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How about starting with the expansion of personal liberty, and all that implies?
Such implications might be tax reform, making it easier for people to start businesses, and for business to hire more people, path to citizenship, I'm sure readers can come up with more.
Yes, but what has happened is that to be a Republican, one must pass a conservative litmus test. The moderates are fleeing the party. Hunstman, who might have had a chance against Obama in the general election, is right of center but received about 2% of the GOP primary votes. What's the incentive for moderates to run in the primaries? None -- leaving the wingnuts to challenge each other.
Yes, and now Portman is anathema.
The totalitarian litmus-test, ideological-purity thing is hard to fight against - but electoral defeat is even harder. The advantage of the sane wing of the party doesn't come from themselves: it's that the whack-jobs will lose, because whatever Americans are, in the last analysis we are not extremists. And then they'll have the label "loser" around their necks - and that's the worst thing in the world for politicians.
And the GOP will survive, because thanks to our electoral laws, our parties are undead: they cannot die. So moderates can simply wait, knowing that the party's place on primary and general ballots is guaranteed by law, waiting for them to return in due course, like Bourbons after the revolution eats its own.
The report commissioned by the Republican National Committee calls for changes to help the party better engage women, minorities and the young. The GOP has lost five of the last six popular votes for president.
In calling for the GOP to develop “a more welcoming conservatism,” the report rebukes those who remain in denial about the seriousness of the problem and those who are unwilling to broaden the party’s appeal.
A just-concluded gathering of conservatives in Washington cheered speaker after speaker who urged the GOP to stick to its guns and, instead, largely blamed the 2012 defeat on Romney or the way he ran his campaign.
“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself," the study says. "We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”
“Unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future,” the report concludes.
So if the study conclusions are true, which direction should Republicans go.... make the necessary changes to provide a "bigger tent", or double-down on current ideology, or perhaps even encourage some of the "incompatible" factions to splinter off?
IMO the GOP is lost if they think they need to pander to people based upon their race or skin color, or ethnicity, etc...
Either your message and ideology appeal to people, or it doesn't. If people want free stuff from government, even though they are financially and physically capable of helping themselves, then let them vote for someone else. If people want to sit back and let Medicare and Social Security go bankrupt, and spend the money of unborn children to pad their own wallets, and run up our national debt, then let them vote for someone else.
The GOP, as it currently exists, is not worth spit, and the Democratic Party is no better. Neither one cares about the country or the people, they just crave votes, money and power.
The reason the GOP is in trouble is because good people who don't like the current GOP are trying to change it into a party for the people.
The reason the Democratic Party is not suffering the same problems is because no one cares, or has the balls to stand up to them and return that party back to the people.
The problem with the argument for moderates and pragmatics in the GOP is that three times in the last 20 years, the Presidential ticket was headed by moderates (Dole in 1996, McCain in 2008, and Romney in 2012) and nonetheless lost. Romney only barely moved the needle from McCain's weak totals four years earlier among suburbanites in the Northeast and Midwest. Outside the South, the Southwest, and lower Midwest, middle class and better white voters have been moving leftward politically and culturally since 1980. Increasing minority populations, especially Hispanics and Asians, tend to vote Democrat. In the case of Asian voters, the Democrat tendency cannot be attributed to welfare state dependency. It can be attributed to the perception of conservatism as being the philosophy of conservative Christianity and Western tradition. The Asian aversion to conservatism resembles that of American Jews. With both Asians and Jews, conservatism is perceived of as the successor to past colonialism and persecution. Conservatives may look in the mirror and see Thomas Jefferson; Asians and Jews see Lord Kitchener or Torquemada.
Moderates in the Republican Party are in the same position as the marketers of Pepsi vs. Coke. They must give the middle of the road to liberal voters a reason to choose an essentially similar product. Sometimes they succeed, even in uber-liberal Massachusetts, as seen in the electoral victories of Romney and Scott Brown. However, moderate Republicans, who are maligned by conservatives as "me-too" Republicans in the 1950s and 1960s, and as RINOs today, alienate the conservative base. That base was at most lukewarm for Dole, McCain, and Romney, and their lack of enthusiasm likely caused the losses in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio.
The conservative wing of the GOP finds itself in a dilemma. Its share of the market peaked under Reagan and has declined ever since. Declining adherence to conservative Catholicism and evangelical Christianity, increasing public acceptance of social positions on drugs, extramarital sex, and moral relativism, and declining numbers of traditional families are serious impediments to a return to dominance. Additionally, hostility to Western and American tradition is a major factor that alienates a majority of nonwhites and Jews, even affluent ones, from conservatism.
If there is a future for the GOP other than being Democrat lite, it will be in the libertarian movement, which remains small but is growing. Look at Ron Paul's 2012 totals in the Republican primaries vs. his showing in 2008. Libertarians are nowhere near ready for prime time, but remember that the Populist and Progressive movements of a century ago were fringe elements. Ditto for the Free Soil and Abolitionist movements before the Civil War.
Why do liberals/democrats waste so much precious time finding and posting crap articles about how bad the other party is?
Because we want a sane and viable alternative. Goodness knows I don't want one party rule and would love to be able to vote for someone who believes necessary entitlement reforms without throwing out all programs and who doesn't have social stances straight from a Pentecostal pulpit.
The problem with the argument for moderates and pragmatics in the GOP is that three times in the last 20 years, the Presidential ticket was headed by moderates (Dole in 1996, McCain in 2008, and Romney in 2012) and nonetheless lost.
Yes, one possible interpretation, naturally favored by the extremists, is that this proves that there is no percentage in moderation.
An alternate interpretation is that while moderates called Dole, McCain and Romney lost, moderates called Clinton and Obama won. Therefore there is no reason whatsoever to believe that moderation is a failed strategy, and what really explains the failure of these GOP moderate candidates is that Bob Dole, John McCain and Willard Romney were three of the most colorless, uninspiring and un-charismatic political candidates in the history of modern electoral politics.
If you are worried about wining elections you are thinking like a liberal wanting to do anything to divide the country, lie ,attack peoples children , call people stupid racists woman haters. republican can not win by playing the democratic game and if they did so we would end up with what we have now.
I would rather get called names which are lies and stand for something and lose than win by splintering America by race sex education and finance,
choosing the latter is a destruction of America.
Liberal win elections by dividing the country, republicans do not need to do the same
There is two things wrong with your thinking:
1) The first and most serious flaw is blaming others instead of evaluating what the GOP stands for, as a cause of failure, (e.g. 'it's those nasty Democrats that caused use to lose.') The fact that Obama won even though he was outspent by Republicans and their operatives played no role in your calculation.
This is equivalent to learning nothing from the recent election and dooms the GOP to future failures. They just are doubling-down.
2) The idea that it was the liberals, and not the Republicans, that tried to divide the country is lost upon you and is comical. Perhaps you missed that little thing where the narrative was that 47% of the country is mooching off the rich people that pay most of the taxes; the rich are the "job creators," (which implies that the rest of the voters are 2nd class to the GOP"Obama apologizes for the country"; "Obama is buying votes", etc.
I haven't seen a campaign where the Democratic candidate was so demonized since the 2008 election, where Mr. Obama's citizenship was questioned.
The report commissioned by the Republican National Committee calls for changes to help the party better engage women, minorities and the young. The GOP has lost five of the last six popular votes for president.
Good idea. I agree with that. As long as "engage" means "engage" and is not a codeword for "pandering"
Quote:
In calling for the GOP to develop “a more welcoming conservatism,” the report rebukes those who remain in denial about the seriousness of the problem and those who are unwilling to broaden the party’s appeal.
A just-concluded gathering of conservatives in Washington cheered speaker after speaker who urged the GOP to stick to its guns and, instead, largely blamed the 2012 defeat on Romney or the way he ran his campaign.
Well, it is a debatable point. Romney had some significant momentum in October and he blew it. He chose a nonconfrontational strategy based on false polling information saying that he had the lead. He was trying to coast into what he thought was a victory by not making any mistakes or ruffling any feathers. If he'd kept hitting it hard, he might have maintained that momentum and gained the victory. Or not. We'll never know for sure.
Quote:
“The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself," the study says. "We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue.”
“Unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future,” the report concludes.
Another option is to meet the Democrats head on. Vice President Biden said that the Republicans want to put black people back in chains. That's a full frontal attack with all barrels loaded. The GOP never fights like that. The Democrats maintain a constant narrative that Republicans hate poor people and are racist and sexist. It never stops. They do not tone down their rhetoric between campaigns. They keep that attack up at all times. If the GOP did something similar, then the GOP might fare better.
If they created the narrative that the Democrats are all talk and no action on actually helping minorities, and kept hitting that year round, we may see the Democrat stranglehold on minorities break. What are the Democrats going to say to that? They can't turn it around and blame Republicans, because that would just be playing right into the Republican attack that all they do is talk. And they can't refute it with numbers, because the numbers say that minorities are worse off since Obama got elected. We don't necessarily need to pander to minorities, we just need to defuse the Democrat propaganda.
So if the study conclusions are true, which direction should Republicans go.... make the necessary changes to provide a "bigger tent", or double-down on current ideology, or perhaps even encourage some of the "incompatible" factions to splinter off?
The problem I have with the bigger tent approach is getting into a bidding war with the Democrats. We don't want to get into a contest for whoever offers the particular group more gets their vote. If we can make the tent bigger without sacrificing our principles, then that is cool - and I think that's the way most Republicans are thinking about going.
We absolutely do not want to encourage anybody to splinter off. Democrats have been "helpfully" suggesting that for months now. If we discourage 10% or 20% of the loyal base in an effort to appeal to independents and liberals and end up winning 5% of them, then we've still lost overall.
And I already discussed my ideas for doubling down above, just take the fight to the Democrats much more aggressively.
Because we want a sane and viable alternative. Goodness knows I don't want one party rule and would love to be able to vote for someone who believes necessary entitlement reforms without throwing out all programs and who doesn't have social stances straight from a Pentecostal pulpit.
There is nothing more that I want than the GOP to return to the sane party it once was. There was a time when the GOP was reasonable -- agreed on basic values and could cooperate with Democrats. Today, if the Democrats don't accept the GOP's position, such as all deficit reduction must come from cuts and no addition spending, there is no deal.
President Eisenhower said in 1952, "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
I can't see any modern Republican saying this today.
1) The first and most serious flaw is blaming others instead of evaluating what the GOP stands for, as a cause of failure, (e.g. 'it's those nasty Democrats that caused use to lose.') The fact that Obama won even though he was outspent by Republicans and their operatives played no role in your calculation.
No, it isn't. This is the equivalent of you saying "please pay no attention to the lies and distortions we tell about you". Nice try, but no dice.
Quote:
This is equivalent to learning nothing from the recent election and dooms the GOP to future failures. They just are doubling-down.
No, it's the equivalent of taking advice from your enemy. You do not want the GOP to succeed. It's perfectly obviously that any advice you give will be designed to either 1) weaken the GOP or 2) bring the GOP closer to your thinking. Either 1, you win or 2, if you lose you still get more of your ideas enacted.
Quote:
2) The idea that it was the liberals, and not the Republicans, that tried to divide the country is lost upon you and is comical. Perhaps you missed that little thing where the narrative was that 47% of the country is mooching off the rich people that pay most of the taxes; the rich are the "job creators," (which implies that the rest of the voters are 2nd class to the GOP"Obama apologizes for the country"; "Obama is buying votes", etc.
Contrary to your delusions, we are not stupid. We are not going to sit here and listen to your constant barrage of racist, sexist, homophobe, warmonger, Islamophobe, hate the poor, want people to die without medical care, and only out to make corporations richer and then nod with agreement when you say that we're dividing the country. Again, nice try but no dice.
Quote:
I haven't seen a campaign where the Democratic candidate was so demonized since the 2008 election, where Mr. Obama's citizenship was questioned.
Sure go ahead and keep trying to peddle that fictional story while your Vice President says Republicans want to put blacks back in chains, while you run a commercial showing Ryan dumping an old lady off a cliff, while your Party chair says Republicans want to bring back Jim Crow, while you declare conservatives have declared "War on Women", while you say the Tea Party is the American Taliban, while you say in Congress that we want to hang people from trees, etc. For the third time - nice try, but no dice.
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"Obama apologizes for the country"; "Obama is buying votes", etc.
