Where does the GOP go from here?

[bronc_fan23]

Originally Posted by Blart

This isn't 1980, it's not even 2004. The electorate is much different. Who would Rand Paul attract, aside from white men?

People who want to end foreign wars, end drone attacks on innocent civilians, end the Patriot Act, end NDAA, rapidly end the war on drugs, who want a choice when it comes to health care, those who want economic freedom, those who want to balance the budget and get out of debt, the list goes on.

Mitt Romney wins tonight with the Ron Paul block, that much is clear.

The Ron Paul people weren't going to vote for the war mongering, drug warrior, big spender and current President Barack Obama, and they sure weren't going to vote for the sleazy liberal from Massachusetts, so the votes were split between votes for Gary Johnson (over a million votes) and write ins for Ron Paul.

[bronc_fan23]

Originally Posted by Taco John

The 4 liberty candidates who ran all won tonight, if that gives you any idea about the Republican path forward...

Taco, you and I both know that Republicans and Democrats are one in the same, they need to get put in their place and exposed for the crony-capitalist and war mongers that they are.

We can only hope these liberty candidates make noise against big spending and continued foreign entanglement.

Liberty won in many states tonight, and we have a clear goal in 2016.

[Blueflame]

Roughly 50% of the American voting population is female... the Republican party cannot continue with their patronizing and draconian attitudes toward 50% of the electorate and expect to win at the polls. The party must distance itself from the more extreme Tea Party positions... such as "legitimate rape" and the entirely ludicrous notion that the female body has ways of rejecting pregnancy if the woman is "really" raped... or that a pregnancy resulting from rape is "God's plan" and the rapist's seed a "gift" from God to the rape victim. If they don't pay attention to what the electorate said today re: Akin and Mourdock, then it's a huge voter demographic that they'll continue to alienate.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Blueflame

Roughly 50% of the American voting population is female... the Republican party cannot continue with their patronizing and draconian attitudes toward 50% of the electorate and expect to win at the polls. The party must distance itself from the more extreme Tea Party positions... such as "legitimate rape" and the entirely ludicrous notion that the female body has ways of rejecting pregnancy if the woman is "really" raped... or that a pregnancy resulting from rape is "God's plan" and the rapist's seed a "gift" from God to the rape victim. If they don't pay attention to what the electorate said today re: Akin and Mourdock, then it's a huge voter demographic that they'll continue to alienate.

QFT.

Does anyone really believe the voters who are most loyal to the GOP are going to suddenly and magically reject the attitudes described above and recognize women as equals between now and 2016?

If so, then you better get some "hope and change" of your own!

[Old Dude]

I've been around the block enough times to know that you never write off a major party.

The GOP got 48% of the popular vote and they overwhelmingly control the House. Not sure, but I think they picked up some governorships.

They aren't going away.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Jekyll15Hyde

I am just commenting on the calls the reason that he lost was he wasnt conservative enough. If that becomes the prevailing school of thought, then it is a step backwards. Given how the right thinks about things, I suspect this will be the case.

Both men were compromise candidates. Not anywhere near the right wing of the party. People who can't recognize that are usually just pseudo-independents. They like to think of themselves as flexible but at the end of the day they're just following labels.

[Jekyll15Hyde]

Originally Posted by BroncoBeavis

Both men were compromise candidates. Not anywhere near the right wing of the party. People who can't recognize that are usually just pseudo-independents. They like to think of themselves as flexible but at the end of the day they're just following labels.

You are also failing to realize that it was the influence from the ultra-right that blew it for him. His primary positions were extremist - and he had to to get out of there - and his VP choice was FAR right. Just because he backed away from them towards the end doesnt mean he is a moderate.

The other thing that blew it for him was the voter suppression really angered the D base and they turned out almost as good as 08. Massive backfire.

[BroncoBeavis]

Originally Posted by Jekyll15Hyde

You are also failing to realize that it was the influence from the ultra-right that blew it for him. His primary positions were extremist - and he had to to get out of there - and his VP choice was FAR right. Just because he backed away from them towards the end doesnt mean he is a moderate.

The other thing that blew it for him was the voter suppression really angered the D base and they turned out almost as good as 08. Massive backfire.

Not so much. If you'd like me to show how many things O was hard left on during election season before doing some real world moderation we can do that.

And O nowhere near matched 2008. He's about 10 million votes shy as of right now. As I said elsewhere he likely won't see as many votes as Bush got in 2004. This was a suppression election and the strategy paid off.

[BroncoInferno]

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.

You're painfully delusional if you think anyone with the sort of Draconian economic views of Paul has any chance in a GE. Romney began to narrow things in the polls when he pivoted back to the center in the first debate. It was his far right posturing during the primaries that had him so far behind throughout most of the campaign.

[TonyR]

It's game over for the party of the angry, white male. The GOP should have figured that out in 2008 but they decided to try again in 2012 and paid a steep price for it.

[BroncoInferno]

Romney is not a right-wing extremist. To win the nomination, though, he had to feign being one, recasting himself as “severely conservative” and eschewing the reasonableness that made him a successful, moderate governor of the country’s most liberal state. He had to pass muster with his party’s right-wing base on taxes, immigration, climate change, abortion, and gay rights. Many of his statements on these issues were patently insincere, but that was hardly reassuring. Romney’s very insincerity and flexibility made it improbable that he would stand up to the GOP’s hyper-partisan congressional wing once elected any more than he had during the primaries.

http://news.msn.com/politics/why-mitt-romney-lost

[Old Dude]

I think the GOP's biggest problem was overconfidence.

They just couldn't imagine the country re-electing Obama given the jobless rate and state of the economy.

So, instead of worrying about electibility and moving a few inches more toward the center, they got involved in a long and expensive primary battle, and their platform, if anything, moved further to the right.

Romney attempted to move back toward the center, but he had to move so far that he looked wishy-washy and inconsistent.

The 47% remark was a devastating torpedo.

Add in the rape remarks of a couple high profile candidates (and they happened just at the point when a lot of undecideds were making up their minds.)

Add in the loss of momentum with Sandy. And the NJ governor working hand in hand with Obama - which didn't help the GOP argument that Obama was not capable of any kind of bipartisan action. And the memories of how Bush messed up with Katrina. (When the GOP was doing everything humanly possible to distance itself from Dubbya.)

But the killer, I think, is that they underestimated Obama's "ground game" and his ability to get his constituents out to vote. In that regard, the youth of the democratic party is a big advantage. Energy, social media, neighborhood organizations, etc.

Given the fact that evangelicals make up such a huge portion of the party, I doubt that we'll see the GOP move very much on the kinds of social issues that are involved there.

More likely, they'll soften on immigration and make a play for the Latino voters. Bush did much better with that demographic and it got him elected twice.

[gunns]

Originally Posted by Blueflame

Roughly 50% of the American voting population is female... the Republican party cannot continue with their patronizing and draconian attitudes toward 50% of the electorate and expect to win at the polls. The party must distance itself from the more extreme Tea Party positions... such as "legitimate rape" and the entirely ludicrous notion that the female body has ways of rejecting pregnancy if the woman is "really" raped... or that a pregnancy resulting from rape is "God's plan" and the rapist's seed a "gift" from God to the rape victim. If they don't pay attention to what the electorate said today re: Akin and Mourdock, then it's a huge voter demographic that they'll continue to alienate.

Exactly!

And congratulations to the state of NH who elected an all female delegation last night.

[Old Dude]

Latino vote:

Bush (2000): 35%
Bush (2004): 39%
McCain (2008): 31%

Romney (on eve of election, 2012): 23%

[Kid A]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

Latino vote:

Bush (2000): 35%
Bush (2004): 39%
McCain (2008): 31%

Romney (on eve of election, 2012): 23%

In the kind of infamous "off the record" interview Obama did with the Des Moines Register (which the White House later released), he was pretty blunt about one thing: that he believes the GOP realizes they have screwed themselves with Latinos on the immigration issue and will be very willing to pass bipartisan immigration reform in the next couple years without throwing a fit in public. Seems kind of inevitable to me too.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

An unsustainable demographic trend

By Steve Benen

Wed Nov 7, 2012 10:11 AM EST

Mitt Romney took an enormous gamble about a year ago: he would run very far to the right on immigration policy, alienating the fastest growing segment of the American electorate on purpose, in order to secure the Republican Party's nomination. Then, he hoped to be able to avoid a drubbing from Latino voters in the general election. It was, as Ron Brownstein put it, Romney's "original sin."

The gamble, we now know, failed miserably. President Obama won close races in Colorado, Nevada, and (probably) Florida, and it was Latino voters who made this success possible.

But let's also step back and look at the bigger picture.



After George W. Bush's relative success eight years ago, this current trajectory simply isn't sustainable for the Republican Party, and basic self-awareness suggests the party must recognize its dilemma.

As NBC's First Read put it this morning, "[M]ake no mistake: What happened last night was a demographic time bomb that had been ticking and that blew up in GOP faces."

It was an offhand comment made in August, but one of the more important quotes of 2012 came from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who conceded, "The demographics race we're losing badly. We're not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term."

The question then becomes what the party intends to do about it. As the party does some wound-licking and soul-searching, I might suggest putting this at the top of the to-do list. If party leaders think "self-deportation" is the appropriate solution, they can expect to see more results like yesterday's.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Obama Victory Signals New Democratic Dominance in U.S. Politics

by Peter Beinart Nov 7, 2012 1:08 AM EST

It wasn’t 1992 all over again—but 1936, when FDR won despite a terrible economy. Peter Beinart on how the GOP will keep losing if it doesn’t change with the times.

This campaign, like every campaign, pundits offered historical analogies. 2012 was 2004 or 1992 or 1948. But, in the end, it wasn’t any of those. It was 1936.

For roughly half a century after the Civil War, Republicans dominated American politics because they dominated the North. But by the 1920s, after almost four decades of Catholic and Jewish immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, the North had changed. And instead of embracing that change, the GOP fought it, spearheading blatantly anti-Catholic measures like Prohibition and shutting down mass immigration in 1921 and 1924. Democrats capitalized, nominating a Catholic, Al Smith, in 1928. Smith lost, but in 1932 Franklin Roosevelt built on the coalition he had forged, and won the presidency by combining the white South—a traditional Democratic stronghold—with the new immigrants of the urban North. Then, to an unprecedented degree, he appointed Jews and Catholics to top administration jobs. In 1935 Time magazine noted the change by featuring two key Roosevelt advisers, the Catholic Thomas Corcoran and the Jewish Benjamin Cohen, on its cover.

A supporter of President Obama holds a sign during an Election Night rally in Chicago. (Daniel Acker / Getty Images)

But it was only in 1936, when FDR won despite a terrible economy and the venomous opposition of much of the Northern WASP elite from which he hailed, that Republicans began to acknowledge that America had changed—and left them behind. And that’s exactly what Republicans are realizing again Tuesday night. For the last four years, Republicans have argued publicly, as they did between 1932 and 1936, that their defeat was a fluke. They’ve said John McCain was a bad candidate who only lost because Americans were sick of George W. Bush. They’ve said the Tea Party heralded an anti-government shift that would sweep the GOP back into power. They’ve said America was still a center-right country.

But in slightly more hushed tones, conservatives have also said something else: that Americans are becoming dependent on government, that we’re becoming a nation of victims. It was through this racially loaded rhetoric—crystallized by Romney’s 47 percent comment to a group of super-rich old white donors in Palm Beach—that conservatives backhandedly acknowledged that the country was moving away from them.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-politics.html

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by gunns

Exactly!

And congratulations to the state of NH who elected an all female delegation last night.

[bronc_fan23]

Wasn't the Democratic dominance supposed to be after they won the Presidency, House and the Senate? We saw how long that lasted.

[TheElusiveKyleOrton]

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?

Here's a pretty good idea, from a staunch Republican that writes on my blog:
http://dailydickpunch.com/2012/11/07...ween-our-legs/

[Inkana7]

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.

And there is no doubt that you overestimate it. Rand Paul has no chance, zero, to win a general election, which sucks, because more people need to be exposed to the Aqua Buddha story.

[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.

[elsid13]

Like a gambler losing big, I expect them to double down on bad hand expecting that their luck will turn.

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by myMind

When Democrats lose 8 years of power they grow stronger and evolve, for some reason I don't see the GOP ticket in 2016 being all that different from today.

Not after the first four years. The Democrats nominated a rich Massachusetts Moderate out of touch with the people.

[footstepsfrom#27]

To hell in a handbasket I'd say.