The state of Republican "soul-searching" November 10, 2012

[IrezumiKiss]

We'll be doubling down on what made us great not the tyranny you've so eagerly put your imprimatur upon.

How come you guys couldn't find what made you great this time?

How come you guys couldn't find what made you great the last time?

Why didn't you guys double down on what made you great the last two times before President Obama?

HAH??? WELL???

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K7wkdGBDm2Q/T_9aBuq8o0I/AAAAAAAADCI/xfxIe2yHTg0/s1600/huh_441993.jpg

 

[Squibbs]

How come you guys couldn't find what made you great this time?

How come you guys couldn't find what made you great the last time?

Why didn't you guys double down on what made you great the last two times before President Obama?

HAH??? WELL???

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K7wkdGBDm2Q/T_9aBuq8o0I/AAAAAAAADCI/xfxIe2yHTg0/s1600/huh_441993.jpg

You'll see.

He'll be back older and whinier than ever.

He will have a whole new list of speaking points as to why they lost again.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Dazzle1]

They also have to a better job with propganda.

Dems have an advanatage there because their misdeed go unreported

Ted Kennedy, Tim Gietner Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters ring a bell

 

[blobfish]

Who's more racist; the people that want everyone to fend for themselves equally, or the ones that think that the helpless blacks and Hispanics need cradle to grave assistance?

 

[RoryN]

Because establishment Republicans continue to make the same error in judgment, thinking it best to trust a liberal to carry a message of limited constitutional government, free enterprise, cost cutting, and individual freedom, he really doesn't believe in.

Want to win, conservatives? Then, throw this guy off your bus.

 

[RoryN]

Who's more racist; the people that want everyone to fend for themselves equally

This does not describe American conservatives.

or the ones that think that the helpless blacks and Hispanics need cradle to grave assistance?

This does not describe American liberals.

Other than that, spot on.

 

[blobfish]

This does not describe American conservatives.

This does not describe American liberals.

Other than that, spot on.

It describes true fiscal conservatives, not Romney.

If not welfare, what is meant by "outreach to minorities"?

 

[unregistered]

 

[garbage can]

Who's more racist; the people that want everyone to fend for themselves equally, or the ones that think that the helpless blacks and Hispanics need cradle to grave assistance?

Legal American Hispanics have the stigma of being associated with illegal aliens.

This has to change.

 

[mercury14]

The two biggest Obama policies of hi first term, the stimulus ans Obamacare, have been absolutely trashed in the media. Across all networks those two things have been thoroughly panned so don't tell me Obama is getting any kind of pass.

 

[mercury14]

Legal American Hispanics have the stigma of being associated with illegal aliens.

This has to change.

You're backing the party of "papers please" though. It's not going to change because the conservative base is xenophobic as fuck. The fact that Hispanic and Asian Americans voted for Obama in a huge way is just going to anger the piss out of the base.

 

[garbage can]

You're backing the party of "papers please" though. It's not going to change because the conservative base is xenophobic as fuck. The fact that Hispanic and Asian Americans voted for Obama in a huge way is just going to anger the piss out of the base.

Are these more of your "truths". The "truths" being the way you want to see things.

Does Fox news lie?

 

[cjh]

Are these more of your "truths". The "truths" being the way you want to see things.

Does Fox news lie?

They did a bang-up job in predicting Romney's win.

 

[Dazzle1]

No they don't.

Its just they bought the lie that Republicans were against immigration when it was illegal immigration.

 

[garbage can]

They did a bang-up job in predicting Romney's win.

*grin*.... I think it was more wishful thinking than a lie.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Because establishment Republicans continue to make the same error in judgment, thinking it best to trust a liberal to carry a message of limited constitutional government, free enterprise, cost cutting, and individual freedom, he really doesn't believe in.

If you guys didn't "double down" on your inviolate convictions the first four times you had a chance to do so, I don't know why you're going to continue holding your breath hoping it's going to magically happen in the future.

Game done changed, guy. When your party changes because social evolution demands it does or face the same extinction through society the way the passenger pigeon did, I hope you're not leaving behind a legacy of bitterness and woulda-coulda-shouldas.

 

[Beco]

If you guys didn't "double down" on your inviolate convictions the first four times you had a chance to do so, I don't know why you're going to continue holding your breath hoping it's going to magically happen in the future.

Game done changed, guy. When your party changes because social evolution demands it does or face the same extinction through society the way the passenger pigeon did, I hope you're not leaving behind a legacy of bitterness and woulda-coulda-shouldas.

good god man, pipe down!! Last I checked, this party, who you say will go the way of the Dodo Bird, still controls the House, and made a run to control the Senate. Always tough to beat an incumbent President, frankly, it was the devil you know that got Obama elected again. Talk about laying your chips on the table. Some major shit coming down the pipe in the coming year.

 

[landslider2000]

The notion that ethnicity/skin tone dictate political belief is absurd.

The problem with "comprehensive" immigration reform is that it rewards illegal behavior now and promises to implement E-Verify/border control at some future date which never arrives.

The notion that the GOP just needs to nominate more leftist candidates such as Huntsman is silly. Had Huntsman have been nominated, Obama would have attacked him in the same way he did Romney.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Legal American Hispanics have the stigma of being associated with illegal aliens.

This has to change.

Nonsense. My Southern heritage is often the butt of ridicule as its commonly associated with the Yokums of Dogpatch, Arkansas. Fact is, plenty of my ancestors graduated the best schools, like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Vanderbilt, etc. So I dont let attitudes jack me around.

But one thing does bother me a little, my grandfather lived next door to William Faulkner (their fathers were Ole Miss faculty) in his youth, and it troubles me that our family may be Faulkner characters.

 

[RoryN]

my grandfather lived next door to William Faulkner (their fathers were Ole Miss faculty) in his youth, and it troubles me that our family may be Faulkner characters.

Even if they were Faulkner characters, you personally are only going to leave a Honey Boo Boo-type legacy.

 

[KingOrfeo]

It's a GOP House. That won't change in 2014.

Oh, it might.

 

[KingOrfeo]

3 million GOP voters didn't vote . . .

Why not?

 

[JackLuis]

Maybe so, but I'll have lived a life true to my beliefs and those handed down from better people who went before us. I have half the nation on my side and maybe it will all boil down to a revolution someday to finally settle the question. I'm going to put my money on freedom, it's the natural evolutionary goal of our civilization. So, enjoy your tyranny while you can the experience could be fleeting.

vetteman I worry that you are becoming Amicus!

Cheer up Obama won't pass the Socialist Apocalypses with John Bonner and the Tea Party playing in the House.

Republicans would be better off making sure that all laws and regulations are enforced and if not the Regulators should be shot!

First it would immediately identify the most egregious loopholes and the stupidest laws, so they could be repealed.

And second it should expect those who make lots of money to pay lots of taxes to support the system that supports them.

We have enough laws, if we would enforce them equally and honestly, at least to make it through to 2020.

 

[njlauren]

The GOP has to wake up and realize that the country is changing and that the divide and conquer message, the anti message, pitting so called 'real americans' against the rest is going to eventually fail. Take a look at the places Romney took and what you see is diminishing returns, he took the states with the lowest population densities, and candidates who take only rural areas are going to fail. Yeah, Romney got 48% of the vote, but that doesn't matter, what matters is electoral votes. Appealing to older, white voters simply is a losing proposition because they are dying out, and despite the fact that their base voted heavily, including the religious right, it didn't stem the tide for them.

It doesn't mean they can't get elected, but it is going to be harder down the road to maintain their hard right positions and win. The House is theirs in part because districts have been gerrymandered to protect their core voters, but as changes happen demographically it is going to get very hard to do that.

They lost the traditional GOP base, they lost the suburban northeast voters, they lost places like Westchester county in NY, they lost Maine,because the extremism that catered to their base alienated a lot of people they shouldn't have. Where I live most of the local politicians, including the local congressman, are GOP, yet the area voted heavily for Obama, because the GOP turned them off. Guns, Gays and Abortions might work well in God's little acre but in a large part of the country it is a turn off, and it is especially keeping young people away from the GOP.Numbers from the election show a lot of the truths they face:

-Romney took only 30% of the young vote, a group that is very, very different then their elders, and when polled they are very turned off by the social agenda of the GOP and are upset at the way the GOP has acted in congress. With young people registering to vote, the GOP is lucky to get 1 in 6.

-With Hispanics, he got only 20% of the vote and a lot of that were older voters, specifically Cuban-American, who you can't can't on going forward. The GOP has to find a way to shut down the anti hispanic hysteria, those saying things like 'They are taking our country" and the like. It is one thing to want to strengthen borders , but when they refuse any kind of rational immigration reform it makes them seem like xenophobes and bigots.

-The religious right as a force has waned and isn't likely to ever come back as a force. Evangelical Churches themselves are following a general trend and losing members (southern baptists are for sure), and even within the membership the desire to turn the US into a theocracy is not there, younger evangelicals see big issues outside abortion and gays, though not exactly liberal they simply feel their elders were off the deep end, and also sold their soul to the devil when they supported the GOP wholeheartedly over issues like abortion and ignored the things the GOP was doing that aren't exactly Christian, like giving tax cuts to the rich while killing programs that help the poorest. The religious right groups put a major full court press out there in this election, the voter guides, you name it and evangelicals voted in large numbers, and it didn't do anything.

-Demographics are also working against them, faithful red states or some of the swing states are likely to go blue in the next 10 years or so, because of demographics. Virginia went for Obama because the northern part of the state is a league of nations, well educated and generally well off, and the message of the GOP aimed at the traditional types in the state fell on deaf ears. Arizona may switch, and even Texas could end up there, and other states are changing. The older, less educated population is literally dying off and in many places is being replaced by better educated, more diverse people.

Put it this way, take a look at Romney's headquarters in the election and it looked like campaign headquarters 1954....all white, older (the only young people were family members),not exactly what the country looks like in many places.

-They also need to regain the libertarian credentials they once had, the party that claims it wants to get government off of people's backs cannot constantly be poking into people's lives...the same sex marriage issue, abortion, have been a thorn in the GOP side because if you are into getting government off people's backs then the legislative heavy hand, or putting judges in SCOTUS who think religious law is good law, is going to kill them. The libertarian party picked up serious cred this election and they could steal serious votes.

The GOP needs to become the party of the whole country and realize that the southern strategy, the catering to the religious right and banking on the resentment of 'flyover country' is a losing strategy, as is trying to win by Electoral college gaming. If the GOP toned down the extremism and the ideological rigidness and showed flexibility, if they recognized that pushing for a marriage ban on same sex couples or being the party of the holy rollers is doomed to fail, and came up with a fiscally conservative, socially moderate position that not only espoused libertarianism but practiced it, they would have a chance. Once upon a time people thought the Democratic party was done after Reagan, that they would be a permanent minority party, and they went nearer the middle (only compared to the attila the hun rightward spin of the GOP could this be considered radical) and it helped them elect presidents and have majorities in one or both houses of congress.