Posted on 11/08/2012 11:43:50 AM PST by radpolis
I have read many of the Freeper and conservative analyses of why we lost this election.
The ironic thing is they are not all wrong even when they contradict each other.
Each element of criticism has an element of truth.
The problem essentially comes down to this:
How do we get more votes than the Democrats?
The fact is that the Republican Party has some inherent contradictions that we have to over-come.
Most Freepers want to be a niche party in a country of 310 million people.
As a capitalist, this goes against the basic principle that you want to maximize your customer base.
Some really believe that you can win elections just by appealing to the White conservative Christian and evangelical base.
We can win elections with this base if the voters show up. But this is a really risky strategy, because evidently this base is fickle.
We can certainly win state elections when this base shows up in Red and Swing states. Evidently, we are good at winning elections even in Blue and Swing states when there isn't a presidential election. (There are reasons for this that always benefits us that I won’t be going into.)
However, during national elections, we have told moderates on the West Coast and the Northeast that if you don’t subscribe to conservative Christian principles of the Deep South and Midwest then you can go take a hike.
As far as I am concerned, this is a stupid strategy. Telling the Rockefeller and Tim Johnson Republicans to take a hike is not helpful.
Freepers need to come to grips with the reality that there are people who are philosophically with us on the West Coast and Northeast but who are more socially libertarian than socially conservative, many are hard core capitalists and/or have misgivings about the Nanny State. For example, they are small businesswomen who get killed on taxes and regulations. But they side with the Democrats, because the hardcore evangelicals turn them off with their rhetoric. Honestly, I think what killed us was the “War on Women.” However unjust you think that attack was, we have to come to terms that some rhetoric on our side is what hung us.
Broadly, we shouldn't be losing any elections in New England, except for maybe Massachusetts and Vermont, which have gone full blown socialist. And, quite frankly, we shouldn't be losing any elections in the Upper Midwest either. These states are mostly lily white and don’t have the black and Latino demographic that swings elections to Democrats.
So basically we need to go back to the way we won elections in the past.
We have to stop isolating the liberal and moderate Republicans on the West Coast, New England and Upper Midwest. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan embraced them, because they were not stupid. In other words, abide by Reagan's 11th Commandment.
But, at the same time, we need to keep the hardcore conservative base in the Deep South and lower Midwest.
This is the paradox.
In the final analysis, we need the Reagan coalition. People seem to think Reagan was a hard core conservative his entire career. But the fact is he was more like Mitt Romney. Reagan governed California when it was going through the social revolution of the late 60s and early 70s. He didn't govern California like a hard core conservative. What made Reagan look like a hard core conservative to many, however, was his position on Communism and the Soviet Union.
Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan won their elections with blowouts. They had 50 state strategies. They didn't win by going after a handful of votes in the so-called battlegrounds.
The gap we need to bridge is the social conservatism of the lower Midwest and Deep South with the more socially liberal elements in the urban and coastal parts of the country. Many here think we shouldn't go this route and go hard right, socially. I respectfully disagree.
I don't think you can win if you isolate women, the youth, and the male libertarian elements with rhetoric that sounds more like the Taliban than American.
I also think we would have a better message that would even appeal to Democrats is if our attitude towards government be made in the rhetoric of reform instead of elimination--even if we plan on eliminating.
The broader base lies in prosperity for all through free markets and entrepreneurship, a social agenda that is limited to civil society, church and localities, smaller, efficient and reformed government, and a strong defense.
We nominated a liberal Northeastern RINO.
Your analysis breaks down.
We nominated and ran a northeastern RINO this time and lost.
Your anaylsis makes no sense.
Conservatives will never, ever, ever do this again.
Sorry to tell you, but there is no ‘we’ anymore.
The GOP jumped the shark this time. Not going to go into the reasons why, just check the record.
It’s Constitution Party time for all those who want this country back. And we will take it back.
The Republican ‘Wet Noodle’ Party is not only finished, they’re through.
Another call to pander to the abortionists, homosexualists, atheists, big government pushers, shamnesty crowd and weak-kneed sisters of either gender? No thank you. RINOs will never win! When all the dust settles on all the arguments, Romney lost because he was the GOP-e RINO loser dujour.
Run a rock-ribbed conservative or dissolve the party!
FUGOPe!!
“As a capitalist, this goes against the basic principle that you want to maximize your customer base.
With all due respect, the government should have no “customer base.” THAT is our problem. We are thinking that we need to compete in crony capitalism or out-pander the other side. We lost, in my opinion, because we didn’t go to the polls and we did not distinguish ourselves from the other side. Small government, less spending is proabably a winner...but the idea is, as you demonstrate, foreign even to some of us. Clint had it right. The government is just a bunch of employees. Some need to be laid off; some fired.
Yes, a couple of stupid yahoos in senate races shot their big mouths off and cost themselves big-time, but that isn't why republicans can no longer win in California and the northeast. Immigration, demographics, and geographic relocation have made that happen. America today is simply MUCH different than it was in the '70s and '80s, and it's never going back to the way it was when a Nixon or Reagan could sweep almost everything.
Give them more free stuff? You got to give the people what they want man! This is all show business now. It ain't politics anymore.
Screw you...you're lost.
“However, during national elections, we have told moderates on the West Coast and the Northeast that if you don’t subscribe to conservative Christian principles of the Deep South and Midwest then you can go take a hike. “
You don’t make any sense.
California and the other states you mention aren’t going to go for the Republican candidate no matter what.
This is the thanks we get for voting for one of you RINO pukes - being called Taliban.
I would say go F yourself, but you are probably already plugged up there.
wait until the economy collapses, maybe enough of them will come to their senses when the money runs out
This is the right question.
But your analysis proceeds from the premise that what we are facing is primarily a political problem.
I would submit that what we are facing is primarily a cultural problem.
Beneath the landscape of politics lies a bedrock of cultural factors.
The liberals changed the cultural landscape by leveraging a very small portion of the population to affect the broader culture of the American people through movies, television, books, magazines, newspapers, websites, school curriculum, university faculty, and so on.
They were ruthless in keeping control of influential positions in Hollywood, the mainstream media, university faculties, publishing company editors, teachers' unions and similar places.
After decades, they are reaping the benefits of their long march through the cultural institutions.
Does it strike anyone odd that a terrorist revolutionary like Bill Ayers who was willing to plant bombs and kill 25 million Americans if need be (according to an undercover informant), decided to change his strategy entirely and devote his life to educational curricula? His goals didn't change. He concluded that it was more effective means to the same ends.
Politics follow culture.
And before that, a Southwestern RINO.
GWB did a good job playing the part of a conservative, at least long enough to get elected.
Before him, RINO. Before him, RINO.
Actually, we're misusing RINO here, because those guys are the Republicans, we're not. We're just (or most of us at least) hitching a ride in their wagon because it's best option we've got.
And we've been doing it their way ever since Reagan, and even before that, with Reagan being forced by the party to take GWHB on.
Their way doesn't work, at least not if the objective is actually winning and doing the right thing. Time for us to do it our way. The establishment guys don't like us or want us, but they need us. But they also take us for granted -- "where are they going to go?" they laugh. "Home" is the answer.
You are correct, we are the RINO’s.
We don’t belong in the GOPe
“...We nominated a liberal Northeastern RINO...”
And we won the old Confederate States and the Mountain States so our diversity was not the problem.
It is an example of giant urban areas having power over towns and rural areas. Wyoming has three electoral votes. So does Washington, DC.
Where do you draw the line?
Every. Damn. Time
That's the BS that gets us Romney and McCain and Dole. It's going to get us Christie in 2016 if you "party" guys get your way.
We've done it your way long enough, now it's our turn. The answer isn't to abandon the field to the left, but to offer a clear and distinct alternative. Get with the program or get out of the way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.