Is the Republican party done for?
 

Another Democratic special election win

This makes it 3-for-3 for special elections this year. Prospects are not looking for for the Republicans in the fall. Is this just the pendulum swinging back towards the party that's been out of power for awhile, or does it signal a sea-change in the U.S. political system?

Could the Republican party split? Maybe we could end up with a three party system, with the old Democratic party going further left, a centrist party, and a far-right party? So much of our political infrastructure is designed for the two-party system that this seems hard to imagine, but stranger things have happened.

The neocons will lose most of their power for the time being once Obama wins. The GOP will become more libertarian again and things will go back to normal. Right now the Dems are the centrist party.

I can see a day where the more moderate from both parties split off and come together in the middle as a new party.

That isn't going to happen yet, though. And not likely from the Republicans.

I can still see something weird happening at the Democratic convention involving Hillary, her getting the nomination, the hardcore Obama supporters jumping to McCain to spite her, McCain winning, and the Democrats splitting.

Of course, that is still about as likely as one of those "Hillary runs with Bill, wins, resigns, then is appointed VP" theories, so we're stuck with what we've got.

The MS win was a shocker....in the reddest of red districts. Bush won this district by 25 points in 04. The Repub candidate ran ads attempting to tie Childers to Obama, along with ads with the Rev Wright videos...didnt work.

The extent to which the Repubs are in denial can be found in the words of the House Minority Leader:

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) tonight responded to the MS-01 special election results with this cautionary statement:

“The results in MS-01 should serve as a wake-up call to Republican candidates nationwide. As I’ve said before, this is a change election, and if we want Americans to vote for us we have to convince them that we can fix Washington. Our presidential nominee, Senator McCain, is an agent of change; candidates who hope to succeed must show that they’re willing and able to join McCain in a leading movement for reform. We need to stop wasteful Washington spending, fight and win the war on terror, and stop the largest tax increase in history. That is truly the change the American people deserve -- and that is a message on which we can succeed.”

So what is McCain running on....permanent tax cuts for the top 2% of wage earners, no definable end to the occupation in Iraq, no health care reform plan and a stated lack of interest/expertise in an economic plan....that's change?

I've been seeing counts that the Dems could pick up 12-15 seats in the House this year (after 30+ in 06) and up to 6 seats in the Senate....giving them much more workable majorities.

Will has it right...the Dems have been running centrist candidates to attract Independents and its working, while the Repubs cling to their social conservative base.

I think its the start of another relatively long term trend (10+ year) trend.

More threatening to McCain (and the Repub party) was the announcement yesterday by former Repub Congressmen Bob Barr that he is running for the libertarian nomination for president....and he is running on the Ron Paul platform....cut the size of government, stop the infringement of personal liberties and bring the troops home.

He has to win the Libertarian nomination at their convention later this month..but he is now the front runner and the first big name tht the Libertarian party has ever had as a potential candidate. One republican pollster fears that Barr could get up to 5-7% (no Libertarian has ever won more than 1%) of the vote in Nov if disaffected Repubs (including Ron Paul supporters) turn out for him. That could be the difference in several close states, even more so that Nader in 2000 (he won less than 3%).

Ron Paul supporters are also planning to try to upstage McCain at the Republican convention...another bad sign for McCain and Repub candidates on his coattails.

DJ, there's no way Obamists (myself included in that group, now) will vote for McCain. Even with maximum spite. If McCain wins, it will be because Hillary gave up running like a Democrat months ago and Obama was cheated.

Barr gives me pause. If Paul switched to Libertarian (WHERE HE SHOULD HAVE ALWAYS BEEN), he'd die off, but Paul maintaining he's a Republican means that Barr stands a chance of doing what Badnarik couldn't: attracting pissed off Republicans.

Could this be 1992, where a Clinton wins with a bare plurality because of a third-party candidate stealing Republican votes?

Paul has indicated he wont endorse McCain...particularly because of McCain's never-ending occupation of Iraq (and his belligerence towards Iran).

If Paul comes out and endorses Barr, then many of his troops are likely to follow....and that spells trouble for Republicans.

And many old core Repubs still praise Barr for his leadership role in the House on the Clinton impeachment.

Even if that is the case, what if they don't vote, or vote Green, or otherwise don't vote for Hillary?

If the Libertarians can get something rolling and goofy things start happening at the Dems' convention, this could be a very interesting election.

Might end up with McCain keeping enough of his base together to eek out a plurality, but with a lot of pissed-off people on both sides, and a potentially strong Democratic Congress with a weak Republican president.

Put a fork in Clinton....she's done, even with her big win in WV today. She has one more win in her - KY, next week, while Obama wins OR, SD and PR.

At this point, she is hoping to recoup some of her $20 million in outstanding debts....and it sounds more and more like she is pushing quietly for the VP slot, putting Obama in a tough position.

Of course.
Paul won't do that. He's too stuborn. He'll run until the very end. And you're right in thinking it doesn't make sense. But that's his game.
All I care about is splitting the GOP vote. The less people vote for McCain, the better.
What I was saying is that at this point, considering the delegates, Obama would have to be cheated to lose the Dem nomination. And yes, I suspect that if he were cheated, a lot of his supporters would not vote Dem, which could result in a GOP white house (as I said).

I might vote Green again.
A strong Dem congress is WAY more important than the presidency. I don't know why people can't grasp that. This is why I was so disappointed in 2006 and why I was especially disappointed that the Dem majority has crumbled on several key issues. The power is in the House and Senate. As soon as someone gets those car crashes under control, we can start undoing the damage Bush has done.

It will be interesting to follow the Ron Paul blogsophere to see if they will move towards Barr without Paul's endorsement or stick with their guy who wont be on the ballot in Nov.

That is, after they disrupt the Repub Convention.

Absolutely...particularly a fillibuster proof Senate (they are likely to fall a few short of the magic number of 60...they might hit 57-58)

Who are "the moderates" from both parties? What are their common interests, besides personal concerns about fuel prices and "the economy"? Do you think that people who want new laws passed that put doctors who perform abortions and/or women who choose to have abortions, in jail, to prevent the procedure from being available, and people who believe the abortion issue is "settled law", are going to come together under one political tent?

I don't see many republican "moderates", and neither does the senate voting record show many..... There will be no "jumping" to McCain. What would be the attraction of McCain's candidacy, for an Obama supporter, compared to sitting out the general election? Nobody who supports Obama wants to endure what American life will be like during four more years of McBush!

OUR EMERGING CONCERN IS THE "WINGERIZATION" RAMPANT IN THE OFFICER RANKS IN OUR MILITARY.

I don't know it seems to me that more and more of the officer ranks are seeing the GOP for what they are. Of course given the Bush and Co. stance on those that disagree or say what they don't want to hear many of these men and women are "lurking." But I almost feel that once his term is over you're going to see many higher rank people write "I tried to tell them" books.

Other then that I agree with most of what you wrote.

Why should Ron have always been Libertarian?

I don't get what you're saying. Paul is running for the Republican nomination. Barr will be running for President in the general election. This means they aren't even competing against each other. Unless you're implying Ron is going to run third party or independent, which doesn't seem like the case at this point.

I don't think a Barr endorsement would be totally out of the question from Paul.

This is a FUN thread!

Mind-boggling things said on this thread so far:

1) Hillary stands even the slightest chance to be the nominee, and Obama supporters will vote McCain because of it.

2) Ron Paul fits better in the Republican party than the Libertarian Party.

I don't know if you're referring to what I said, but Ron clearly said why he went Republican instead of Libertarian. Remember he already tried to run for the Libertarians as president.

It's not about fit, it's about ballot access and being marginalized out of debates and for simplying being 'libertarian' you're already a marked loser candidate out of the gates. He said when he ran as a libertarian for president he spent all his time just trying to get on ballots and didn't want to deal with that again.

Barr is a pretty big hitter from the GOP though and could really leave a mark this election considering how disgusting McCain is from a Republican perspective.

Neo-Cons are dead, but the Neo-Cons aren't real Republicans, so no, the GOP isn't dead. rattled, but not dead

Barr doesnt need Paul's endorsement as much as he needs Paul's money machine.

Sam...as a Paul guy, do you think the troops will pony up for Barr?

If they do, I can see Barr getting 5+% of the vote...if they dont, he will suffer the same fate as earlier Libertarians...less than 1%

The Repubs need to figure out who they are and if they are willing to be more flexible to attract moderates who are leaving the party in droves.

The Republican Party is not done for, however, the Bush arm of the party is under appreciated and the Party has lost focus. I believe we will have a Democratic Party controlled Congress and White House (I still think it will be Clinton) after the elections in November. I think she will continue our occupation in Iraq beyond what her base wants. I think she will raise taxes on all Americans, not just the "wealthy". I think she will fail to fix Medicare and social security. I think deficit spending and the debt will continue to increase. I think she will pass a compromised version of her national health care plan, projected costs will be about 10x more than planned. She will be one term and a Republican will win the next election and Republicans will reverse the trend of losing seats in Congress and eventually regain control. History will look back on the Bush administration more favorably over time.

You've heard it here first.

Most polls show that the Republican party is facing serious defections...with the lowest number of self-identified Repubs in years.

From a recent Pew poll:
While the Dems percentage hasnt increased, they are pulling away with the self-identified Independents.

Other polls show an even wider disparity in voter party preference.

Favorable/Unfavorable opinions of:

Democrats (56/35 or 52/41 or 56/38)

Republicans (38/53 or 33/58 or 41/52)

Short answer: No

Long answer: Election swings in the US seem to be based not on policy but perception of culpability. It was only a short time ago that democrats were switching parties like rats leaving a sinking ship, now I will expect to see some Republicans doing the same thing. After years of Democrats stinking up the house, and some wackiness of Bill Clintons early years, the swing voters thought the Republicans could fix it. The problem for the republicans seems to be they took tha as a true change in the countries thought processes to the right and instead of fixing what the people wanted them to fix, they just added their own shenanigans. So now you get voters, many who never saw democrat shenanigans in full force, who swing to the democrats to ‘fix’ it. Only they won’t fix it either, many will assume, wrongly, that the country is more left, and suddenly the republicans will look good again to those voters.

Its like the circle of life only with more graft and less dung beetles.

Even with the low rating of Congress, an ABC poll this week shows the Dems with the highest "trust" or "do a better job" rating of either party in 16 years:

Dems - 53%
Repubs - 32%

The highest percentage the Repub party ever reached was 51% (after 9/11)

The country is centrist but leaning left...or, put another way, leaning away from the social conservative dominated message of the right. As long as the religious right are the face of the Repub party, centrists will continue to turn away.

Don't you listen to host? There is no center any more. We're all rightists.

Seriously, in the not-too-distant past there was a phenomenon involving the "Reagan Democrats" that was supposed to kill the Democratic party. Obviously, that didn't happy. It's possible (not necessarily probably) that there will be "Obama Republicans" in this cycle. That said, I see no signs of either party imploding in the future.

I dunno he kinda treads on thin ice just like all libertarian party candidates. He's very pro drug war which is hard for libertarians to swallow, but at the same time has been a very vocal opponent of the Bush administration (patriot act and wiretaps).

If it was him vs. mccain and obama I'd be voting Barr most likely. I hate his stance on drug war though.

He's had the balls to abandon the radical Neo-con policies, that's very comendable in an age where Republicans have been Bush minions for 8 years.

http://pewresearch.org/assets/publications/773-3.gif

That's gotta hurt. Especially that last one. There are going to be states in play this year that have NEVER been in play before.

Never's a long time. Kansas used to be a blue state. So did Mississippi.

And Illinois used to be a red state.

How about "there are going to be states in play this year that haven't been in play in recent memory"? Or "in our lifetimes"?

The Republicans have come up with a new campaign theme for Congressional candidates...details to be released later today:

"Change You Deserve"

Just one problem....its a trademark of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals for its anti-depressant, Effexor.

Maybe its fitting...there has been nothing more depressing than eight years of Bush.

I dont think the Republican party will inplode, but I do think it is in for a long stretch as the minority party unless they retool to attract the growing number of Independents. There are now more self-identified Independents than Republicans...a bad trend for the Rs.

Independents...

....dont want personal religious beliefs inserted into politics

...dont want a belligerent foreign policy that might put their kids (in the military) at risk in unending incursions in countries that poses no direct threat to the US

...dont want more their personal liberties infringed upon in the name of some undefined threat

...dont want tax breaks for the top 2% of wage earners

...do want a social safety net - particularly affordable health care and job (or income) security

...do want a more open and transparent government

...do want a government that holds the excesses and questionable practices of the private sector in check

...do want a strong and enforceable environmental policy (including global warming)

And these are why more and more Independents are leaning left.

Because he's a libertarian? All things being equal, Al Gore should have run Green, too. They're just reinforcing the idea that a third party is not viable, which is ultimately damaging to the country.
Paul should have stopped running months ago, but he's still going. Even though it's impossible to win (short of McCain being assassinated), he's still campaigning. If he's campaigning when it's impossible now, why would he stop when the convention names McCain as their candidate? He may not be making reasonable decisions, but he's consistent.

Pedant! ;)

The Repubs aren't done for but they will be a minority party for at least the next decade, and deservedly so. They had their chance to run the country and made a royal hash of it.

It took only 12 years for the GOP to become toxic due to its own misbehavior. That's after a 40 year period at the end of which the Dem behavior amounted to much the same thing. If you credit the Feiler Faster Thesis, it will take the Dems much less time as a majority party this time to become corrupt, extreme and out of touch. And then the next cycle after that will be even shorter.

How so? :confused:

Toxic behavior and corruption are mitigating factors, but IMO, the decline of the Repub party and its likelihood as a minority party for a relatively long time to come is due more to its ideological agenda and subsequent policy decisions and actions.

The Republicans had the executive, the house, the senate, the judciary, most of the governors and state legislations and couldn't bring conservative fiscal or foreign policy to head.

A TOTAL failure. If you can't the job done dominating all branches, you'll never get it done.

Hehehehe... I was kidding, of course. :thumbsup:

A third pary is not viable option and you know it. They stacked the deck against third parties by making it more difficult for them to get balloted.

Why should he of stopped? He still had money rolling in and a chance to shift the Republican party back to the right by humiliating mccain.

Plus he is continually informing more and more people about the fraudulent federal reserve system and failed foreign policy. His book hit #1 on amazon and now the NYTimes #1 best seller. It's about spreading the ideas Will, not about the nomination anymore.

So in order to battle this injustice, the brave candidates muster up all their courage and... well, cave in completely.
Outside of Digg, he's not getting any press anymore. Even press for his book is staggeringly small.
If it's not about the nomination, why not run Libertarian?

At this time a third party is not viable. I was a card carrying Libertarian for 9 years before I had to accept the fact that the only elections that Libertarians were going to carry were municipal and county. And even that usually came from the eeny meeny miny moe vote. The party now resembles a coffee klatch more than a political party. The leadership just is not there. They are simply to disorganized at just about everything except for fundraising.

The same could be said of Bush.

Thanks for that, _Jazz.... I always appreciate a good mocking....but why not save it until you're responding to someone who doesn't know WTF they are talking about.

I live, today in a country where the headlines blare, "OBAMA IS MOST LIBERAL SENATOR".....but _Jazz..... this is what I see:

<h3>Washington 1796</h3>

<h3>Eisenhower 1956</h3>
<h3>Obama 2007</h3>

<h3>Obama 2008</h3>
Can you FEEL, the LOVE?

The "most liberal" US senator, _Jazz, in the US in 2008, had been making noises for the past year, that position him on the right of the republican president of 1956..... could it possibly be that you don't have an accurate frame of reference to position your own political views?

You've been subjected to all of the government/media blather that I have, in our life experiences in the good ole USA. How do you think Obama got to be so far positioned to the right of Eisenhower.... Israel worship, commitment to use of force in the face of perceived imminent threat, and a pledge to increase US ground troop strenght by 92,000 ? Could the answer be that Obama is simply a mirror held up to reflect the increasingly rightist perspective of you and of many others who don't notice that they haven't questioned enough of the BS flung at them.... ala pentagon PSY-OPS 2008.... and "are we going to wait until there is a mushroom cloud on our horizon?"...circa 2002?

Is Obama, correct, _Jazz? Are ALL of Israel's perceived "enemies", out enemies? Would Wahington or Eisenhower have put this in writing:
...you think so???? Really ???

Is it wise foreign policy for Obama and other politicians to describe Israel as "the only democracy" in the ME, considering that the Iranians have attempted....they aren't they are'nt there yet, but they are miles ahead of any Arab country in that region, to hold democratic elections? What do you suppose the reaction "the average Iranian" is, to statements excluding their progress towards democracy?

Could we "right wing" US majority be our own worst enemy....how do you think Eisenhower would answer that question, today?
It is the democratic party that is "done for". The party that uses that as it's DBA, has drifted to the right of IKE.... in my lifetime! Look what the "move" has accomplished for the average US income earner, compared to his counterpart in France, in Denmark, in Germany, or in Canada or Britain. The results of exercising the power of the vote, if quality of life is a yardstick, comes down to one sentence. If you are the average income earner and holder of average asset levels in the US....better not get sick, or think about retirement. Sad.....that it is what it is....and that your don't see it.

The average household in the US, _Jazz, has income of about <a href="http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ThematicMapFramesetServlet?_dBy=040&geo_id=01000US&ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_&tm_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_M00700&_MapEvent=displayBy">$48450</a>, little in the way of retirement assets, and slightly negative net worth. Add that household's share of the national debt obligation to the mix.....

Look it up if you doubt where the AVERAGE household is. What is the exercise of the vote for, if not to make a better result than that?

What if Ron Paul, who has garnered maddeningly religious support, had run Libertarian? He's gotten over 1m votes in the primary already. That doesn't include Democrats who would likely vote for him if Hillary ran. I may not agree with Dr. Paul, but I'm well aware that he's quite charismatic and is the very model of libertarian leadership.
Hallelujah and amen.

Who's to say that I didn't?

Nope. My political views are the product of years of study and consideration. Could it possibly be that you're so obsessed with the sins of the Bush administration and the vast right wing conspiracy that you can no longer read the data presented in this thread?

Believe it or not, host, but policies change over time. That's why we're no longer at war with the British, despite fighting 2 declared wars with them and being desperately afraid they would intervene during the Civil War.

Other than that, the two quotes have nothing to do with one another. Obama repeated a doctrine present during at Reagan years that we would attack where our interests were threatened. The Foreign Affairs piece is not about Israel, despite the way that you edited it to appear that way. There is one paragraph about Israel. The next one concerns Iran and Syria. Then he discusses the AMERICAN military. He does not say that he will attack those who attack Israel, which is what your editing implies. And, in the subsequent paragraphs, ISRAEL IS NOT MENTIONED!

Do you really want me to play cute editing games? If you do, I'd be happy to go find a random thread and edit a quote of yours to turn you into a Limbaugh Ditto-head. I won't because it would amount to a mildly interesting exercise in futility and something that's just mean-spirited, but I hope you see my point - you've tried to turn the statement into something it isn't.

The average Iranian would probably agree that Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts, neither of which is democratically elected hold much more power than the president or legislature. Oh, and the Supreme Leader is the commander in chief and responsible for all the general policies of the country. And he appoints the CoG and the AoE. As well as the judiciary. And the heads of the radio and TV networks. And the heads of the military. And the CoG approves all presidential candidates. Question, host: who's more powerful, Khamenei or Ahmedinejad? Think carefully....

So, on one hand, we have the parlimentary democracy that is Israel and on the other we have a theocracy with a few democratic elements.