-election, the Democrats should win more red districts. Heck, as we discussed in our third post on Wyoming politics, the polls have Gary Trauner, the nominee for the open Wyoming At-Large seat, ahead, and this is a R+19 district .

The state of the GOP following the 2008 elections will likely push the party in the wrong direction, and make rebuilding more difficult

What does this all mean for our broader discussion on the future direction of the national Republican Party should John McCain lose? What these numbers mean is that should McCain lose, the GOP is going to be even more marginalized going in 2009. The GOP will solidify itself as a more right wing party that finds its regional bases in the south and parts of the west, and all but extinct in the northeast and swaths of the Mid-Atlantic region and elsewhere.

This marginalization will in all likelihood lead to what we discussed earlier: the GOP leaders arguing that they should move further to the right in order to win back Congress and the White House. And who exactly would be the minority voices? They will be almost all gone, vanquished from Congress and thus from the national discussion.

Without a doubt, the most reasoned, and probably wisest moderate voice in the GOP in either the House or the Senate is Tom Davis (VA-11). Davis has survived and thrived in a toss-up district because he has been able to pursue a moderate path that appeals to many of his Democratic constituents. One of the nation's smartest political strategists, Davis has been making many of these arguments, and in a now-famous memo to his colleagues in the wake of the GOP's loss in the MS-01 special election in May, Davis argued for the GOP to change its direction, distance itself from Bush, and re-brand itself. Unfortunately for the Republicans, many of whom have always hated Davis precisely for his moderation, Davis is retiring, ironically in part because he was denied the opportunity to run for the Senate by the conservatives who run the Virginia Republican Party. In his place, these far-sighted pooh bahs selected former Governor Jim Gilmore as their man, a nominee who is consistently running over 30 points behind his Democratic challenger.

As we noted above, the only moderates left could be the following men: Tom Latham (he's a quiet back-bencher with no leadership capacity), Bill Young (he is way too old, and a party loyalist anyway), Peter King (another party loyalist), Jim Gerlach (too quiet to lead the party to moderation), Charlie Dent (another backbencher), Frank LoBiando (too quiet, not a leader), Chris Shays (amazingly, too much of a party loyalist in his own right), and Mike Castle (too old, and too liberal for his colleagues). Assuming his survives this fall, only Mark Kirk could be a reasonable leader of the moderate wing of the caucus. But he is a very cautious fellow too, and after all, he is only one man.

Consequently, the GOP is not going have much moderate presence, and few, if any men or women in the caucus, who could conceivably take on a leadership role. I acknowledge that there are some moderate Republicans in those districts that are moderately Republican, such as Rodney Frelinghuysen in New Jersey's 11th District (R+6) and Steve LaTourette in Ohio's 14th District (R+2), to name a couple, but they are also few and far between. Their numbers and ranks combined do not inspire confidence that they could wield great leadership.

Furthermore, it is not even clear that it would matter in the election's immediate aftermath. This will be clear when the caucus moves to elect its leaders. Assuming that GOP losses are great, and I believe that they will be, I would expect Minority Leader John Boehner (OH-08) and Minority Whip Roy Blunt (MO-07) to either not seek their positions again, or be ousted. They were able to survive in 2006 against more conservative true believers in part because they were not in their positions for that long, but they will have no such excuse the second time around. While it is of course foolish to blame either man as a key cause for the party's misfortune at the polls, the Members will be out for blood, and Boehner and Blunt will be in a tough position. In their place, I would expect the party to tap either some of the so-called "Young Guns," a self-named group of young conservative congressmen, or perhaps some other true believers to take control of the caucus leadership.

These internal elections will actually be more important than they might seem to people who don't follow the political inside baseball. If McCain loses, and the GOP is unable to get a majority in either house, the new face of the Republican Party will likely, at least in the short term, be whichever men or women are tapped to head the congressional leadership. They will be the talking heads that the media goes to every time they want a counter-response to a move, comment, or initiative proffered by President Obama. Therefore, they will be the national party's biggest leaders. Consider the last seven years. Who has stood up as the spokespeople for the Democrats to counter Bush initiatives. Before the presidential primary, it was primarily Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle, and when they left Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took their place. The same would happen with a President Obama and a GOP minority in Congress; someone has to be the face of the party.

With that in mind, I would expect the following Members to be contenders for leadership: Eric Canton (VA-07), Adam Putnam (FL-12), Mike Pence (IN-06), Jeb Hensarling (TX-05), John Shadegg (AZ-03), Kevin McCarthy (CA-16), and probably several other ambitious Republicans. Ultimately, I see Cantor as having the inside track to the leadership position. While he has been Blunt's top lieutenant, he won a lot of accolades for not challenging Blunt for the whip job at the start of the Congress, and he is also both decidedly young and conservative enough to garner the respect of his colleagues. It will be interesting to see how men like Pence or Hensarling, two leaders of the uber conservative Republican Study Committee, weigh in. While any of these men would lead very conservatively, the RSC has been outspoken in its belief that the GOP suffered its 2006 losses because it was not conservative enough. I see Hensarling as a little less likely to win the top slot because of his apparent show-boating this year which has riled many of his colleagues. Furthermore, even in the wake of another bad loss, politics is still an establishment game where establishment figures almost always out-distance insurgents in formal affairs. Cantor is both conservative enough and establishment enough to put together enough support.

The implications of this potential change are fairly clear. This kind of leadership will merely work to solidify the changes swept into office in in the 2004/2006/2008 (likely) elections. With someone like Eric Cantor or Mike Pence or Jeb Hensarling as the new key national spokesman of the party, the direction the GOP would go in is pretty clear. The GOP will be a hard-right opposition party where moderates are incredibly marginalized, almost completely non-existent within the national ranks. Clearly, in many respects, this is not new, you may be thinking. After all, the GOP's leadership across the Federal Government has been hard right for years, since 1995 at the least. Totally correct. But when you are in power and control the White House to boot, you lack of internal diversity is easily overlooked and not seen as damaging. It is when you out of power and looking for answers that problems look this become more dangerous, and make getting back into the majority a tougher challenge.

This is to say nothing of where the GOP will turn in 2012 for its nominee to oppose Barack Obama's re-election. With both nearly all prominent moderates gone from the national make-up, and the party smarting from its losses, it is not a stretch to see the GOP nominating a strong conservative standard-bearer. To be sure, it is important to conceptualize the proper context for John McCain today. While he has had a mainly conservative record through his years in Congress, because he lacks the the rhetoric and partisan edge of a good deal of his peers, many Republicans misleadingly and angrily call him a moderate maverick. In reality, McCain is an absolute rarity in the highest circles of the Republican's leadership. In the Senate, while he had a conservative record, he is certainly one of the least conservative GOP Members of the upper chamber, not nearly on the voting level of Senators like John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions, Jim DeMint, his fellow Arizonian Jon Kyl, and others; in other words, he is not a "party man", and as a result, he does not have a perfect party record. This of course has burnished his appeal over the years, and why he has been both able to both maintain a national profile since his loss in 2000 and been able to stay so close to Obama in all the general election polls in what is a putrid national environment for Republican politicians.

What many Republicans and McCain-haters have failed to appreciate is that John McCain is probably the only Republican out there who could have kept the presidential race this close for this long. Just about other name -- Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, et al. -- would be getting pummeled in the polls right now. If McCain pulls it off, it will be because he was able to hold onto the independent voters in the center who value his (perceived) independence on various issues. Sadly, many Republicans do not appreciate this fact, or they choose to ignore it completely. As a result, if McCain loses a pretty close election, many Republicans will still disregard his ultimate performance and focus on those negatives they see.

Conclusion

Of course, I acknowledge that win or lose, the GOP was bound to nominate a conservative standard-bearer; after all, this is the GOP, and they are conservative. Furthermore, McCain is an anomaly, and he won in part because of a fractured primary. I guess the broader point I am trying to make is that McCain's loss combined with the GOP's rightward move in Congress (as demonstrated by its constitution) would make it almost impossible for the party to nominate a non-right-wing candidate in the future. Instead, what is likely is that the Party will look to candidates like Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, or Jon Huntsman. This is not a surprise or even a problem in itself, but when combined with the Party's rightward movement in Congress, it is should be troubling.

Such a movement could risk making the Republican Party a minority party for an extended period of time. Sure, they could win back the White House in four years, or even take back Congress sooner than that, but both would be unlikely. After all, if you take a look at the 2010 Senate map, it is not good for the Republicans either, and in some respects even worse than the map this year is Democrats play their cards right (and if they win big this year and bring back Schumer for a third round at the DSCC, this would not be outside the realm of possibility). With a hard right turn, the GOP will more likely find itself pursuing issues and causes that will more likely alienate than attract moderates and independents in the center of the electorate.

It is for this reason that a McCain loss could very badly damage the Republican Party for years to come. While Barack Obama is pretty liberal, and would attempt to institute policies to that effect, the Democrats' hold on many red districts and Senate seats in red states would well temper Obama's ambitious policy and political goals, and likely lead the new President to chart a more moderate and pragmatic course that is unlikely to harm red state Democrats who could be ousted if they and their party stray too far to the left. Facing a ultra conservative minority in Congress where men like Jeb Hensarling hold sway could only push the GOP further outside of the mainstream. Of course, all of this could change if the Democrats were to fall flat on their faces, or try to over-extend themselves with Obama in charge. Naturally, every one messes up eventually. But assuming that this does not happen right away, the Republicans are going to be a brutal position, one that will worsen depending on how far to the right they may move. The future is not bright, though I am not going to foolish make a Rovian declaration that the Republican Party would be a permanent minority, as in American politics there is no such thing in a two-party system.