Where does the GOP go from here?

[Blart]

Originally Posted by Taco John

well geez... If Mother Jones doesn't endorse Rand Paul, what hope does he possily have?

I think you GREATLY underestimate Rand Paul's appeal across every demographic.

I'm pretty sure saying you'd vote against civil rights is going to lose you one, maybe two votes beyond MJ readers. Supporting Todd Akin to the bitter end might lose you a couple more.


I know the guy you really want:

Ted Cruz, aka Republican Obama.

Son of a Cuban immigrant.

He frequently name-drops Ron Paul and Milton Friedman in campaign speeches.

He started early. His father sent him to a private, right-wing school, where teachers assigned books from Ludwig von Mises, Frédéric Bastiat and Murray Rothbard. He was the star student.

Cruz went on to Princeton, where he amassed countless trophies on the debate team while crushing liberal adversaries, then went on to Harvard Law, where he worked on expanding the ideas of the founder's Natural Law.


If the GOP wants to double-down on the tea party, Cruz is their man.

[frerottenextelway]

It may take a decade, but the next party to challenge the Democrats on a national stage will come from the left, whatever it may be called.

[baja]

Originally Posted by Blart

Latinos. Young women. Highly educated whites.

These groups are getting bigger and more powerful each election, and they don't particularly like Republicans.

Will the GOP become more moderate to accommodate the new electorate, or will they dig in their heels and go full-on Tea Party in 2014/16?

There is no segment in America that needs a third party more than the Republicans. It's the only way they survive in any recognizable way. Their only chance is to fracture the base of the Dems and get back to being the consecutive party.

[frerottenextelway]

If you want to get even less of a growing minority, Rand Paul is the answer. It will be Jindal in 2016, who is at least sane. The Dems, who knows...

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by frerottenextelway

It may take a decade, but the next party to challenge the Democrats on a national stage will come from the left, whatever it may be called.

I was hoping for less spending. Oh well, lets all get government jobs. The times are a-changin'

[frerottenextelway]

Originally Posted by Arkie

I was hoping for less spending. Oh well, lets all get government jobs. The times are a-changin'

Government jobs keep shrinking & private sector jobs are growing, but good luck, at least many are unionized so you won't get fd over if you get one!

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by Blart

I'm pretty sure saying you'd vote against civil rights is going to lose you one, maybe two votes beyond MJ readers.

Not really too worried about the re-trying of the Civil Rights issue. Especially once it gets out that Rand Paul will pardon all non-violent drug offenders - which is the real civil rights issue of our time (that so many of today's modern "civil rights" "champions" seem to ignore).

Ted Cruz, aka Republican Obama.

Ted Cruz will be leaned on heavily for the Rand Paul 2016 campaign.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Wow, this is groundbreaking stuff. By looking at this graph you'd almost think that Winners of an election get a higher percentage of votes than losers of an election.

Thanks for letting us know how that graph looks through those fact and arithmetic-blocking sunglasses the right used to call the election for RobMe.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by frerottenextelway

If you want to get even less of a growing minority, Rand Paul is the answer. It will be Jindal in 2016, who is at least sane. The Dems, who knows...

I find the assumption that the Right wants to lean more toward sanity humorous and kind of touching, in a hopelessly naive sort of way.

At any rate, the Dems are just as ethically bankrupt as the Republicans. They have learned, faster than the Right, how to cater to the minimum required of the electorate to get elected without bringing real change to the table. They'll probably be rewarded with more special interest bucks.

Like people with real political knowledge keep trying to point out, Obama is not much different than Eisenhower, or Nixon. In other words, by electing Obama, we're not moving forward, we're sliding backwards, but in a comfortable, let's not rock the boat too much, kind of fashion. Of course, that's an improvement over the Right's "Every man for himself" ethos.

What this country needs, not now, more like ten years ago, is real change. Obviously, our economical model doesn't work. Our energy model doesn't work. Our political model doesn't work. Our health care model doesn't work. Our foreign policy paradigms are antiquated. Our social systems are bankrupt. And all this **** is worldwide. Civilization is not addressing its problems. Mankind is in denial.

Hell, the biggest problems facing mankind, population and climate change, aren't even on the table for discussion. The first word I heard out of the candidates regarding climate change was a single sentence in Obama's acceptance speech.

[Bronco Yoda]

The uneducated angry evangelical white voter is a drug that the GOP will not be able resist. And there is still enough of this drug out there to party like it 1899.

Fear and hate is a powerful control mechanism. Once they started down this dark side years ago... it was only a matter of time.

[Dudeskey]

Put simply, the GOP needs to at least go back to the principals of Goldwater and actually stick to them. Which means they need to distance themselves from the religious nutjobs and stick to their principals of individual liberty and fiscal responsibility. None of this authortarian crap where they're pushing their values on the rest of the country.

[ZONA]

Originally Posted by ScottXray

if the GOP continues along the road they have been on, they
will become more and more irrelevant...You correctly identified
that the electorate is changing and moderation is what is needed in the future.

Rush and the extreme right have driven the GOP positions
over the last 12 years, with more and more emphasis on social
issues ( abortion, gay marriage etc) that are generally dismissed
by most moderates...and which is where the country as a whole is headed.

Most people really don't care about gay marriage, in fact think that gays
should be afforded the same status as heterosexual couples. Although they
don't want gays to be considered "normal" behavior, they don't want to see them punished for being so.

By playing to the RTL/anti gay side they are distancing themselves from the average persons position, and alienating women in most cases.

In this election the only position they can really attack Obama on with the average middle class voter is the economy, and they have to convince them that the fault of the economy is wholly his, despite the fact that there is significant evidence that he has made significant progress overcoming a near depression level economic disaster, that he INHERITED at the start of his term, and mostly without any help from a congress that seems to want to play politics and not solve anything.. If they have been able to convince enough of the independent electorate that its Obamas fault, they can win today.

Assuming they have not and Obama wins it will be interesting to see if the Congress can finally decide to actually accomplish anything, or if the bickering and games continue. If so there will be wholesale movement to throw EVERYONE out in 2014, and a third party may be able to emerge at last.

Yeah, I agree. I think Rush and the other extreme wack jobs really influence too many people in to having to take those same positions just to get anywhere in the party really hurt them. Exit polls showed just 20% of Americans think the Tea Party is a good thing. So the faster they can shut Rush and others up, stop taking stupid pledges before they are even a candidate, they have a chance. Otherwise, no way.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Bronco Yoda

The uneducated angry evangelical white voter is a drug that the GOP will not be able resist....

The GOP simply cannot survive without those folks.

Take them out of the equation, and the party ceases to exist.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"I can't quit you..."

[TonyR]

Originally Posted by Blart

I know the guy you really want:

Ted Cruz, aka Republican Obama.

Son of a Cuban immigrant.

I think it's almost guaranteed that their will be a minority GOP candidate in the mix in 2016. They'll either have to go moderate or minority, and the latter is probably more likely than the former.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by TonyR

I think it's almost guaranteed that their will be a minority GOP candidate in the mix in 2016. They'll either have to go moderate or minority, and the latter is probably more likely than the former.

An attempt to put a minority on the ticket will be so transparent that it will probably blow up in their faces - just like their efforts to appeal to women voters with Palin.

[TonyR]

Idiot George Will (who I used to like), who predicted a Romney landslide, is now saying Rubio is the solution ( http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...ts_winner.html ). Some guys at The American Conservative are pushing back:

T]he premature elevation of Rubio as frontrunner for 2016 is precisely the wrong strategy for building a Republican majority. Rubio is young and charismatic. But he’s a vocal supporter of the Bush-era policies that voters have twice rejected, especially on foreign policy. One lesson of this election is that Americans do not want another war. I doubt their appetite for confrontation will increase over the next four years.

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...ore-bad-advice

The bigger flaw in that statement from Will is the assumption that this is something to be fixed by nominating the right sort of person, as if a party’s demographic appeal depended mainly on the personal history of its presidential candidates or other political leaders. If a party has little or nothing relevant to say to a certain constituency or group, the people at the top of the party won’t make any difference.

http://www.theamericanconservative.c...not-the-answer

[TheElusiveKyleOrton]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Not really too worried about the re-trying of the Civil Rights issue. Especially once it gets out that Rand Paul will pardon all non-violent drug offenders - which is the real civil rights issue of our time (that so many of today's modern "civil rights" "champions" seem to ignore).






Ted Cruz will be leaned on heavily for the Rand Paul 2016 campaign.

I don't know... seems like civil rights such as gay marriage (or at least civil unions) is "the" civil rights issue. But I guess now we have to divide and conquer every question for some reason.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Bush single-handedly hosed the GOP brand for generations to come.

Prior to Bush, the GOP had done an effective job of hoodwinking the electorate with Reagan's fake populism, etc., but Bush, with his brazen "yeah, I'm a crook who uses government power to serve the interests of the plutocrats - what are you gonna do about it?" administration, allowed America to get a good look at "the man behind the curtain," so to speak.

Without making some fairly radical, structural changes to its core principles and philosophy, the GOP's only remaining recourse will be to find new and improved ways to deceive voters into believing the party is something it's not.

That's going to be as difficult as it would be for the guy who broke into your house, robbed you blind, and allowed his buddies to run a train on you to disguise himself well enough to get you to let him through the front door again.

[Blart]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Not really too worried about the re-trying of the Civil Rights issue. Especially once it gets out that Rand Paul will pardon all non-violent drug offenders - which is the real civil rights issue of our time (that so many of today's modern "civil rights" "champions" seem to ignore).

The left ignores racial disparity in the enforcement of drug laws? I wonder what the "Fair Sentencing Act" Obama signed was about.

If that's how you think a majority of people will look at a man - in 2012 - who thinks Woolworths had a right to refuse blacks because "founders" and "property!" then by all means, nominate away.

You may be correct - the GOP might go extreme with a Rand Paul / Ted Cruz / Tea Party nomination, but I don't think you represent the current GOP majority. The majority that nominated a moderate, who was once pro-choice, pro-healthcare, and not afraid to work with Democrats.

Some other issues with the Tea Party 2016 idea:

Exit polls showed Tea Party favorability at 21%.

Romney's biggest rise in polls came when Etch-a-Sketched into a moderate in the Denver debate, where he said he'd increase Medicare spending, wouldn't cut taxes on the rich, would force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, etc. You may be viewing politics from inside a paleocon bubble.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

An attempt to put a minority on the ticket will be so transparent that it will probably blow up in their faces - just like their efforts to appeal to women voters with Palin.

I really expect to see the GOP rehabilitating Jeb Bush and putting him into prominence in the party over the next four years. He speaks fluent Spanish and his wife was born in Mexico. The Latino vote is very conservative on many social issues and the more conservative among them could be split off from the Dems as long as comprehensive immigration reform is still not hanging out there. That's why I expect the GOP to push through an immigration reform bill quickly (and tell the fringies to go stick it). They have to start pushing the fringe out of the party if they hope to win a general election.

Of course, I thought for sure they would run Huntsman against Obama, and look what they did. Maybe expecting "reason" out of the Right is just not realistic?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

I really expect to see the GOP rehabilitating Jeb Bush and putting him into prominence in the party over the next four years. He speaks fluent Spanish and his wife was born in Mexico. The Latino vote is very conservative on many social issues and the more conservative among them could be split off from the Dems as long as comprehensive immigration reform is still not hanging out there. That's why I expect the GOP to push through an immigration reform bill quickly (and tell the fringies to go stick it). They have to start pushing the fringe out of the party if they hope to win a general election.

Of course, I thought for sure they would run Huntsman against Obama, and look what they did. Maybe expecting "reason" out of the Right is just not realistic?

The catch 22 is that the fringe has become the mainstream where the GOP voter base is concerned.

If the rethugs move in a direction that appeals to immigrants, then they lose every state that went for RobMe in this election. Then they're left with the impossible odds of turning enough blue states red to change the electoral map to their advantage.

[Blart]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Of course, I thought for sure they would run Huntsman against Obama, and look what they did. Maybe expecting "reason" out of the Right is just not realistic?

I think you're closer to being right in your last paragraph. Old Dude made some good points, but I think he's forgetting who runs the show.

Electorate data is nothing but hard, factual evidence. How does Roger Ailes usually respond to that stuff?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Blart

I think you're closer to being right in your last paragraph. Old Dude made some good points, but I think he's forgetting who runs the show.

Electorate data is nothing but hard, factual evidence. How does Roger Ailes usually respond to that stuff?

When the GOP decided to get in bed with the evangelicals and the racist goobers, little did they know it would be "'til death do we part."

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

The catch 22 is that the fringe has become the mainstream where the GOP voter base is concerned.

If the rethugs move in a direction that appeals to immigrants, then they lose every state that went for RobMe in this election. Then they're left with the impossible odds of turning enough blue states red to change the electoral map to their advantage.

I don't know about that. I think this election was a slap upside the head. The message, loud and clear, "If you stick with the extremists, you're going down with the extremists." Boehner just said, during an interview, that he now considers Obamacare the "law of the land" and he doesn't intend to launch any more efforts to overturn it. If ever there was a shot across the bow of the Tea Party, that was it.

Chuck Todd was saying yesterday that if the Republicans don't figure out how to reconnect with a broader base, they are going to face every presidential election with the Dems sitting on 242 electoral votes before the contest even starts.