Conservative cities in CA

[bhcompy]

Originally Posted by majoun

The US DID experience stagflation under Bush immediately prior to the current recession. It just didn't last anywhere nearly as long.

Reagan made significant changes in US politics, just as FDR did earlier, but parties relying upon the accomplishments and achievements of their heroes of the past doesn't last forever. The Dems thought in the early '80s that they could regain the White House by invoking the New Deal and New Frontier, but it didn't work. Eventually parties have to change to keep up with the times. Whoever holds the center gains power ; Roveism was a fluke (and even then didn't produce overwhelming victories).

It is certain that the Republicans will regain Congress and/or the Presidency at some point in the future (they already control the judicial branch). I disagree with Happ's assessment that it will not come until 2028 (20 years of Dem control in the 20th century was a fluke that had mainly to do with FDR's personal popularity, and the GOP held Congress for most of Truman's administration). Likewise I disagree with the assessment of some GOP posters that the GOP will retake Congress in 2010 or the Presidency in 2012 (barring the circumstances I mentioned above re: the Presidency), although I do think they will pick up some House seats in 2010. OTOH, by 2014 the party will have had its chance to remake itself. If it chooses to go even more conservative for 2010 then that point in time will be delayed. I have a feeling that the GOP nominee in 2016 will be someone that not too many people have heard of right now, and the Dem nominee in 2016 may also be someone not too many people have heard of right now (as Biden or Hillary will be too old to follow Obama in 2016).

The Dixiecrats also had something to do with that.

And I agree with your assessment on the future. Typically, the Republican Party will assimilate ideals once they become mainstream enough(conservatism is slow on the uptake), so social issues will eventually pass on as they always do. Once that happens, the party can focus on fiscal issues that are the future internal problems of the nation. Alternatively, the party can take a more libertarian route and say "your business is your business" and possibly get away with it with the religious voters.

Either way, once Boomers start retiring in droves, the nation is screwed in it's present fiscal bind. Something massive will need to be done to overcome it. Whoever provides the best plan will win, and that will happen sometime next decade probably.

And as far as Crist, who is Crist?

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Quatermass

Interesting.... I've never met a Republican who thought much of anything about Crist one way or another. He's always seemed to me to be an opportunistic non-entity.



If you're talking about his rejection of the stimulus, I think that's exactly the sort of thing that will give him a shot -- if the economy is still in chaos by then (and there seems to be no bottom). The Republicans can use the theme that Obama is bankrupting America and Sanford could be a standard-bearer who opposed the 3 trillion-dollar stimulus from the start.



Bush was so toxic I don't think it would have been possible for any Republican to distance him- or herself from him enough. The "Republican" label itself was all the Dems needed to charge up its voters. (Just look how well it worked on happ. )



Both Thatcher and Reagan rode into office on a message of conservatism, particularly economic conservatism, one that resonated for an England and an America that by the end of the '70s were both economic basket-cases. Both the Tories and the Republicans were offering clear, bold alternatives and the people of their respective nations were fed up enough to take them up on it. What the Democrats are doing now is so far from economic conservatism that it sets up the same potential 1979/80 dynamic for the Republicans in 2010/12. If they can come up with someone who knows how to take advantage of it.



What I'm advocating the GOP do is provide an alternative to the Democrats, simple as that. John McCain's Republican Party collapsed in 2008 because there was so little distinguishable difference between him and Obama on too many key issues. (And before him Bush and the GOP Congress were spending like crazy, destroying the party's credibility on economic responsibility.) Whether McCain or Obama won, you knew you were going to get the same thing policywise on way too many issues, from illegal immigration to court appointments.

One-party rule, no matter which party it is, is never good; we can certainly agree on that. (We need look no further than south of the border to see what 80 years of one-party rule did to Mexico.) If the GOP can't get its act together and finally collapses entirely, the way the Whigs did in the 1850s, something else will have to arise to fill the vacuum; that's the history of American politics, in which the pendulum always swings back one way or another. But since the disintegration of one of the major parties hasn't happened in 150 years, I think it's more likely the Republicans regain a foothold, sooner rather than later; and they will have a prime opportunity to do so in 2010 if they can figure out that they have to present voters with an alternative.

'Cause you can't beat something with nothing, and McCain, Schwarzenegger, and their ilk are about as nothing as you can get.

you are right on, I have said this many times: Obama didn't win, McCain and the republlicans lost...It would have taken someone totally different to beat the democrats and certainly McCain was not the man...

Nita

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by majoun

I must know different Republicans than you do.




From what I've read about and heard about Sanford, he is more devoted to his principles than political advancement, and is willing to throw away his political career for the sake of his principles. Even his supporters have said that. Someone like that doesn't usually get the nomination, and if they do, they're losers, even though they tend to get good marks from historians.(Compare the general opinions held today of Barry Goldwater and George McGovern, both men of principle although of very different ideologies, with the candidates who beat them in landslides, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon respectively, both very sleazy characters who abused their power tremendously while in office and left the White House in disgrace to the point that their own parties preferred to forget about them in subsequent years.) Sanford is the type of politician whom historians will be kind to but won't rise above his current job.




And David Cameron is an inspiration for Republicans just as Thatcher was in her time. He's taken a party that was virtually left for dead under the dominance of its right wing who still longed for Thatcher and brought it to a point where it is certain to gain power in the next UK election by a massive landslide.



On a few issues, not all. The collapse came once Palin was put on the ticket, and deepened when the economy collapsed in a big way.



The recent memory of how the GOP Congress is the difference between now and 1993. In 1994 the GOP had not controlled the House for 40 years. Only a handful of Congressmen in 1994 had been in the House when the GOP last controlled Congress. The memory of a Republican House today is still very fresh.



McCain said that someone like John Roberts would be an acceptable SCOTUS appointment even though he said he wouldn't appoint someone like Alito. The major difference between Roberts and Alito is one of style rather than substance - both are conservative but Roberts isn't an "in your face" conservative. Do you really think Obama would appoint someone like Roberts when he makes his first SCOTUS appointment?



Or certain US states.



The alternative being offered SO FAR is none too appealing to the average American. However, it is inevitable the GOP will eventually clean house. Remember one needs the independents and the people from the other party to gain support. Ideological purity is a disadvantage in a presidential candidate (even though if it is attached to a set of principles it can gain respect for a losing candidate from historians).



McCain actually has shown principles throughout his political career, and his problem was blatantly sucking up to a part of the party that he was not part of in an extremely insincere manner. As for Arnold - he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if one looks at the history of the California Republican Party he isn't an aberration at all. His problem has been his lack of negotiating skills in dealing with a failed political system, a polarized and dysfunctional Legislature filled with divas and attentionwhores, and virtual civil war within his own party during a time of great crisis for his state. It would take someone with the skills of an Abraham Lincoln or a Roosevelt (either one) to deal with a situation like that, and very few politicians are on that level.

I do not think Palin hurt one bit..If anything she got the Republicans excited again. Will she be the nominee in 2012? absolutely no, in fact she may not even run, but McCain was though before he started..

[Sassberto]

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