Have the Republicans figured out why they lost yet?

[jeninflorida]

According to the responses in this thread, no, they haven't figured it out yet.

wow, mind blowing stupidity. I see why you need to live at home, and why your mother puts that helmet on you

 

[KingOrfeo]

+1.

What's funny is that despite everyone (except for the veiggiebots on this board) telling them they're doing it wrong the GOP still isn't sure about this whole internet thing.

But the most telling paragraph in the article is:

But the problem for the G.O.P. extends well beyond its flawed candidate and his flawed operation. The unnerving truth, which the Red Edge team and other younger conservatives worry that their leaders have yet to appreciate, is that the Republican Party’s technological deficiencies barely begin to explain why the G.O.P. has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. The party brand — which is to say, its message and its messengers — has become practically abhorrent to emerging demographic groups like Latinos and African-Americans, not to mention an entire generation of young voters. As one of the party’s most highly respected strategists told me: “It ought to concern people that the most Republican part of the electorate under Ronald Reagan were 18-to-29-year-olds. And today, people I know who are under 40 are embarrassed to say they’re Republicans. They’re embarrassed! They get harassed for it, the same way we used to give liberals a hard time.”

 

[jeninflorida]

we need more socialism...working is just too hard

get a job lazy fuckers

 

[bronzeage]

we need more socialism...working is just too hard

get a job lazy fuckers

What is your job?

 

[jeninnflorida]

both of you are fucking idiots

I'm still waiting for you to suck my dick, bitch.

 

[dan_c00000]

Great article...thank for linking that.

I almost...ALMOST...feel sorry for the Rapepublicans.

They have toxic policies that don't appeal to anyone but bitter old white men, and they firmly believe they just have to "message" better.

BUT...the flipside is they are so far behind technology-wise that I doubt they'll catch up anytime in the next ten years.

The problem is that they are wedded to the "hate radio model"...i.e. one way communication "us to you". AM radio is perfect for that sort of messaging.

The internet, by contrast, is a feedback loop, a two-way communication that Democrats excel at and can exploit masterfully.

Best quote from the article: "who here knows what Reddit is? One out of 250 'media experts'". Absolutely clueless.

I'm also amazed at how poor their overall program management is. They spent millions on an election day get-out-the-vote application and NEVER TESTED IT. They "tested" it on election day, and it failed. That's borderline criminal negligence for a project manager. Faith-based project management.

Totally agree. The problem is they're catering to their base. And polls have shown their base is not only going away but their stance on issues are stupid. We haven't even begun to dicuss how they can't even govern.

Describing Repubs as "bitter" and "old" isn't intelligent conversation.

Ok so when your "young" voters call your party all this stuff what do you do?

1. "Young 'winnable' Obama voters were asked to say what words came to mind when they heard 'Republican Party.' The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned."

2. "Asked which words least described the GOP, respondents gravitated toward 'open-minded' (35%), 'tolerant' (25%), 'caring' (22%), and 'cooperative' (21%)."


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politic...report-on-young-voters-20130604#ixzz2YC9ep600
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

 

[Adre]

we need more socialism...working is just too hard

get a job lazy fuckers

You could use:

A mind
A clue
A purpose

I did my work. So I can laugh at lumps like you.

 

[jeninflorida]

I'm still waiting for you to suck my dick, bitch.

wearing a thong backwards is so unattractive, and no one wants to see your ball-splitter

 

[jeninnflorida]

wearing a thong backwards is so unattractive, and no one wants to see your ball-splitter

I'm so gratified to learn you're thinking about my junk. It's only a matter of time before your lips are wrapped around my cock, sweetie.

 

[about_average]

get a job lazy fuckers

Maybe a job in law enforcement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo

 

[jeninflorida]

Maybe a job in law enforcement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-WMn_zHCVo

God, that's all we need is more corrupt cops

 

[njlauren]

we need more socialism...working is just too hard

get a job lazy fuckers

I agree, tell that to the oil companies that get huge tax subsidies to support their CEO's pay, tell that to the farmers who in times of record commodity prices, are getting 10's of billions in farm price supports and other funding, even if they don't plant anything, or who have benefitted from the ethanol and high fructose corn syrup scams, both of which are heavily subsidized by Uncle Sam (without Uncle Sam, Ethanol would be too expensive to use as a fuel or additive, and HFC would be a lot more expensive than cane sugar or other sweeteners), that have driven up corn prices. Then, too, we have the people down south who they themselves and the companies they work for get electric power from Uncle Sam at half the price of commercial power (yes, Mitch "we don't get nutting from the feds' McConnel, your whole 'economic miracle' is living to a certain extent off of government largesse.....as my dad used to say, lots of pigs feeding at the trough, and those most complaining about others eating from it are often the biggest feeders...

 

[njlauren]

They know what their problems are, the GOP for the past 30 years has been focused on the past, they create a mythology of the good old days and built a coalition around that, white southerners pissed off about civil rights, white blue collar workers seeing their living standards drying up, the religious reich with their vision of a Christian version of Shariah, and it is mostly been based on hate, of one kind or another, wrapped in the cloak that the government is the fault, it is bankrupt because it is paying for all those people on welfare driving Cadillacs, companies send jobs overseas cause the well off pay too many taxes, they are lies that gain traction with those too lazy to look at reality. The real problem is that the leadership is like the Vatican, they are clueless; the Vatican thinks they will regain followers by going back to pre Vatican II days, fighting the wars over abortion and gays, and have their churches overflowing; the GOP leadership thinks their problem is they didn't go conservative enough, they really think most of the country thinks like Elmer in east buttfuck, Alabama, they really think most people out there think the Tea Party is a good thing.

Blaming technology is an excuse for the fact that they have paid the price for extremism, that they have become a synonym for the good ole boy, white people's party. The party that once stood for fiscal conservatism and moderate to libertarian social values became the party of ill thought of tax cuts and crackpot economics like the tea party and the party of mean, stupid bullies and religious extremists. Just look at their leadership, any of them strike you as being leaders? John Boehner is an intellectual lightweight, and looks like a two bit used car salesman with his fake tan and with his attitude, Mitch McConnell comes off as a snake oil salesman, and worse, someone who thinks his shit doesn't stink and therefore he has no reason to deal with anyone.

Look at demographic after demographic, and they have lost people they used to take for advantage, suburban voters used to vote heavily republican, especially in the northeast, now other than older voters they vote democratic or independant (in my county, which is incredibly republican, all the local town and county government are single party rule, Romney took 51% of the vote; Reagan took 89% of it 30 years ago). They have turned off educated people with their whole cult of ignorance, with the Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman road show; they have turned off libertarians with their catering to the religious reich; they have turned off young people, who find the nasty bullying and their stance on social issues to be neanderthal (I would be scared, if I were the leadership, that only about 1 in 3 young people id's as GOP), they have turned off suburban and city voters with their catering to the farm belt and to the southern white voters, and that is why they lose.

More importantly, they don't have any ideas, everything they come up with is negative or no. Reagan got elected in part because he said he had a vision how to fix things, that the US wasn't done, etc,and he managed to work bipartisionally to try and get things done, the GOP , paralyzed by the tea party and the whack job right, has a policy that is basically saying no, and vision of the future that relies on the idea that everythign will be fine if we put prayer in the schools, gays back in the closet, make abortion illegal, and on totally gutting the government isn't going to fly, because it says nothing about how to really fix things, and their mantra of tax cuts isn't going to work, because most thinking people have seen the result, the well off have gotten an incredible payback for these cuts, yet it hasn't done anything to build the economy, and has left us in more and more debt. Like the Islamists in Egypt, they think the answer is not in a democratic society, they see everything as 'it is my way, or no way", and that alienates everyone except people in the Hee Haw belt.

 

[dan_c00000]

NJLauren which an epic take down of jen. Nice job.

 

[landslider2000]

Stuff like "Rapepublican" -- and lazy assumptions that conservatives are bitter/old -- that isn't intelligent conversation.

So long after the 1960s, it is sad that Rolling Stone is still enmeshed in leftist ideology.

 

[KingOrfeo]

So long after the 1960s, it is sad that Rolling Stone is still enmeshed in leftist ideology.

Why sad? Leftist ideology is not the sort of thing one should outgrow.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Stuff like "Rapepublican" -- and lazy assumptions that conservatives are bitter/old -- that isn't intelligent conversation.

"Rapepublican" is about on a level with "Dhimmicrat" or "Dummiecrat". As for "old" -- that is, I fear, an actual problem the GOP has.

They walked me through a series of slides showing the wide discrepancies between the two campaigns. “And just to make them feel really bad,” Jacobson said as he punched another image onto the overhead screen. “We say, ‘Just wait — this is the most important slide.’ And this is what kills them, because conservatives always look at young voters like the hot girl they could never date.” He read aloud from the text: “1.25 million more young people supported Obama in 2012 over 2008.”

<snip>

One afternoon last month, I flew with Anderson to Columbus, Ohio, to watch her conduct two focus groups. The first consisted of 10 single, middle-class women in their 20s; the second, of 10 20-something men who were either jobless or employed but seeking better work. All of them voted for Obama but did not identify themselves as committed Democrats and were sufficiently ambivalent about the president’s performance that Anderson deemed them within reach of the Republicans. Each group sat around a large conference table with the pollster, while I viewed the proceedings from behind a panel of one-way glass.

The all-female focus group began with a sobering assessment of the Obama economy. All of the women spoke gloomily about the prospect of paying off student loans, about what they believed to be Social Security’s likely insolvency and about their children’s schooling. A few of them bitterly opined that the Democrats care little about the working class but lavish the poor with federal aid. “You get more off welfare than you would at a minimum-wage job,” observed one of them. Another added, “And if you have a kid, you’re set up for life!”

About an hour into the session, Anderson walked up to a whiteboard and took out a magic marker. “I’m going to write down a word, and you guys free-associate with whatever comes to mind,” she said. The first word she wrote was “Democrat.”

“Young people,” one woman called out.

“Liberal,” another said. Followed by: “Diverse.” “Bill Clinton.”“Change.”“Open-minded.”“Spending.”“Handouts.”“Green.”“More science-based.”

When Anderson then wrote “Republican,” the outburst was immediate and vehement: “Corporate greed.”“Old.”“Middle-aged white men.” “Rich.” “Religious.” “Conservative.” “Hypocritical.” “Military retirees.” “Narrow-minded.” “Rigid.” “Not progressive.” “Polarizing.” “Stuck in their ways.” “Farmers.”

Anderson concluded the group on a somewhat beseeching note. “Let’s talk about Republicans,” she said. “What if anything could they do to earn your vote?”

A self-identified anti-abortion, “very conservative” 27-year-old Obama voter named Gretchen replied: “Don’t be so right wing! You know, on abortion, they’re so out there. That all-or-nothing type of thing, that’s the way Romney came across. And you know, come up with ways to compromise.”

“What would be the sign to you that the Republican Party is moving in the right direction?” Anderson asked them.

“Maybe actually pass something?” suggested a 28-year-old schoolteacher named Courtney, who also identified herself as conservative.

The session with the young men was equally jarring. None of them expressed great enthusiasm for Obama. But their depiction of Republicans was even more lacerating than the women’s had been. “Racist,” “out of touch” and “hateful” made the list — “and put ‘1950s’ on there too!” one called out.

Showing a reverence for understatement, Anderson said: “A lot of those words you used to describe Republicans are negative. What could they say or do to make you feel more positive about the Republican Party?”

“Be more pro-science,” said a 22-year-old moderate named Jack. “Embrace technology and change.”

“Stick to your strong suit,” advised Nick, a 23-year-old African-American. “Clearly social issues aren’t your strong suit. Stop trying to fight the battle that’s already been fought and trying to bring back a movement. Get over it — you lost.”

Later that evening at a hotel bar, Anderson pored over her notes. She seemed morbidly entranced, like a homicide detective gazing into a pool of freshly spilled blood. In the previous few days, the pollster interviewed Latino voters in San Diego and young entrepreneurs in Orlando. The findings were virtually unanimous. No one could understand the G.O.P.’s hot-blooded opposition to gay marriage or its perceived affinity for invading foreign countries. Every group believed that the first place to cut spending was the defense budget. During the whiteboard drill, every focus group described Democrats as “open-minded” and Republicans as “rigid.”

“There is a brand,” the 28-year-old pollster concluded of her party with clinical finality. “And it’s that we’re not in the 21st century.”

This is even worse than it looks. The divide that really matters, the one that demographically dooms the GOP in its present formation, is not ethnic but generational. See the Pew Political Typology 2011. Nearly half the GOP's base is now the "Staunch Conservatives," which is also the oldest group (and the whitest, BTW) -- and, when they die off, they will not be replaced in commensurate numbers. Their children and grandchildren may be conservative in some sense, but not in anything like the same sense. Because the Staunch Conservatives' politics and general world-view are not a result of people growing more conservative as they grow older (actually, people tend to grow more liberal as they age), but a matter of generational culture, of having been shaped by a world that no longer exists.

 

[dan_c00000]

Stuff like "Rapepublican" -- and lazy assumptions that conservatives are bitter/old -- that isn't intelligent conversation.

So long after the 1960s, it is sad that Rolling Stone is still enmeshed in leftist ideology.

Ah you'd rather read the Daily Caller? How about when Jon Stewart made Tucker Carlson cry on his own show?

 

[BotanyBoy]

Stuff like "Rapepublican" -- and lazy assumptions that conservatives are bitter/old -- that isn't intelligent conversation.

So long after the 1960s, it is sad that Rolling Stone is still enmeshed in leftist ideology.

Well maybe if the GOP wasn't a bunch of old white guys fuming and brooding over what women do with their vagina/uterus trying to tell them the difference between "Legitimate rape" vs a "J/K rape!!" they wouldn't get such a bad fucking name.

Maybe if the GOP pulled the stick out of their ass and respected states rights and quit trying to dish out mandatory minimum prison sentences for consuming a plant that kills less people than peanuts each year, they wouldn't be seen as bitter tight ass's and crony capitalist.

Maybe if the GOP quit trying to bullshit the world about how great it was in 1840 and that we need to go back to that...they wouldn't be seen as so old.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Maybe if the GOP pulled the stick out of their ass and respected states rights and quit trying to dish out mandatory minimum prison sentences for consuming a plant that kills less people than peanuts each year . . .

One-issue voters are so tedious.

No disagreement, but, seriously, man, if most people were asked to name issues called to mind by the phrase "states' rights," that would be sixth or seventh on the list at best.

 

[BotanyBoy]

One-issue voters are so tedious.

I have several but that one is one of my biggies.

No disagreement, but, seriously, man, if most people were asked to name issues called to mind by the phrase "states' rights," that would be sixth or seventh on the list at best.

So? Doesn't change the fact that the war on drugs spits in the face of all the compiled facts that clearly spell out that it is far more destructive than productive on a variety of levels that extend well past "Let's burn one!".

It's quite literally one of the largest real world effects of crony capitalism and police state joining forces to run a muck.

States rights? The people of 18 states plus DC voted for it's legal use and after your boy Obama said he would respect that he turned the DOJ dog's of war loose on them....what a fucking dildo.

 

[Sean Renaud]

States rights is a stupid concept on it's face.

 

[KingOrfeo]

It's quite literally one of the largest real world effects of crony capitalism and police state joining forces to run a muck.

No, no, no, no, no. Not even nearly. You are allowing your particular issue-concern to cloud your judgment here. The largest real-world effects of crony capitalism have mostly to do with access to and exploitation of energy-resources, a field in which hemp-derived ethanol will never play a serious role.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Don't talk to Bot. He's a pot head.
Don't quote Bot. Nobody deserves to read his ignorance.
Actually just put the idiot on ignore it makes the world a better place.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Some Pubs get it. Chad Brown, the co-chairman of the Polk County, Iowa, GOP just resigned, and registered as an independent, over Steve King's "immigrant drug-mule" remarks, and over the GOP's positions on gun control and climate change.

In 2012, the Polk GOP lost Polk County by over 32,000 votes. Until 2002, Republicans were elected to the State House from Des Moines. In 2012, Republicans lost 2 State House seats in suburban, Republican-leaning districts and came two dozen votes from losing a third. Facts are stubborn things. I think we are now headed in the wrong direction on several fronts and regretfully must step aside.

It’s my opinion that rather than fix the problems that led to such a massive 2012 defeat, the GOP does not seem to seriously want to fix the issues. I think helping a dysfunctional Party that does not want to address its problems is enabling. I do not believe in enabling. I debated this for weeks and am certain this is the only course.

But the problem is, apparently, any Republican who does figure out why they lost in 2012 . . . can no longer be a Republican. The party has gone too far to save.