The GOP's Post-Election Summit

Jonathan Martin over at Politico has a good read today on some of the Republican Party's post-election plans immediately after November 4:

Two days after next week's election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement's most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.

The meeting will include a "who's who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.

The decision to waste no time in plotting their moves in the post-Bush era reflects the widely-held view among many on the right, and elsewhere, that the GOP is heading toward major losses next week.

I am sure we will all be eagerly awaiting what they determine, though I really believe that that result is somewhat pre-ordained: Many Republicans will claim McCain lost because he was not a true conservative. Martin quotes a sources who seems to suggest the same outcome:

"There's a sense that the Republican Party is broken, but the conservative movement is not," said this source, suggesting that it was the betrayal of some conservative principles by Bush and congressional leaders that led to the party's decline.

This is something we are going to be keenly interested in in the post-election days, weeks, and months, and I think a big part the magnitude of what happens will be determined by just how large the party's losses are. However, I have little question that many Republicans, including the de-facto head of the conservative moment in America, Rush Limbaugh, are pushing their party in the absolute wrong direction if future lasting success is their goal. Little demonstrates this better than what wil apparently be the heavy deferrence given to Sarah Palin in defeat:

Either way, Sarah Palin will be a central part of discussion.

If the Arizona senator wins, the discussion will feature much talk of, "How do we work with this administration?" said the attendee, an acknowledgement that conservatives won't always have a reliable ally in the Oval Office.

Under this scenario, Palin would be seen as their conduit to power. “She would be the conservative in the White House,” is how the source put it.

Should McCain lose next Tuesday, the conversation will include who to groom as the next generation of conservative leaders – a list that will feature Palin at or near the top.

First of all, if McCain does find a way to win, what makes these guys think Palin is just going to be "their gal" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Haven't they been reading the papers? Sarah is not looking out for anyone but herself. Then again, maybe she will further ingratiate herself with GOP heads to bolster her future, whether her goals can be realized in 2012 or 2016.

Second, as the Limbaugh monologue we highlighted shows, many conservatives will have nothing but warm feelings for Palin, even in the face of a brutal loss next week. Now, as I said earlier, Palin's future is going to be determined by the narrative that immediately comes out of the election, specifically, who is going to get blamed for a McCain loss. If the narrative were to focus on Palin's selection as a negative turning point in the GOP campaign, then her star will continue to fall.

However, this article is yet more proof that the narrative has already been written, at least in terms of the one that will come out of the conservative wing of the GOP. To their own future detriment, many Republicans appear that they will be ready and willing to turn over the keys of to their party and the direction of their own political future to Governor Palin.

How party operatives, many of them with a wealth of institutional knowledge and years of political experience would do this is beyond me. Sarah Palin is not a seminal figure who can appeal to groups across the electorate. If she ever was, that last for the first few weeks after she became a national figure, and it is long gone. Palin's numbers with independents is garbage. She is also not terribly bright or intellectually curious. Sorry. She is not an individual you want to hang a party's future on. Yet, there are clearly going to be plenty of people who feel differently. How loud their voices are will play a huge part in determining whether the GOP will be in the wilderness for five years, or 20.