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

[RobDownSouth]

...there you go again!

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

Does Fox news lie?

Do we need to have the discussion again about your bad habit of using "truth" and "opinion" interchangeably? Hmmm?

 

[xby2]

Its the solution as soon as the white galz realize they aint invited to the Democrat Pity Party.

Looks like white girls are liking the black guy

 

[mikey2much]

And some people will never wake up

some day people will wake up, and become embarrassed by having voted and supported for the obama

You live in Florida with a man like Rick Scott who wakes up every day and works to fuck the people out of their rights and money, and you're proud of putting him in office. It would seem that you and those like you can never learn from their mistakes.
It is people like you that are holding the country back.

The biggest threat to our way of life is the republican party. They have decided some years back to put their party ahead of the country. I think they should be branded terrorist and dealt with on that level.

If Charles Manson could be found guilty of murder when he was not at the crime scene and did not pay the people who did the killing, why couldn't Fox news be held accountable for wrecking the efforts of good policy with their distortions of the truth?

 

[richard_daily]

She concludes by saying 'you have to respect reality.'

Then the Republicans are fucked.

 

[julybaby04]

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.

I read all of this (very well written, by the way...) and only have this comment. Perhaps everything you said is true, about the GOP. The one issue you did not mention though is that to do all that you mentioned above would mean to no longer believe in God and what He has to say about the issues you mention.

Perhaps the GOP will continually lose elections from here forward and be highly criticized because of their views....but they will be following God and that will honestly mean more than who holds office.

(not meaning that to come across in sarcastic way. A person's faith is incredibly important to them....and changing social views will not change their faith.)

 

[IrezumiKiss]

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

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m97v9gKikH1rdqkdso1_500.gif

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md3ukoOYpm1qa6g1m.gif

 

[cjh]

I read all of this (very well written, by the way...) and only have this comment. Perhaps everything you said is true, about the GOP. The one issue you did not mention though is that to do all that you mentioned above would mean to no longer believe in God and what He has to say about the issues you mention.

Perhaps the GOP will continually lose elections from here forward and be highly criticized because of their views....but they will be following God and that will honestly mean more than who holds office.

(not meaning that to come across in sarcastic way. A person's faith is incredibly important to them....and changing social views will not change their faith.)

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers value preserving property rights over preserving the welfare of people who find themselves in harm's way--sometimes through their own doing, sometimes not.

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers demonize people because of their sexuality.

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers seem to be more comfortable adhering to the tenets of the old testament than the new.

the evangelicals and the catholic church did a lot to try to sway this election. it did not work.

my guess is that god's more liberal followers are getting ready to reappear as a force.

i hope the nuns lead the way.

 

[Wok]

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers value preserving property rights over preserving the welfare of people who find themselves in harm's way--sometimes through their own doing, sometimes not.

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers demonize people because of their sexuality.

a lot of people lose faith in a god whose worshipers seem to be more comfortable adhering to the tenets of the old testament than the new.

the evangelicals and the catholic church did a lot to try to sway this election. it did not work.

my guess is that god's more liberal followers are getting ready to reappear as a force.

i hope the nuns lead the way.

Why do you hate America?

 

[cjh]

Why do you hate America?

because i dig eastern european women.

 

[Wok]

because i dig eastern european women.

Mmm, I like hairy pits too. let's trade pics, bb.

 

[cjh]

Mmm, I like hairy pits too. let's trade pics, bb.

i blame it on the beatles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxyISsA0Oh0

 

[zipman]

I just heard the republican strategy moving forward is "more cowbell."

 

[mercury14]

the evangelicals and the catholic church did a lot to try to sway this election. it did not work.

It wasn't really the Catholic Church itself that got involved, mostly just Catholic groups and the Bishops. And the Bishops didn't endorse Romney.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I read all of this (very well written, by the way...) and only have this comment. Perhaps everything you said is true, about the GOP. The one issue you did not mention though is that to do all that you mentioned above would mean to no longer believe in God and what He has to say about the issues you mention.

Perhaps the GOP will continually lose elections from here forward and be highly criticized because of their views....but they will be following God and that will honestly mean more than who holds office.

(not meaning that to come across in sarcastic way. A person's faith is incredibly important to them....and changing social views will not change their faith.)

Yes, well, before the Moral Majority emerged in the 1970s, there was a time when deeply and traditionally religious Americans tended to avoid politics altogether, as an occasion of sin and worldliness.

Maybe they should look into that again.

 

[xby2]

You want USA to go belly up because you don't like Obama?

I find it very disturbing that some folks want Obama to fail as President so their party can come to power in the next election.


Mitch McConnell said it and he has egg on his face now and he cant wipe it away.

National Journal on Oct. 23, 2010 -
McConnell: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

Bringing down the country so your opponents lose is like setting your own house on fire.

We need America to succeed and rise, for that we need the President to succeed.
We need the Congress to succeed, the senate to succeed and work together.

There is all ways another election to be won but only one country that is yours, so let the country come first.

Romney's concession speech said it all, Republicans were you listening?
All should wish that Obama Succeeds.