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RNC: Voters see GOP as ‘scary’ and ‘out of touch'
Politico ^

Posted on 03/18/2013 9:04:13 AM PDT by Sub-Driver

RNC: Voters see GOP as ‘scary’ and ‘out of touch' By: Maggie Haberman March 18, 2013 07:00 AM EDT

The Republican National Committee concedes in a sprawling report Monday that the GOP is seen as the party of “stuffy old men” and needs to change its ways.

Among the RNC’s proposed fixes: enacting comprehensive immigration reform, addressing middle-class economic anxieties head on and condensing a presidential primary process that saw Mitt Romney get battered for months ahead of the general election.

The committee also proposes major improvements to the party’s voter database and digital technology, which paled next to that of the Democrats and contributed to the party’s losses last year.

The suggestions are among dozens the committee makes in what RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has dubbed an “autopsy” of the party’s 2012 failures and a roadmap forward. Priebus unveiled the 98-page report at a news conference Monday morning at The National Press Club.

“There’s no one reason we lost,” Priebus said. “Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement. … So, there’s no one solution: There’s a long list of them.”

The report devotes many pages to the need to better connect with minority, female and young voters. Comprehensive immigration reform is a critical first step, it says.

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2013polls; 2leftparties; gop; losers; notconservative
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To: Logical me
We lost because of the constant hate crap within the GOP against Romney.

"We lost" You say that as if you and the rest of the local rank-n-file Republicans are part of the GOPe that run the Party. The GOP doesn't consider the rubes to be part of their Party. The rubes are there to blindly vote for what ever mushy socialist-lite candidate the Party deigns to run without question.

And Romney was not the lesser of two evils. Saying that makes it seem that there is a choice between the two. He was the equal of two evils because they were working together. Romney did everything he could to make sure Barry won, short out outright endorsing him. Romney's entire campaign, after he eliminated the real opposition candidates, was a total joke. There is no way anyone could lose to a talentless, worthless, on-the-down-low Marxists nobody like Barry Soetoro unless it was deliberate.

41 posted on 03/18/2013 9:42:15 AM PDT by Count of Monte Fisto
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To: Sub-Driver

“condensing a presidential primary process”
Translation: “We’re not going to give you time to vet the limp candidate we pick for you”

““There’s no one reason we lost,” Priebus said. “”

BS.....NOT being conservative is why ya lost!

This smells like Grover Norquist/Karl Rove/CPAC/ACU to me.


42 posted on 03/18/2013 9:42:50 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more "share the wealth" socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: Sub-Driver

Good lord


43 posted on 03/18/2013 9:43:43 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: Sub-Driver

The RNC is so clueless. Why can’t they just shup up and plot to win? Instead they have to go around pretending they are now going to get hip. It is so embarassing.


44 posted on 03/18/2013 9:45:37 AM PDT by AdaGray (squi)
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To: nascarnation

I’m the same way. I used to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, talking about the country reaching its “end days,” and how many actual years it might have left. But after the 2012 election, I’ve noticed so many of my rather ‘average joe’ GOP-voting friends and relatives basically say the same things, and they are dead serious. Some of them because of the “takers overwhelming makers” argument, some because of the insane federal debt, and some (actually quite a lot) because of the moral degeneracy as represented by things like homo marriage.

It’s really an amazing little sea-change, actually hearing so many people tell me “the country is over.” People I never would have imagined this coming from. Not in their nature. And that’s not even going into the other topic of how these once “rah-rah-Republicans” are now so totally alienated from their Party.


45 posted on 03/18/2013 9:46:36 AM PDT by greene66
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
The GOP circular firing squad of scab pickers will bring us down every time.

If we ever had an honest, no-nonsense, courageous conservative as our nominee, that circular firing squad wouldn't amount to more than a few lone voices on the far extremity of the conservative voter base.

Elevating squish liberals to the Republican nominee position, guarantees widespread infighting, disillusionment, circular firing squads, and lost presidential elections for our side.

46 posted on 03/18/2013 9:48:15 AM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: laweeks

Amen


47 posted on 03/18/2013 9:49:08 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: Sub-Driver

I agree with the voters. They are scary. The leadership of the Republican party has shown no desire to do anything but perpetuate and expand the power of the federal government.

100% of the Democrats about about 70% of the Republicans are either dead-set against the constitution and individual liberty or at best condone the status quo.

That’s pretty scary. So scary that many, even here at FR, can’t bring themselves to accept it. Look at the people whining about conservatives not supporting Romney or some other such bunk in this very thread for a prime example.


48 posted on 03/18/2013 9:51:24 AM PDT by perfect_rovian_storm
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To: kabar

Folks like us have preached this here for over a decade

Amazing how many here are still so daft about it

Talking openly like this was forbidden once you know


49 posted on 03/18/2013 9:55:25 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: Windflier
When and if our side finally nominates a real conservative, you'll see the sort of landslide support that topples Commie/Democrat regimes.

This is sort of the central article of faith of FR, but I assure you, it's wrong and based on wishful thinking.

A "real conservative" (as defined by the majority of FR) will lose fare worse than Romney did. Not understanding that is a symptom of being out of touch with a variety of people across the political spectrum in a variety of geographic settings.

And spare me the Reagan stuff. First, he wasn't nearly the "true conservative" that people have sort of invented memories of.

Second, key aspects of how he built his coalition (anti-Communism, "tough on crime") simply don't matter anymore.

The Soviet Union is gone - the "tough on crime" thing is a bit different. There's been a small uptick in violent crime the past couple of years, of course, but crime has still declined steeply from the beginning of the Clinton Administration till today. At the time Reagan was elected, crime was rampant, and more importantly, it was spread more widely - the white middle class had far more fear of crime than they do today (which is now even more concentrated in minority neighborhoods and is mostly minority-on-minority.) Sure, there are lurid stories posted of awful crimes on FR all the time, but the white middle class isn't nearly as terrified of crime as they were in the 1980s - in the 1980s, I had various relatives and myself burglarized, but I literally don't know a single person that's been the victim of a single crime in the past decade.

The soccer mom types in the 1980s who may have voted Republican out of fear for their own and their children's safety are now going Democratic because of gay rights and abortion.

50 posted on 03/18/2013 9:55:32 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: AuntB
Translation: “We’re not going to give you time to vet the limp candidate we pick for you”

The longer the primary process, the more it favors those with lots of money. I don't see how condensing it favors the "GOP-e" candidate or future Romneys.

51 posted on 03/18/2013 9:57:28 AM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Logical me

Running a candidate whose appeal to conservatives was “at least I’m not Obama”, and “plus, I’m not a Muslim”, just wasn’t enough evidently.

It is especially weak all these months later, you need a new line.


52 posted on 03/18/2013 9:57:36 AM PDT by ansel12 (" I would not be in the United States Senate if it wasnÂ’t for Sarah Palin " Cruz said.)
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To: AdaGray

That is funny but excellent description


53 posted on 03/18/2013 9:57:40 AM PDT by wardaddy (wanna know how my kin felt during Reconstruction in Mississippi, you fixin to find out firsthand)
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To: ansel12

The Republicans slogan might as well be, “Vote Republican - We Suck Less.”


54 posted on 03/18/2013 9:58:18 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Not sure that it will be a problem in the future. Many who disagreed with the direction of the GOP and who were not happy with Romney have merely left the party and given up. I think that the GOP will manage to chase off the last of the conservatives in the next couple of years. The GOP has been neutered, and conservatives have been banished to the desert. You will see conservatives vote for the few conservative candidates who manage to sneak past the GOP machine. Other than that you will see lots of GOP candidates lose to Dems in 2014.


55 posted on 03/18/2013 9:58:30 AM PDT by ExpatGator (I hate Illinois Nazis!)
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To: Strategerist

“”The longer the primary process, the more it favors those with lots of money. I don’t see how condensing it favors the “GOP-e” candidate or future Romneys.”

You may be right, but nothing the GOPe does ever works, so why should this.


56 posted on 03/18/2013 10:00:35 AM PDT by AuntB (Illegal immigration is simply more "share the wealth" socialism and a CRIME not a race!)
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To: wardaddy
Yep, immigration is the defining issue our our time.

And let's get real about legal immigration. Every ten years we have what amounts to an amnesty. With 1.2 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ENTERING ANNUALLY, they will be able to vote eventually and two thirds of them will vote Dem. Illegal immigration is the shiny little bauble that distracts us from the real game changer--legal immigration. The status quo will make the Dems the permanent majority party. Amnesty just hastens the process

57 posted on 03/18/2013 10:02:30 AM PDT by kabar
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To: Strategerist
The soccer mom types in the 1980s who may have voted Republican out of fear for their own and their children's safety are now going Democratic because of gay rights and abortion.

LOL, yeah, move left, that'll work. Romney couldn't get people to vote for him because he was so far left, but you want to keep going that way, you have an agenda, not an honest theory.

58 posted on 03/18/2013 10:03:40 AM PDT by ansel12 (" I would not be in the United States Senate if it wasnÂ’t for Sarah Palin " Cruz said.)
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To: Sub-Driver

“Voters see GOP as ‘scary’ and ‘out of touch’”

Nah, Republicans are not ‘scary’. Conservatives are ‘scary’ because the voters are ‘scared’ of losing their freebies and handouts.


59 posted on 03/18/2013 10:09:21 AM PDT by spel_grammer_an_punct_polise (Learn three chords and you, too, can be a Rock Star!)
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To: Logical me

“Romney was not perfect but would have stopped the onslaught.”

Interesting thought. I didn’t see much difference between the two.


60 posted on 03/18/2013 10:10:52 AM PDT by spel_grammer_an_punct_polise (Learn three chords and you, too, can be a Rock Star!)
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