2008 or 2016?

is the GOP had someone warm in the pen for the next cycle. I know this will bother the various Huckabee and Romney fans out there, but we are not in a comparable position. 

 ....and the economy tanks, were done in 2012. As in, done big time, till the 2020's. No Bobby Jindal, no Condi Rice, no Charlie Crist. We'll be exiled and out of power for a long, long time. 

The problem with McCain is getting him to proceed with pro-growth policies that will lead Republicans back to the promised land.

Especially when the stakes are so high. The stakes are always high for presidential elections. Many figured Bill Clinton would be a 1 termer; however, the Republican congress stopped much of the damaging legislation & that, coupled with a relatively weak candidate in Dole, led to 2 terms for Clinton & great damage to our intelligence & national security apparatus. Look at the damage caused by 4 years of Carter & a Democrat congress. McCain is not perfect; however, he is exponentially better for the country than Obama.

Senator Obama has demonstrated an ability to understand the long term consequences of his policy proposals such as open borders and unlimited immigration will benefit public sector employees and benefit the Democratic party.  However, Senator McCain has repeatedly demonstrate that his is both too stupid to understand the imapcts of his policy decisions and too lazy to try to learn about the impacts of his policy decisions.

Ask yourself this, could a Gore Administraiton been as stupid and as incompetent as the Bush Administration has been?  To argue that a Repubicans Administration would be good for the economy is contradicted by the Bush Adminsitration from 2001 to 2006.  McCain would probably run up the same high budget deficits as the Bush Administraiton, would open the borders more and would try to micromanage the economy with the same group of incompetent staffers that now run the Bush Administration.

It is time for conservatives to put an end to the incompetence that Republicans in Washington seem overjoyed to display. Voting for McCAin is a vote to continue the incompetence.

. . .perhaps?  Placing "holds" on them?  That's very temporary.  And, even then, of course, you hand the Democrats the "obstructionist" cudgel, which they will use with supreme glee against a Republican minority trying to thwart the will of "our first black president" who is fighting so hard to bring real change and hope to the American people who are tired of the partisan gamesmanship of the Bush era and want their government to go to work for them, instead of the powerful special interests in Washington.

I'm beginning to suspect that the emo-cons haven't given much thought to this process at all.

The biggest external event I see missing from the above is what happens on the watch of either Obama, or McCain is a large scale disruption to the energy supply.

Like Iran cutting off supplies in retribution for sanctions.  Or any number of oil producers teetering into civil war.

Also to consider, the next BIG terrorist attack.

Either of these could easily push us into another recession.

. . .were never in anyone's bag of tricks until Bush started nominating judges.

As for who cares whether they say Republicans are being obstructionists, there's an easy answer for that: voters.  And, once the Democrats exploit the meme effectively -- and it'll be fairly easy given that they'll be fighting on behalf of the walking, talking hope machine and America's first black president -- the Republican minority in Congress gets even smaller.  In fact, there's a better-than-even chance that it'll be so small that it will be absolutely powerless to stop anything an Obama administration decides to push through -- even more so after redistricting.

Your take on McCain's likelihood to appoint liberal judges as opposed to Obama's likelihood is sort of like going out to dinner with a couple of known coprophiliacs and a couple of mutual acquaintances and saying, "I'll just have whatever you guys are having."  And then, offering to foot the bill.

. . .fall into a larger narrative of obstruction.  Voters don't sit around and say, "Gee, that Judge Reinhold would have been great on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the Republicans in Congress blocked his nomination.  To the ramparts!!!"

The Democrats will highlight every area in which the Republicans have obstructed popular legislation and appointments across the board, and use it as a means to browbeat the GOP for failing to enact the agenda of our first black president who was elected to bring the much-needed changes after the past eight years of partisan rancor.

And, again, there will be redistricting to deal with -- which is a guaranteed further loss of seats, on top of the loss of Republican seats that is inevitable in this cycle.

I think most conservatives here understand your point, Patrick. 

Obama winning the Presidency isn't going to magically put the Republicans in charge of the country.  We actually could be in the wilderness for a long time.   I could see a very plausible scenario where oil prices fall dramatically (similar to the housing bubble), the US leaves Iraq under good terms because we're currently on the cusp of victory, and the housing market works through its current funk all in the next year  or two DESPITE Obama's policies.  Then Republicans are really screwed.  The most left-wing President in U.S. history gets credit for "fixing" America, similar to how Clinton got credit for America's economic prosperity in the 1990's.

I put my country ahead of my party and idelogy.  Trying to get the better candidate to lose in the hope that the country will go to hell is wrong, plain and simple.  Especially when we're in the midst of a war.  It's similar to the Democrats hoping America suffers a humiliating defeat in Iraq in order to help their electoral chances.

There are better ways to cure the Republican party than destroying the country.  It's kind of like saying you should cheat on your wife if you're having problems in your marriage, because only once you have destroyed the marriage can you fix it.  It makes no sense and is needlessly destructive.