Question for today: If the GOP — the Senate GOP that is, we have yet to see what Bush will do — becomes the enemy of the auto industry, doesn’t that freeze the party out of the Frost Belt for some time to come?

And, from a libertarian perspective, isn’t that good news?

If the GOP forecloses a South-Plains-Industrial-Midwest strategy (call it the Douthat strategy), based on social conservatism and economic populism, doesn’t that force it back toward a South-West strategy (call it the Sager strategy), based on economic liberty and cultural federalism?

(Of course, in the near term, it could just mean losing the West, Northeast, and Industrial Midwest. And, thus, just flat-out losing — some might also call this the Sager strategy, or Sagerism.)

This thread at Hot Air, in response to my why-we-lost and how-we-get-back column, makes for some instructive reading for those invested in this debate. Most of the major threads of conservative thought on why we lost the election can be found here. The “McCain was too much of a liberal” thread (incorrect). The “Sarah Palin is an awesome libertarian” thread (also incorrect). And, then, the “what the f–k is Sager smoking, Bloomberg is not a libertarian” thread.

OK, that last one isn’t a major thread in the post-election analysis. But it’s the one I want to address, since I threw out the name.

Here’s a post on that topic:

Okay, unlike others in the Republican party, I’m willing to throw the social conservatives and the evangelicals under the bus if that’s the only way to elect a free market, strong-on-defense president.

So Ryan Sager has labored mightily in his own mind and brought forth as a suggestion …Michael Bloomberg??!! What is this guy smoking? (Not cigarettes, obviously, since he’s a fan of Bloomberg and lives in New York.) Do I need to even remind anyone that this is a high-tax, high-spending, pro rent control, pro-regulation, pro gun control, nanny stater? And he’s a life long Democrat. Wow, I don’t think that Princeton education did Sager much good. And Mr. Sager, you think Bloomberg is doing such a great job in NYC. Similar to what Frum asks about Palin, let’s see what kind of a job he does in an economy with tax revenues from Wall Street completely drying up. It’s going to make being governor of Alaska (with the falling oil prices) look like a cake walk!

This is truly the stupidest column I’ve ever read, but maybe Allah or somebody smart like that can explain it to me.

First off, I didn’t go to Princeton, so perhaps that explains my idiocy. Second, I’m not going to argue with anyone who says Mike Bloomberg isn’t a libertarian. Point conceded. But here’s why I use his name for a stand-in for what I’m talking about…

At base, this is probably a pretty similar case as to why I (and a lot of other libertarian-ish types) would support Rudy Giuliani for the GOP nomination — or, at least, would have in 2007-2008. There are very few politicians out there with anything like a libertarian profile who are in any position to run for president. (Folks can make the case about Sarah Palin, but she did not appeal to the libertarian part of the GOP base at all during the election; she was, you may remember, lying about opposing the Bridge to Nowhere, and she’s based what little appeal she has to anyone almost solely on her pro-life and pro-small-town, anti-big-city Jews — err, I mean, “media elite” — credentials. No sale as far as I’m concerned.) Given that, the available menu of candidates is, shall we say, a bit short.

So, what does a libertarian go looking for? In short, someone who is a fiscal conservative and a social liberal.

Let’s go back to Giuliani: check and check. I think, over the course of the primary campaign, however, he went way too far in trying to out-anti-immigrant Mitt Romney; he also sold out his support of civil unions in an attempt to out-social-conservative Mitt Romney, and he threw in his foreign-policy lot with the most extreme neoconservatives. I’m not saying I’d never consider him again. But I’m interested in a thorough search for who else might be out there.

And, so, this brings me to Bloomberg. Again, not a libertarian. Smoking ban: bad. Trans fat ban: bad. Anti-gun lawsuits: bad. His fiscal policy? There, despite some relatively minor tax increases, I’d still call him a fiscal conservative. He’s pulled us through some tight budget times with a minimum of pain. Overall, a pretty admirable job on the fiscal front, so far; we’ll see what happens going forward. On education, he’s not been supportive of vouchers, unfortunately, but he’s been heroic in his support of charter schools. On social issues, like abortion and gay marriage — well, he shares my positions; I wouldn’t expect much of the Republican base to like them. On foreign policy, he’d probably be a lot more internationalist than, say, Bush or McCain. Again, I’m fine with this — tough sell to the base.

Of course, a real-life Bloomberg run probably wouldn’t have to go through the Republican base. It would likely be a third party run. And, if successful, such a run could put an end to the GOP.

I wish there were a strong, libertarian-type candidate out there — especially one with the right cultural profile. As in: western. A Republican Brian Schweitzer. Of course, the fact that the GOP has no such candidate is just one of many symptoms of how and why we’re utterly and totally screwed. (ed: You just described Palin! She’s a biblical literalist who hates everyone from a place with a population north of 10,000! She’s not going to win us back an increasingly urban Colorado, for instance! Get the hell back to Kaus’s blog!)

Given the reality we’re faced with, I don’t think anyone ought to turn up his or her nose at Bloomberg just yet. That said, I’m not trying to drive the Bloomberg bandwagon, here. I’m describing a type. Other suggestions are more than welcome. And, of course, 2012 isn’t exactly right around the corner. But I can’t help myself!

McCain’s loss, of course, means that it’s now time for recriminations, back-biting, and arguments about the way forward. I look forward to getting into all that over the coming days and weeks and months. But for now, my quick take: We’ve arrived at the Southern-centric Republican Party I warned of in my book (George Will: “The South is beginning to look less like the firm foundation of a national party than the embattled redoubt of a regional one.”). Now, the GOP can either pull out of this downward spiral or not.

It’s way too early to get a sense of which way things will go, but let’s just say it’s less than encouraging that this Rasmussen survey finds Sarah Palin topping the list of Republicans’ choices for president in 2012 — with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney coming in behind her.

It’s way too early for 2012 speculation (though, man would that feel good). But if die-hard Republicans are unable to get over their (in many cases creepily sexual) infatuation with Palin — and are unable to understand what makes her so repulsive to non-die-hard Republicans — it will be a long four years.

Not too long a wait in Brooklyn Heights, depending on when you went and in which district you voted. I got in and out in about an hour. Other folks, at the same polling place but in another election district, had been there for three hours. One very patient poll worker was doing a heroic job holding it all together.

Heavy turnout, I suppose. But it’s not any great mystery for whom my neighbors (and I) were voting; nor is it any great mystery what color New York will turn tonight — other than perhaps purple-with-rage if Obama loses.

The real mysteries lie elsewhere. One reader writes in:

“Revisiting America’s Purple Mtns.” was right on the money. It is truer today than 2 1/2 years ago when it was written. The Republican Party needs a major overhaul and to re-establish it’s libertarian ideology of the past. But how could a libertarian vote for Obama? I know of some who have. In the wake of what I believe will be an overwhelming GOP defeat tomorrow, there will be an opportunity to take the party back from the religious right. I have discussed this with many staunch Republicans and have yet to find one who is even remotely satisfied with the direction of their Grand Ol’ Party. Failure to do so will doom the GOP to more future failures, especially in the Mountain West.

Sincerely,

Mark Mahlum

Bayfield, Co.

We’ll see what color everything turns when the dust settles. While it could be an early election night for some (if Pennsylvania stays in the Obama column, as expected, that’s pretty much game, set, match; if Virginia goes blue, too, strike up the band), I’m going to be very interested to see what happens west of the Bush belt (Texas to North Dakota).

Have New Mexico and Colorado already won the election for Barack Obama?

Maybe that’s taking things a little far, but if he wins those states (and he’s got a big edge in early voting locked down), McCain has to win Pennsylvania (extremely unlikely) — but even with Pennsylvania, Obama would still likely take it back with Nevada, Virginia, and Iowa.

But, who knows? Maybe Drudge is right, and it’s time to welcome out new Maverick overlords.

This election season, I’ve found the polling site 538 invaluable, both as a source of electoral projections and as a corrective to whatever random poll Matt Drudge decides to unwarrantedly hype day-to-day. So, I wasn’t surprised to see an insightful article from 538’s Nate Silver turn up at The New Republic: “How the West Was Lost.”

Now, of course, that’s lost by the GOP. And I believe Nate is more on the Obama side of things. So, really maybe that should be how the West was won (at least from a left-leaning perspective)? Nonetheless, given that the GOP has alienated the region more than the Democrats have won it over, I suppose the title makes sense. And I’ll just stop talking about it.

Anyway…

Having written in my book about the changes in the Interior West, I’ve hardly been surprised this year to see the region emerge as the second battleground, after the more traditional battleground, the Midwest. And the Interior West is an important battleground, because as I’ve noted ad nauseum, even if McCain wins every other Bush 2004 state (cough), CO, NM, and NV alone would throw the election to the Democrats. And, behold, Obama leads in all three — comfortably in CO and NM, where he’s led all year, and narrowly in NV.

Silver notes a couple of the important reasons things have shaken out this way. Folks have been moving from both coasts to the Interior West at a steady clip, transplanting their blue selves into traditionally red states. And, more Hispanic voters are in these states every year (which is a “blue” trend, even if McCain has bucked his base on immigration).

What Silver leaves out is the religious factor. The Interior West has far fewer Evangelicals than the Republican Party’s solid southern states (around 30% in each of the Interior West states versus ~60-70% in the Southern ones). This has meant that Interior West voters are far less attached to today’s Republican Party than their southern counterparts. See, for instance, this chart from Pew, showing how various religious denominations have been behaving this election cycle. While Evangelicals seem to have been unaffected, politically, by the financial crisis, mainline Protestants have switched from advantage McCain by 10 points to advantage Obama by (currently) 5 points.

For all the talk about Florida, Ohio, and even Pennsylvania in these final days, this election was over as soon as McCain wasn’t able to hold onto the states in his own back yard.

How exactly did the “Maverick” lose the ability to hold on to his own back yard? Let’s just say it has something to do with the campaign he’s run. It’ll be time soon enough for post-election recriminations.

I can’t wait.