Kilmer17's roadmap to fix the GOP

[twa]

Yeah, those evil Democrats, always painting their opponents as extremists.

What's Obama, the fourth "Most liberal politician in America" in a row?

You don't see posters claiming he was 'forced' into it do you?

thus O gets to be a neo-con gratis

[Renegade7]

I guess the question is how much does the republican base force their politicians to be the way they are vs the politicians making the base the way the want it to be via the media. Is it chicken before the egg? I feel like a lot of the population really is stuck in their ways and will have to be phased out / neutralized by the rise of the non-old white guys (minorities, women, LBTG). Seeing how much the right-wing media likes to instigate to garner their viewership, I wonder how much Republican leadership really can control the beast they've created. They may have just dug their own grave the way they tried to win this election...

[GSF]

1- Stop being the party of stupid. You dont get to nominate Senatorial candidates like Christine Odonnel, Sharon Angle, Joe Miller (The GOP got LUCKY that Alaska has smart people voting in the general), Mourdock, Akin etc etc etc and expect to win. Crazy people scare sane people. Even if they agree with the overwhelming majority of their views, if a candidate scares voters, they wont win. It's time that GOP candidates in primaries start calling out the stupid scary ones.

2- Abortion. It's over. You lost this battle years ago. And the party already knows this. You know how I know this? Because if they really wanted to, they would have legislated it away when they had the chances. (MULTIPLE). It's a stupid, insignificant issue. But one that about 25 percent of the women vote feels is the MOST important. It's time to adopt the Clinton mantra- It should be safe, legal and rare. ANd for the love of all that is holy, no male GOP candidate shou;d ever use the word "rape" in a sentence again.

3- Immigration- If Romney matches McCains numbers with Hispanics, he wins. If he matched Bush's numbers, he wins a landslide. Reagan understood this. Why is it that the party that idolizes Reagan refuses to follow him? It's time to accept the consequences. The GOP should come out tomorrow with a proposal of immediate amnesty, and make their own dream act even farther to "the left".

4- Continue to fight like hell on spending and taxes. It's the one area that they consistantly win across the board. But dont be stupid (again). If you can win small battles, win them. The GOP should take Simpson Bowles in it's entirety to the POTUS and beat him over the head with it. Warts and all. It's not perfect, but it's a start. And if they FULLY stand behind it, there is no way the President and Dems could win a fight against it.

The GOP lost the WH and winnable Senate seats because they allow themselves to be painted as extremists, most of the time because they do it to themselves.

Focus on the things that are TRULY important.

You can't be the party of exclusion and win presidential elections in the US. You can't alienate gays, Hispanics, pro-choice women, and 47% of Americans(lol) and expect to win.

I agree with just about everything you've said here, and I would have voted for this type of republican candidate. I believe the Reps would have won this election easily had they adopted this platform. Having said that, I think they might go in the other direction for at least another decade. The Tea party and bible thumpers aren't going down without a fight.

[Fergasun]

One more thing. The GOP needs a Jon Stewart type of person on the right. Having someone like Stewart who has been reaching a generation for something like 10 years is amazingly affective for the message on the left. When you have a guy who comes out and takes the easy shots at right-side politicians, effectively running a "bs mountain" segment which shows Chris Christie saying something like: "Obama cannot lead himself out of a paper bag...." and then two weeks later saying: "The President has shown really great leadership in the way he has helped the state of New Jersey" followed by Fox News attemping to get him to play Presidential politics on Fox News... I mean Christie is dead to them now.

But the GOP does nothing to make it attractive to young voters. Paul Ryan doing p90x is cool? No, no, the GOP cool is dorks like Rush Limbaugh trying to be funny but actually being pretty racists... "Oh Mr. Snerdly... oh... oh... no matter who we get we are going to beat Obama he is so weak!" Glenn Beck? What is this guy a joke? No, if you are a GOP member you have to act ilke the destruction of the country is imminent and we need your guy to come in on his high horse and save it.

[Stadium-Armory]

This is a good start:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/2012/11/07/8db0416e-28f6-11e2-bab2-eda299503684_story.html?hpid=z1

Less than 24 hours after the election, President Obama and congressional leaders moved with alacrity Wednesday to show flexibility in solving the nation’s biggest economic problems and recast Washington’s often divisive politics.

With a sluggish economy facing major threats, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) opened the door to increased tax revenue as part of a bipartisan deal to tame the soaring national debt. Republicans are “willing to accept new revenues,” Boehner said, suggesting he is willing to break with the orthodoxy of many influential Republicans out of a desire to “do what’s best for our country.”

[thebluefood]

Fox News tried something like that awhile with a show called the Half Hour Hour News Show or something like that. It was a gigantic turd and it was cancelled swiftly.

I don't know...maybe conservatives aren't good at being funny :pfft:

[Elessar78]

One more thing. The GOP needs a Jon Stewart type of person on the right. Having someone like Stewart who has been reaching a generation for something like 10 years is amazingly affective for the message on the left. When you have a guy who comes out and takes the easy shots at right-side politicians, effectively running a "bs mountain" segment which shows Chris Christie saying something like: "Obama cannot lead himself out of a paper bag...." and then two weeks later saying: "The President has shown really great leadership in the way he has helped the state of New Jersey" followed by Fox News attemping to get him to play Presidential politics on Fox News... I mean Christie is dead to them now.

But the GOP does nothing to make it attractive to young voters. Paul Ryan doing p90x is cool? No, no, the GOP cool is dorks like Rush Limbaugh trying to be funny but actually being pretty racists... "Oh Mr. Snerdly... oh... oh... no matter who we get we are going to beat Obama he is so weak!" Glenn Beck? What is this guy a joke? No, if you are a GOP member you have to act ilke the destruction of the country is imminent and we need your guy to come in on his high horse and save it.

The thing is that if the GOP ever tried to create their "Daily Show" it would lack the authenticity. It's like that dad that's still trying to be "hip" with his teenage kids.

[thebluefood]

Some advice from Reason's Nick Gillespie to the GOP.

[JMS]

Perhaps because "the last two moderates" were both forced to be extremists, two months prior?

Exactly right.. Mit Romney was a moderate in 2004. Then he transformed himself into the mitt romney of 2012 where he ran to the right of Governor Perry, Newt Gingrich and even Rick Santorum on issues... He self identified himself on national TV as a "extreme conservative". There was little moderate about that mitt romney.

He cam scratching back tot he center during the first debate. Kind of like Rockey going south paw on Appolo Creed in the 8th round... Only Rocky won, Mitt just looked ridiculous... Yes he only won by 2%, but he should have won by 15 so he really was down 17% from where he should have been...

It's like John McCain... He was never a moderate. That's a myth republicans tell themselves to shirk their own responsiblity. John McCain was a life long conservative republican.. He just wasn't a whackadoodle until he ran for president... In 2004 he was the most popular politician in the country not for embracing moderate postions but for embracing traditional republicans postions in the face of Bush vearing hard to the rigbht. Then he's forced to recant all of his popular postions even his life long stand against torture over the 4 years leading up to his general election... Of coarse the moderates didn't vote for him, he no longer had any appeal to them after the far right had their way with him for 4 years...

The lesson to be learned from thjis election is the GOP has to do a better job of standing up to the extreme right and they really really really need to sink their six inch putts and not yank shoe in incombants in exchange for extremists who have no chance of getting elected.. The GOP gave up 5 senate races they easily could have won if they were idiots. Lugar for god's sake.

---------- Post added November-8th-2012 at 12:46 AM ----------

BS, though they were certainly painted as such

Name one accomplishment which Mitt Romney had as governor of Massachusetts that he used in the primaries or didn't disavow?

Hell name one political position he held in 2002 which he retained in 2012....

Same goes for John McCain who called the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertson's agents of intollerance... then sought their endorsement. Was in favor of stem cell research and recanted. Was against the War in Iraq an dreversed himself. Was against the bush tax cuts and then was for them. Was even forced to say he would vote against his own immigration bill which he wrote. As was he forced to say his campaign finance reform bill was really a bad idea... All of his signature accomplishments were disavowed as were Romney's.. What was left wasn't moderate, wasn't electable either.....

Romney and McCain were good strong candidate's before the GOP primary system got their hands on them.

DC, I agree there is not a large difference between the two....yours does pander better though

[greenspandan]

The thing is that if the GOP ever tried to create their "Daily Show" it would lack the authenticity. It's like that dad that's still trying to be "hip" with his teenage kids.

for some reason, effective conservative humor does seem to be an oxymoron. "the half hour news hour" was a train wreck. i don't think it's a problem unique to our generation. for example, the Muppets have been making fun of humorless conservatives since at least the 1970s with Sam the Eagle.

[DogofWar1]

If there's one thing this election should show, it's that small tent, "win the white male population" strategy is dead. Too many states are too multi-cultural for that too work. Women vote in huge numbers as well. Winning white males 2 to 1 isn't enough anymore.

I can't remember who said it today, but someone said that if the GOP doesn't expand their appeal beyond white males, they may never win another Presidential race. That's probably hyperbole, but I imagine if they employed the same strategy from here on out, the trend line would slope downwards in terms of %.

Of course, this requires them to actually change their platform towards a more pro-choice, less anti-immigration platform, something which I find hard to imagine at the moment. I'm sure a moderate, minority friendly, women friendly, conservative party will eventually emerge, but it'll probably take all the baby boomers (Old White guys) retiring.

Also, the speed with which the 1/2 Hour News Hour crashed and burned was amazing. I remember watching it, thinking how bad it was. It went away very quickly. The great part was how hyped up it had been.

[RedskinsFan44]

I agree with the premise of K17's post. I have some problem with #4 though, as I am sure has been covered. It is hard for the Republicans to "continue to fight like hell on spending and taxes" while simultaneously beating the President over the head with Simpson Bowles.

Simpson-Bowles used a baseline that assumed that the Bush tax cuts for high-income Americans would be allowed to expire and didn’t count their expiration towards savings, but it did include interest savings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/02/a-few-basic-misconceptions-about-simpson-bowles/

One thing I think the Rs are going to have to do is show some flexibility on revenue.

[JohnLockesGhost]

Fox News tried something like that awhile with a show called the Half Hour Hour News Show or something like that. It was a gigantic turd and it was cancelled swiftly.

I don't know...maybe conservatives aren't good at being funny :pfft:

I think the humor of the Daily Show comes at pointing out the inconsistencies and contradictions of Republicans. Generally speaking, right now, it's the "conservatives" loaded with those things and are easy targets for ridicule. It's hard to craft a joke making fun of your opponent for contradicting himself, his philosophy or history, when you're more guilty of the same thing by a factor of 10. Inject some truth, justice and freedom back into "conservatism" and the humor will be there.

[Elessar78]

for some reason, effective conservative humor does seem to be an oxymoron. "the half hour news hour" was a train wreck. i don't think it's a problem unique to our generation. for example, the Muppets have been making fun of humorless conservatives since at least the 1970s with Sam the Eagle.

http://vinylmationkingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Sam02.jpg

I think it could work but it has to be authentic. Colbert is supposed to be that foil to Jon Stewart but in the end, intentionally, he's still making fun of the same group as JS. I think you could have some dry wit guy really satirize the Dems.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

I'm sure a moderate, minority friendly, women friendly, conservative party will eventually emerge, but it'll probably take all the baby boomers (Old White guys) retiring.

In regards to this, I'm just going to say that that does exist. But it exists within the democratic party. This is essentially me. I'm all for lower taxes and lower spending, so long as its not recklessly low taxes and draconian spending levels. I don't agree with everyone in the democratic party and think a lot of them go too far with spending, for one. But, I do believe that a large portion, maybe even a majority of the democrats in congress, are what you just indicated.

[Larry]

Oh, I certainly think that pro-R humor is possible.

I remember some Dennis Miller ones:

The environmentalists have invented the word "rainforest" because they discovered that nobody would give them millions of dollars to "save the jungle". They're now trying to do the same thing with the words "wetlands" and "swamp".

or

The animal rights people have decided to protest their cause by throwing fake blood on people who wear fur, but not leather, because it's much safer to publicly assault rich women than motorcycle gangs.

[pjfootballer]

If there's one thing this election should show, it's that small tent, "win the white male population" strategy is dead. Too many states are too multi-cultural for that too work. Women vote in huge numbers as well. Winning white males 2 to 1 isn't enough anymore.

I can't remember who said it today, but someone said that if the GOP doesn't expand their appeal beyond white males, they may never win another Presidential race. That's probably hyperbole, but I imagine if they employed the same strategy from here on out, the trend line would slope downwards in terms of %.

Of course, this requires them to actually change their platform towards a more pro-choice, less anti-immigration platform, something which I find hard to imagine at the moment. I'm sure a moderate, minority friendly, women friendly, conservative party will eventually emerge, but it'll probably take all the baby boomers (Old White guys) retiring.

Also, the speed with which the 1/2 Hour News Hour crashed and burned was amazing. I remember watching it, thinking how bad it was. It went away very quickly. The great part was how hyped up it had been.

You touched on alot of what I was going to say.

I liked Kilmer's ideas. The first thing they should do is get rid of the moniker "GOP." Grand Old Party. Another generation is rising up and why would they vote for a party that has "Old" in it?

I agree with what you said about expanding their base beyone 55+ year old white males. The fact is, the general makeup of this country is and has been changing. The WW2 conservative generation is dying off. My parents are baby boomers (65 and 69 yrs old) and while they aren't as to the right as my grandparents were, they still grew up in an age of "Leave it Beaver" when the husband and wife weren't shown in the same bed. On the other hand, they are also part of the hippy free love naked movement generation. So I guess my parents generation tends to swing more towards moderate.

Pretty soon, mixed races, marriages and the generation behind me are going to be the driving force in this country. They are going to tend to be more liberal, then generations past. I think the Dems are ahead of the game right now and I agree that if the Pubs' don't get off their moral high horses, they may not win again for a while.

All this tallk of Grover and Big Bird makes me feel like politics are on Sesame Street.

[JMS]

Here is what my suggestiong boils down too. The GOP philosophy and message are still powerful even with immigrants, gays, and minorities. It's really the current crop of Republican leadership who are the problem. For 30 years the GOP has build their party by deamonizing liberals... They did it a little bit under Reagan / Bush Sr.. but under Clinton Bush Jr. and Romney that's really all they had. They have to stop that and rather focus on building a base on the positive ideas of being conservative, not the fear and fiction that the liberal progressive are equivelent to communists and have been working down through time to subvert the country. Equating liberalism with doing satin's work etc.... That argument really is self limiting and only appeals to a small fanatical group, and hurts Republicans overall in gaining new supporters who have voted for Democrats before and don't consider themselves devil worshipers or morally inferior to anybody... That's the first fix.

The second fix is to differenciate between the government giving somebody a hand out, a hand up, and hand's off.... The GOP has totally mangled this... Most Americans see a legitamate role of governemnt to give hand ups, not hand outs; but the republicans are associated with a hands off approach which is both suicidal and really not what the republicans practice in real life.

Embracing these two superficial items will in my estmate allow the GOP to grow beyond their current base, appeal to independents, and keep their core values in place...

My work is done here.

[The Evil Genius]

A large part of the GOP problem in one cartoon.

[thebluefood]

Does anyone know how many TEA Partiers the House lost in the election? I'm pretty sure someone of them retired and others lost their seats.

[Monte51Coleman]

Absolutely must get rid of the propaganda media being as aggressive as it is.

IMO, that is the first thing to do to accomplish Kilmers Point #1.

~Bang

I just spent the last hour listening to Limbaugh while driving around to take care of some errands.

His message today?

Romney didn't lose because of his opponent, he lost because of a lack of turnout among republicans. The GOP needs to change nothing, only needs to get out the vote better.

He's says that our voting decision is still the difference between hard-working, God-fearing, patriots versus the party of Santa Claus. Why is the democratic party so attractive to black and brown people? Because of the free stuff.

Good luck toning that **** down. A cold shower wouldn't fractional effect those who bow to the alter of Rush, Coulter, and their ilk.

[pjfootballer]

So, taking what Rush said, "Republicans just need to get out and vote better," mean that Democrats are smarter since they actually figured out how to "vote better?"

[Monte51Coleman]

So, taking what Rush said, "Republicans just need to get out and vote better," mean that Democrats are smarter since they actually figured out how to "vote better?"

Well, he didn't say it was because the R's were lazy.

[JMS]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/usa-congress-teaparty-idUSL1E8M805O20121108

Micheal Backman won a narrow victory, but generally in the house the tea party guys held their own in narrow races. It's the senate and presidential elections where the tea party was a ball and chain around the partie's leg. The tea party is credited with handing the Democrates 5 senatorial seats across the 2010 and 2012 elections as they've defeated popular republicans like lugar only to have their tea party candidates get crushed by the general electorate... And the presidency came down to several issues of coarse but two were directly related to Romney tryiong to appeal to fiscal conservative tea party voters. (1) his editorial in the NYTimes entitled let Detroit go bankrupt cost Romney Ohio. (2) running the the right of rick perry on immigration lead to hispanics supporting Obama by more than 70%.... So the tea party is both curse and blessing and will continue to be such for the next two years.

---------- Post added November-8th-2012 at 02:14 PM ----------

IRomney didn't lose because of his opponent, he lost because of a lack of turnout among republicans. The GOP needs to change nothing, only needs to get out the vote better.

Romney didn't lose because of his opponent. He lost because of himself... Flip flops required by the GOP of any experienced politiican made him look dishonest as they did of John McCain in 2008. The editorial Romney wrote in the NY Times entitled "Let Detroit go bankrupt", against the auto bail out was suicideal and cost Romney a chance in Michigan and Ohio. Finally the decision to run to the right of Rick Perry on immigration deamonizing him in debate after debate for allowing illegal's in Texas the right to in-state tuition, drivers liscenses, and social services killed Mitt Romney..

The interesting thing is If Mitt Romney hadn't done most of these things he doesn't win the primary and never makes it to the general. That's the thing the GOP Party can and should work on.

[Mad Mike]

I debated with myself about starting a new thread about some of the ***hat responses to Obama's re-election but I'll just say it here...

From Trump's insane call for "revolution" (imagine... a billionaire calling for revolution because he wont get his tax breaks :doh:) to the vile comments by Ted Nugent (I hereby promise to never listen to another song from him for the rest of my life), to Rush blaming everything and everyone but the platform that was rejected, it's time for republicans to HARSHLY reject these people as supporters.

For my part let me just say (and this is not directed a reasonable Romney supporters)...

:finger: