Posted on 08/13/2013 11:40:33 AM PDT by neverdem
Over the past nine months, the Republican Party has been consumed by a debate over how it should respond to Mitt Romney's loss in 2012. Should it reach out to Hispanics? Should it move to the center? Should it try to differentiate itself from the Democratic Party by moving more to the right? Or perhaps it should attempt to redefine what "left" and right mean, possibly by embracing a more populist approach?
Let me step a bit outside of the proverbial box here, and ask a more foundational question: What if the GOP doesnt need to change all that much? This grows out of an article I wrote in the immediate aftermath of the last election, showing that the state of the party wasnt nearly as dire as many had made it out to be. It is nowhere near as weak as it was in the 1930s, and hasnt begun to plumb the depths it reached in the 1970s. In fact, at the sub-presidential level, it is in pretty solid shape. Even at the presidential level, over the course of the past six elections, the GOP has lost the popular vote by, on average, 3.9 percentage points. Democrats, by contrast, lost by 9.9 points on average from 1968 to 1988.
Lets flesh this idea out by asking ourselves seven interrelated questions, each of which casts some cold water on the idea that a rebranding would be overwhelmingly helpful:
1) What if elections are simply random?
2) What if it really is just the economy, stupid?
3) What if Republicans actually arent that out of step ideologically?
4) What if...
(Excerpt) Read more at dyn.realclearpolitics.com ...
Democrats would cheat!
Plus we have such a dumbed down electorate that a moderate squish like Mitt Romney can suddenly be transformed into a right-wing extremist and the sheeple buy it.
As in, “conservatives have a snowball’s chance in hell” of ever being elected in NY, CA MA, etc etc:)
Elections are decided long before we vote.
Of course they are, except when he is working in the garden:
To do that they would have to move to the right.
Random???
In Romney’s case it should be obvious what went wrong.
Unfortunately elections aren’t decided by chance (if that were the case the odds would at least once in a while favor the conservatives). Rather, elections are decided by a corrupt elite and an ignorant mass.
The ‘Rats leave nothing to chance when it comes to elections.
They go balls to the wall to rig every one they can.
” In Romneys case it should be obvious what went wrong.”
LOL....ROMNEY!
Sadly, elections are decided by morons.
Mark Levins The Liberty Amendments - Restoring the American Republic: Americas Third Revolution.
Milton Friedman and Restraint: The Fed failed as lender of last resort in the Great Depression
ASYLUM-SEEKERS OVERWHELM THE BORDER
Brother, Can You Spare A Drone?
Some noteworthy articles about politics, foreign or military affairs, IMHO, FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
“Over the past nine months, the Republican Party has been consumed by a debate over how it should respond to Mitt Romney’s loss in 2012. ‘
If the party is having this debate then the party has no core beliefs or values. People and institutions with core beliefs and values do not require the level of agonizing public introspection the Republican Party is going through. Your core values sustain you in good times and bad.
Without core beliefs the party cannot define itself. They are trying to be everything to everybody and end up being nothing because they stand for nothing. That is why the party is losing. It represents nothing worth fighting for or going to the polls to support.
I find the story of Romney’s decision to run for President very illustrative of the dilemma the party is in. He claims the family got together and voted on whether or not he should run. He was one of the no votes. How can a man who doesn’t believe he should run excite voters enough to make them want to vote for him? If he doesn’t believe in himself, why should a voter believe in him?
Perhaps the truth is Romney was asked to run knowing the powers government the elites had decided he would lose. Perhaps McCain ran under the same circumstances.
I saw on TV PBS NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill and Washington Post reporter Dan Balz. Balz told that story.
I can see it blink, that’s what impressed me. I made the word “HTML” in my post blink.
Do you use Internet explorer? I heard you can’t get that command to work with that browser which might explain why you can’t see it.
Hmmm? I guess the lack of blink is purely on my end. Firefox 23.0, OSX 10.8.4
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