Politics The Elephant in the room...The GOP today

Charlatan · Nov 7, 2012

roachboy said: ↑

i don't think the republicans can do that, charlatan, because their "southern strategy" does not allow for anything like a demarcation of the lunatic fringe from the moderates...the result is that i expect something like that would be understood as suicide organizationally. but keeping the tea party inside the party is also likely to be suicide. what i would imagine a more viable alternative is to modulate away from identity politics---but that would run against what holds together their base. i think they made a serious mistake getting into bed with the far right as a way to maintain a sense of viability after the bush period.
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What I was getting at is that they need to rebuild from the ground up. That will mean that they need to spend an election cycle or two in the wilderness before they come back re-born. It's what they need to do, but they won't do it for the reasons you have described.

If their primaries are going to continue to be about who can be more RIGHT than the other, then it will be the same each time. The reason Obama won isn't because he's more left, it's because he is very centrist.

samcol · Nov 7, 2012

Charlatan said: ↑

What I was getting at is that they need to rebuild from the ground up. That will mean that they need to spend an election cycle or two in the wilderness before they come back re-born. It's what they need to do, but they won't do it for the reasons you have described.

If their primaries are going to continue to be about who can be more RIGHT than the other, then it will be the same each time. The reason Obama won isn't because he's more left, it's because he is very centrist.
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i think they need to include the new age of conservatives/libertarians. clearly the old republican demographic is literally dying out. they failed to embrace the younger crowd of ron paul types that are very energetic and involved in the political process.

they alienate so many people on the gay rights, marijuana, abortion, and other social issues that it makes it almost impossible to win. the younger crowd was more current on these issues but they got a big middle finger from the gop at the convention.

ron paul might of not been the best person to convey the message, but an anti war, anti police state, fiscal conservative candidate, that wasn't opposed to gay rights, abortion, or other social issues probably would of done better than romney.

rogue49 · Nov 7, 2012

Again, I'll put out the question...will they adjust as necessary.
Or will they double-down on stupid?

You've got a lot of fairly smart conservatives saying what exactly is necessary.
But they get either drowned out by the mob...or they get distracted by rhetoric and posturing.

Say what you will about Obama and his team...but they're pragmatic...and they play the long-game.
And I can guarantee you...they're already planning on re-working Obama's current campaign setup to help with the next elections in 2 years.
They'll want to keep the momentum...and surprise the GOP in the House as the GOP did to the Dems in 2008.

Election aftermath: GOP soul-searching must now begin
By: Jonathan Martin - November 7, 2012

BOSTON – President Barack Obama’s thrashing of Mitt Romney exposed glaring structural weaknesses in the Republican Party that will shut the GOP out of the White House until they find a way to appeal to a rapidly changing America.

Battling a wheezing economy and a deeply motivated opposition, Obama still managed to retain much of his 2008 map because of the GOP’s deficiencies with the voters who are changing the political face of once conservative-leaning Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Nevada.

Republicans face a crisis: the country is growing less white and their coalition has become more white in recent years.

In 2004, George W. Bush won 44 percent of Hispanics. Four years later, John McCain, the author of an immigration reform bill, took 31 percent of Hispanics. And this year, Romney captured only 27 percent of Hispanics.

“The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who will immediately be looked to as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

But the GOP’s problem is more fundamental than one bloc of voters. For the second consecutive presidential election, the Republican got thumped among women and young voters in the states that decided the election.

“Our party needs to realize that it’s too old and too white and too male and it needs to figure out how to catch up what the demographics of the country before it’s too late,” said Al Cardenas, the head of the American Conservative Union and a longtime GOP leader. “Our party needs a lot of work to do if we expect to be competitive in the near future.”

Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), a prospective 2014 statewide candidate in a state moving sharply to the middle, was just as blunt: “After tonight, the GOP had better figure out that a big tent sounds good but if there aren’t any seats in it, what good is it.”

The desperate straits Republicans find themselves in are structural. But Romney should not completely absolved of responsibility for his party’s ebb. He galloped to the right on immigration and reproductive-related issues in the GOP primary and only awkwardly attempted to move to the middle on those issues in the fall. And his awkward, 50s-era persona was almost comically far removed from Americans who are in their 20s and 30s. And he never attempted to distance himself or truly challenge a Republican Party that still bears bruises left from the Bush years.

But the rapidly growing population of minorities is something that looms larger than one flawed candidate.

Look no further than Florida, that reliable battleground that usually picks White House winners. Obama only won there by two-and-a-half points in 2008, but somehow found a way to eke out a narrow victory again in the face of 8.7 percent unemployment there.

Why? Partly because there are 190,000 more Hispanics and 50,000 more African-Americans in the state than there were in 2008.

Florida Republicans were staggered: Obama managed to actually increase a 20-point margin from 2008 in suburban Orlando’s Osceola County, home to thousands of Hispanics immigrants, to 25 points.

“Hispanics continue to grow in importance and we need to embrace these voters for two reasons: it is simply the right thing to do and its mandatory demographically if we are to avoid more presidential disappointments,” said former George W. Bush political director Matt Schlapp. “It’s about simple math and basic moral decency.”

The seeming demographic anomaly, of course, is Ohio, a state full of the sort of white voters who now make up the GOP base. Such voters went for Romney nationally, but in must-have Ohio, Obama did a crucial three points better among whites.

Nowhere more than the Buckeye State was there a better example of both Romney’s personal weaknesses and his campaigns missteps. Ohio can’t be chalked up to demographics.

Republicans can point to the paucity of talent in their 2012 field, but in the first presidential election since the great recession, running a multimillionaire who got rich as a buyout artist seems wildly ill-advised.

Beyond the resume, there were the unforced errors that reinforced the caricature of Romney as out-of-touch plutocrat: Some of my best friends own NASCAR teams, corporations are people and $10,000 wagers.

But in terms of verbal miscues, nothing damaged Romney as badly as his caught-on-tape moment at a fundraiser full of wealthy donors riffing on the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay income taxes. And, making matters worse, Romney didn’t fully express regret for his comment until weeks later.

In the hours after it happened, a former top George W. Bush adviser emailed with evident concern and diagnosed why the comment was so damaging: “The worst gaffes reveal what people already presumed bad about someone.”

Indeed, long before Romney came up two points short in Ohio, many veteran Republicans were convinced that class issues would spell his demise.

“A Romney loss would be solely based on class and personality: middle class, affable and emotional former governor would be up by 5,” said one GOP operative in the days before Romney’s defeat.

That’s probably a bit rose-tinted, but there’s little question that Romney’s business background and persona made him uniquely vulnerable in Ohio.

A son of privilege who got rich in a way that was a gift to Democratic ad-makers was a tough enough sell. But a socially awkward guy who couldn’t relate and served up a steady diet of comments that screamed “not from these parts” made him close to untenable. And most puzzling, even to Romney’s own family members, was that he didn’t make any real effort at showing his human side until after the first debate in October, at which point a caricature of him had been etched.

His inherent challenge in the state was compounded by his campaign’s mistakes in the state. They never had a big-picture strategy on how to explain Romney’s work at Bain Capital or his opposition to Obama’s auto bailout. And it wasn’t for a lack of lead time: Romney got hammered for his business work in his 1994 Senate campaign and he came out against the auto rescue in 2009. He knew it was coming, but had no apparent plan when the ads from Obama’s campaign and Super PAC rained down on him all summer.

It wasn’t until the final week of the campaign, trailing persistently in every Ohio poll, that Romney, nudged by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio.), made a desperate play to address the auto issue. The ad, which suggested that Jeep had moved jobs overseas, drew scathing condemnation from the auto-makers. Even before polls closed on Tuesday, a senior Romney official pointed to the ad as one of the biggest mistakes of the campaign.

Asked to explain Romney’s loss in Ohio, two longtime Republican insiders in the state pointed in the same direction: Northwest Ohio, auto country.

© 2012 POLITICO LLC
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Charlatan · Nov 7, 2012

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Republicans should embrace the Libertarians fully (I think the Libertarian way is about the most selfish platform around and has more in common, ultimately, with the Tea Party than anything else) but there are a number of elements that could be adopted.

Ultimately what the Republicans need, and what they will never get is a fiscally conservative and socially (more) liberal candidate (i.e. Centre Right).

I would point to someone like Huntsman as the right candidate for appeal to the centrist vote.

rogue49 · Nov 8, 2012

I don't know if it's one they should have won...but it certainly helped and aggravated their loss.

While the economy isn't reving like all the pie-in-the-sky public and cut-throat wall-streeters want,
it's going the right way and much better than the pit we found it in 4 years ago.
Some people forget that...or conveniently ignore it.

But this is a question of numbers and ground game for the GOP...

Can Republicans Adapt?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF - November 7, 2012

This was one that the Republicans really should have won.

Given the weak economy, American voters were open to firing President Obama. In Europe, in similar circumstances, one government after another lost re-election. And, at the beginning of this year, it looked as if the Republicans might win control of the United States Senate as well.

Yet it wasn’t the Democrats who won so much as the Republicans who lost — at a most basic level, because of demography. A coalition of aging white men is a recipe for failure in a nation that increasingly looks like a rainbow.

Schadenfreude may excuse Democrats’ smiles for a few days, but these trends portend a potential disaster not just for the Republican Party but for the health of our political system. America needs a plausible center-right opposition party to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, not just a collection of Tea Party cranks.

So liberals as well as conservatives should be rooting for the Republican Party to feel sufficiently shaken that it shifts to the center. One hopeful sign is that political parties usually care more about winning than about purism. Thus the Democratic Party embraced the pragmatic center-left Bill Clinton in 1992 after three consecutive losses in presidential elections.

That was painful for many liberals, who cringed when Clinton interrupted campaigning in the 1992 primary to burnish his law-and-order credentials by overseeing the execution of a mentally impaired murderer. But it was, on balance, less painful than losing again.

You would expect the Republican Party to make a similar lurch to the center. But many Republican leaders still inhabit a bubble. It was stunning how many, from Karl Rove to Newt Gingrich, seemed to expect a Mitt Romney victory. And some of the right-wing postmortems are suggesting that Romney lost because he was too liberal — which constitutes a definition of delusional.

Imagine what would have happened if the Republican nominee had been Gingrich or Rick Santorum. We surely would have seen a Democratic landslide.

On the other hand, if the Republicans had nominated Jon Huntsman Jr., they might have been the ones celebrating right now. But he had no chance in Republican primaries because primary voters are their party’s worst enemy.

Part of the problem, I think, is the profusion of right-wing radio and television programs. Democrats complain furiously that Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity smear the left, but I wonder if the bigger loser isn’t the Republican Party itself. Those shows whip up a frenzy in their audience, torpedoing Republican moderates and instilling paranoia on issues like immigration.

All this sound and fury enmeshes the Republican Party in an ideological cocoon and impedes it from reaching out to swing-state centrists, or even understanding them. The vortex spins ever faster and risks becoming an ideological black hole.

In 2002, a book was published called “The Emerging Democratic Majority.” It argued that Democrats would gain because of their strength in expanding demographics such as Hispanics, Asian-Americans and working women. It seemed persuasive until Republicans clobbered Democrats in the next couple of elections.

But perhaps that book was ahead of its time. This was the first election in which Hispanic voters made up a double-digit share of the electorate, according to CNN exit polls — 10 percent, doubled from 1996 — and more than 7 out of 10 Hispanic voters supported Obama.

That wasn’t inevitable. In 2004, exit polls suggested that President George W. Bush received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote. But Republicans became obstructionist on immigration and then veered into offensive demagogy in opposing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The Hispanic vote tumbled by increasing numbers into the Democrats’ laps.

Then there are women. The paternalistic comments about rape by a few male Republican candidates resonated so broadly because they reflected the perception of the G.O.P. as a conclave of out-of-touch men. As Representative Todd Akin of Missouri might put it, when a candidate emerges with offensive views about rape, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Namely, they vote Democratic.

America is changing. After this election, a record 20 senators will be women, almost all of them Democrats. Opposition to same-sex marriage used to be a way for Republicans to trumpet their morality; now it’s seen as highlighting their bigotry.

An astonishing 45 percent of Obama voters were members of minority groups, according to The Times’s Nate Silver. Many others were women or young people. That’s the future of America, and if the Republican Party remains a purist cohort built around grumpy old white men, it is committing suicide. That’s bad not just for conservatives, but for our entire country.
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Bodkin van Horn · Nov 8, 2012

I thought it was interesting that Obama ran on what was partially a "tax the rich" platform and won. This echoes what happened in MN, where the state GOP lost both houses in the legislature, resulting in pro-tax Democrats being in charge of everything. Prop 30 passed in CA, which amounts to a tax increase. Perhaps the general public has figured out that we need to be willing to pay for the government we want. It would be interesting to see if the GOP ever reconsiders its absurd and reflexive position on taxes.

Baraka_Guru · Nov 8, 2012

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

It would be interesting to see if the GOP ever reconsiders its absurd and reflexive position on taxes.
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Maybe this is a sign?

Republican House Speaker says he’s open to higher taxes in a deal with Obama - The Globe and Mail

rogue49 · Nov 8, 2012

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Maybe this is a sign?

Republican House Speaker says he’s open to higher taxes in a deal with Obama - The Globe and Mail
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Actually it's not the Speaker you have to worry about...it never was.
It's IF he can get all his members to go along with it.
He's a stage-coach driver trying to turn a string of horses and quite a few are wild stallions...raging and obstinate.

That's been the problem the last 2 years...and will likely be the one for at least the next 2 years.

roachboy · Nov 8, 2012

redux · Nov 8, 2012

Sarah Palin on Obama's Re-election -- biased media, socialist policies...and 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Don’t Lose Heart
by Sarah Palin on Wednesday, November 7, 2012 at 8:35am ·
America, don’t lose heart. This election is not an “Obama mandate,” nor is it a rejection of conservatism. Unanswered ads like this one running in blue collar swing states defined Romney early on, and the Obama media also piled on with the narrative that Romney would harm the middle class. (As I personally have witnessed, once a bell is rung by a biased media, it’s impossible to un-ring it.) Ironically, it’s Obama’s socialist policies that will destroy America’s working class as he outsources opportunities.

Hang in there, America. Fight for what is right. Don’t look to government or any politician to solve your problems. Government can’t make you happy, healthy, wealthy or wise. Obama is a master at reading the right “soaring” words fed into his teleprompter, but actions speak louder than words. So, hold tight to 2 Corinthians 4:8 because we’re in for a wild ride.

We must survive. United. One nation under God.

"We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed." – 2 Corinthians 4:8-9.

- Sarah Palin
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Xerxes · Nov 8, 2012

Geez, that woman is insufferable.

redux · Nov 16, 2012

Sorry. I know putting Palin in the same discussion as Maddow is a disservice to any open minded reader.

To follow up on Maddow, will the conspiracy theories continue?

What else could there possibly be that hasnt been said? I suspect we'll find out from Palin, Trump and other "real Americans."
--- merged: Nov 9, 2012 at 8:38 AM ---

One pissed off elephant (embedding disabled)

Random McRandom · Nov 9, 2012

Benghazi is what they are after now. They think Obama actually ordered the shit and/or made sure that no help could arrive in time. Morons.

I'm not sure why people tout Ron Paul. He'd be annihilated in a presidential election. Seriously, he'd end up worse than Bob Dole.

Palin? Puhlease. She's saying anything at this point to stay in the mix but even most GOP members are like "Sarah who?" at this point. She's the female version of Karl Rove.

Boehner has already said he won't support any tax increases but he'll talk about it. He claims he's the most respectful and easiest to work with in Washington. Yeah... ummmm... No.

Rubio won't make it far, he's a slave to the fringe right and for the most part he's just a lapdog for McConnell. The GOP can't just throw up a Latino candidate and say "Look, we like you!" and expect Latino voters to fall for it. The Dems need to be careful on who they nominate next time, but I'd say right now, they're only concerned with mid-term elections and this fiscal cliff bullshit.

Bodkin van Horn · Nov 9, 2012

I like Palin's message. I think we need more conservative pundits who will tell Republican voters that their problem isn't that they believe in a lot of bad ideas that have been rendered liabilities by changing demographics, but that the media is mean. I can see this working out well for them in the long run.

Baraka_Guru · Nov 9, 2012

Bodkin van Horn said: ↑

I like Palin's message. I think we need more conservative pundits who will tell Republican voters that their problem isn't that they believe in a lot of bad ideas that have been rendered liabilities by changing demographics, but that the media is mean. I can see this working out well for them in the long run.
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Or: When Americans voted against the mere perception of Romney as bad for the middle class, they unwittingly voted for actual socialism!

Is this what a hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, struck-down conservative looks like?

Remixer · Nov 9, 2012

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

Or: When Americans voted against the mere perception of Romney as bad for the middle class, they unwittingly voted for actual socialism!
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McCarthy would be proud of you.

Arrest them.

Baraka_Guru · Nov 9, 2012

Remixer said: ↑

McCarthy would be proud of you.

Arrest them.
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Sarah Palin: ...Obama's socialism derp-a-derp...!

Socialists: Huh...?

The spirit of Karl Marx: *facepalm*

The spirit of Vladimir Lenin: *snicker-snort*

The spirit of Chairman Mao: See? Religion is poison!

The spirit of Che Guevera: *rum spit-take*

The spirit of Joseph McCarthy: You go, girl!

redux · Nov 9, 2012

Other winners and losers:

Joe the Plumber was flushed away in his bid for Congress, losing by a resounding 73% (D) - 23% Joe

Charles Darwin picked up 4,000 write-in votes in a Congressional race against an unopposed creationist in GA (evolution and other scientific theories are “lies straight from the pit of hell.”)

redux · Nov 9, 2012

Tea Party Senator Ron Johnson from Wisc. offers to explain the "facts" of the federal budget to nearly elected Sen. Tammy Baldwin:

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D), Wisconsin's new senator-elect, is confident that she will be able to understand the federal budget without the assistance of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

In an Associated Press interview on Wednesday, Johnson said he hoped he would be able to work with Baldwin in the Senate -- as soon as he explained the "facts" of the budget to her.

"Hopefully I can sit down and lay out for her my best understanding of the federal budget because they're simply the facts," he said. "Hopefully she'll agree with what the facts are and work toward common sense solutions."

"I was a double major in college in mathematics and political science, and I served for six years on the House Budget Committee in my first six years in the House," Baldwin responded in an interview with The Huffington Post on Friday.

"And I am very confident that when proposals come before the U.S. Senate, I will be able to evaluate them as to how they benefit or harm middle-class Wisconsinites. A yardstick of 'does it create jobs,' 'does it lower the deficit' and 'does it help grow the middle class' is an important one. I'm quite confident that I have those abilities," she added.

Baldwin has served in Congress since 1999; Johnson took office in 2011.
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Condescending asshole

Charlatan · Nov 9, 2012

Rogue's Article above said:

On the other hand, if the Republicans had nominated Jon Huntsman Jr., they might have been the ones celebrating right now. But he had no chance in Republican primaries because primary voters are their party’s worst enemy.
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I was saying this from the moment he announced his run. Hunstman would have been the Demorat's worst fear. A real centre-right candidate.

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