Duke: The appointment of Sarah Palin should dispel any and all doubts as to the intentions of the Republican Party. That was pandering, pure and simple, and any attempts to claim otherwise is bulls**t.

The stalwarts of the Right are making no attempt to dress that move up as anything other than what it is, a shameless ploy to garner what now constitutes the “loyalist” vote for the GOP: un- or under-educated evangelicals who will blindly do as they’re told by a political machine built to maintain nothing other than power.

This isn’t Reagan’s party; it isn’t Goldwater’s party; s**t it ain’t even Nixon or Ford’s party.

I won’t be voting for either of these two clowns come November.

I agree with Gandalf’s sentiment that we have entered a new and dangerous phase in our history and we need to move past “wedge issues” and the “culture wars” and “identity politics” and realize that we are standing on the edge of the abyss.