Politics
Joe Biden: "There isn't a Republican Party"
Vice President Biden laments the disorganized state of the Republican Party, saying Democrats would benefit from having a viable negotiating part...
Posted on 02/14/2014 8:55:19 PM PST by neverdem
Just days after warning his party that it will lose its electoral grip on Texas if it doesn’t broaden its appeal, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., offered an even more dire prediction on Thursday: Forget losing Texas – the GOP might never win a presidential election again if it doesn’t change its tune.
“I think Republicans will not win again in my lifetime…unless they become a new GOP, a new Republican Party,” Paul said during an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck that aired Thursday. “And it has to be a transformation. Not a little tweaking at the edges.”
The Kentucky Republican said the GOP needs to do a better job of tailoring specific messages to specific groups.
With young people, he said, he would stress an opposition to excessive government surveillance and a respect for personal privacy. And among minority communities, he said, a message of criminal justice reform – including changes to the “war on drugs” and sentencing laws – would resonate.
“There are many people who are open among all these disaffected groups, who really aren’t steadfast supporters of Obama or an ideology,” he explained. “I think they’re open to listening, but we have to have a better message and a better presentation of it.”
Paul said he welcomes a robust debate within the party about how to move forward.
“There is a struggle going on within the Republican Party,” he said. “I tell people it’s not new, and I’m not ashamed of it. I’m proud of the fact that there is a struggle. And I will struggle to make the Republican Party a different party, a bigger party, a more diverse party, and a party that can win national elections again.”
And he compared this new attempt to rejuvenate the GOP to Ronald Reagan’s own effort to refashion the party after Watergate, when he challenged then-President Gerald Ford for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976.
“Everybody told Reagan to sit back and shut up,” Paul recalled. “They told him it wasn’t his time, and it wasn’t going to be his time. The establishment wanted Ford…It was bitterly fought, but in the end, Reagan won and the party became a better place, at least for a while. We need to have that debate again, and we need to be a bigger, stronger party.”
It may surprise Paul to hear that even some Democrats are hoping the Republican Party can resuscitate itself.
Vice President Biden told the House Democratic caucus at a policy conference on Friday that Democrats should hope Republicans can pull themselves together – if only for the sake of having a viable negotiating partner.
“There isn’t a Republican party,” he lamented. “I wish there were, I wish there was a Republican party. I wish there was one person we could sit across the table from and make a deal and make the compromise and know when you got up from the table that the deal was done.”
“All you had to do was look at their response to the State of the Union, what were there, three or four?” he added. “I think we should get a little focused here, let's get a little focused.”
Rand... stop being a concern troll.
One of the few things I agree with regarding Rand Paul.
Crazy cousin Rand.
I concur too. BTW, who in Congress would you so you most agree with politically right now?
And by the way, the biggest threat to the GOP is the GOPe who lose elections continually.
You want to save the Republican party? Unendorse Mitch McConnell.
neverdem,
Without change, it won’t matter.
R
Go TP
Nobody for sure ... Mayhap Cruz? Time will tell. Other than that, I have no clue.
The nut doesn’t fall very far from the tree.
.........................................
Very True, but that doesn't mean that Rand has the answer either.
One reason libs love what Obama is doing is that they are sure that a GOP can never win the WH again, to use all those precedents against them. .
I still go for Scott Walker as the GOP's best hope for that, no first term Senators.
Another argument that the GOP has to be more pro-homo, pro-dope and pro-open borders to win?
Whatever. It seems increasingly moot regarding the GOP and elections anyway, with the country in such a rapid state of decomposition. Economically, culturally and morally decaying into a degenerate cesspool before our eyes. I fully expect to see the end of this country to occur in my lifetime.
Knock it off, Rand. You are not ‘16 material but I’ll bet you will be the spoiler your father was.
"What a tragedy it would have been that America wouldn't have gotten to see Barack Obama as a leader."
No Rand, the tragedy is that Barack Hussein Obama isn't serving hard time in a maximum security prison.
BINGO! Rand…go away and shut up for a few months, we’ll call ya when we need the College kids!
Yep, the GOP needs to broaden its appeal to conservatives. If it “broadens” its appeal to those who currently vote Democrat, then it just becomes the Democrat Too party.
Ran wants the GOP to be more like the Democrats.
I am thinking in your lifetime and mine that a Republican has never won without Democrat votes, and a conservative (Reagan) only once. By today’s low standard of education, even charming, affable Reagan would be rejected, considered too socially liberal by the Right, and infinitely too fiscally and socially conservative for the Left.
Yeah Rand, pro-amnesty to, say LaRaza?
Paul to Beck, one Libertarian to another.
Yawn.
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.