Kilmer17's roadmap to fix the GOP

[JMS]

Saw this article and it pretty much mirrored my own thoughts for the last few years leading up to the election tuesday..

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/11/obama_the_moderate_republican_what_the_2012_election_should_teach_the_gop.html

Cheer Up, Republicans

You’re going to have a moderate Republican president for the next four years: Barack Obama.

Dear Republicans,

Sorry about the election. I know how much it hurts when your presidential candidate loses. I’ve been there many times. You’re crestfallen. You can’t believe the public voted for that idiot. You fear for your country.

Cheer up. The guy we just re-elected is a moderate Republican.

I know how stupid that sounds. Barack Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. For five years, conservative politicians and media told you he was a raving socialist. In the heat of the campaign, when you’re trying to beat the guy, it’s hard to let go of that image of him, just as it’s hard for Democrats to see past the caricatures of Mitt Romney. But now that the campaign is over and you’re staring at a second Obama term, the falsity of the propaganda may come as a relief. By and large, Obama’s instincts are the instincts of a moderate Republican. His policies are the policies of a moderate Republican. He stands where the GOP used to stand and will someday stand again.

Yes, Obama began his presidency with bailouts, stimulus, and borrowing. You know who started the bailouts? George W. Bush. Bush knew that under these exceptionally dire circumstances, bailouts had to be done. Stimulus had to be done, too, since the economy had frozen up. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts. Once the economy began to revive, Obama offered a $4-trillion debt reduction framework that would have cut $3 to $6 of spending for every $1 in tax hikes. That’s a higher ratio of cuts to hikes than Republican voters, in a Gallup poll, said they preferred. It’s way more conservative than the ratio George H. W. Bush accepted in 1990. In last year’s debt-ceiling talks, Obama offered cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for revenue that didn’t even come from higher tax rates. Now he’s proposing to lower corporate tax rates, and Republicans are whining that he hacked $716 billion out of Medicare. Some socialist.

Yes, Obama imposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance. You know who else did that? Romney. You know where the idea came from? The Heritage Foundation. Personal responsibility—insisting that people carry private insurance so we don’t have to bail them out in emergency rooms and hospitals—was a Republican idea. Same with Wall Street reform: There’s nothing conservative about letting financial institutions gamble with other people’s money in ways that would force us to bail them out again. Even Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal echoed the market-based emissions-control policies of the 1990 Bush administration and the 2008 McCain campaign. And last year, when the EPA proposed a new air-pollution limit, Obama ticked off environmentalists by killing it on the grounds that it might jeopardize the recovery.

Remember how Democrats ridiculed George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq? Obama copied it in Afghanistan. He escalated the drone program, killing off al-Qaida’s leaders. He sent SEAL Team 6 into Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden. He teamed up with NATO to take down Muammar Qaddafi. He reneged on his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay. He put together a globally enforced regime of sanctions that is bringing Iran’s economy to its knees. That’s why Romney had nothing to say in last month’s foreign policy debate. No sensible Republican president would have done things differently.

Obama’s no right-winger. You might have serious issues with his Supreme Court justices or his moves on immigration or the Bush tax cuts. But you probably would have had similar issues with Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, or Gerald Ford. Obama’s in the same mold as those guys. So don’t despair. Your country didn’t vote for a socialist tonight. It voted for the candidate of traditional Republican moderation. What should gall you, haunt you, and goad you to think about the future of your party is that that candidate wasn’t yours.

[Duckus]

GOP Tip Of The Day:

When trying to become more appealing to minority voters, try to not call minorities "non-traditional Americans" who voted for Obama because they wanted "want stuff."

[The 12th Commandment]

More than anything else, IMO, the legislating morality thing (which it doesn't seem like the right realizes they do) is the killer. The center of our collective political will does not like that one bit.

I think they could get sufficient support for their economic agenda and the personal responsibility meme, if they would leave out the holier than though stuff. Kinda being overly general on purpose I think everyone, especially the losers, over think the reasons why. We are getting more and more socially progressive and they seem to be missing the boat.

[visionary]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/ppp-iowa-wide-open-for-gop-in-149070.html

PPP: Iowa wide open for GOP in 2016

The Republican Party has no frontrunner for the 2016 Iowa caucuses, with even Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan scarcely drawing double-digit support in a new Public Policy Polling survey of the contest.

The poll, which was shared exclusively with POLITICO, found former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as the nominal leader of the pack, taking 15 percent of the vote in a nine-candidate field.

But that was only three points better than Ryan, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, each of whom took 12 percent. Bush had 11 percent, followed by Rick Santorum at 10 percent and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at 9 percent.

Bringing up the rear were Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 5 percent and Sarah Palin at 4 percent.

It’s hard to imagine a less-defined, more fluid field than that. Huckabee manages to come out slightly ahead in large part because of his support among evangelicals – 20 percent choose him as their favorite – but only by a hair.

Voters who identify themselves as tea party members are just as widely split, with Christie coming in first at 18 percent, followed by Rubio at 14 percent and Ryan at 11 percent.

[wysknz1]

Sorta agree. I also think the problem with the GOP is too many pick a little area to support instead of the overall picture. You touched on a couple of them. ie: abortion, yes it's over and never going back.

But I also think there will never be the support for the GOP because the GOP expects people to earn their way through life not get it handed to them because it's their right.

[zoony]

Sorta agree. I also think the problem with the GOP is too many pick a little area to support instead of the overall picture. You touched on a couple of them. ie: abortion, yes it's over and never going back.

But I also think there will never be the support for the GOP because the GOP expects people to earn their way through life not get it handed to them because it's their right.

Yah, democrats don't want to work. I've found this to be true as well

Republicans are all very hard working and don't want handouts.

[Larry]

Sorta agree. I also think the problem with the GOP is too many pick a little area to support instead of the overall picture. You touched on a couple of them. ie: abortion, yes it's over and never going back.

But I also think there will never be the support for the GOP because the GOP expects people to earn their way through life not get it handed to them because it's their right.

Yeah.

When GOP politicians are congratulating themselves because they successfully eliminated the only abortion provider in their state, then abortion isn't going anywhere.

And people vote Democrat because they're thieves. (Unlike Republicans, who earn every thing they receive.)

[zoony]

Sorta agree. I also think the problem with the GOP is too many pick a little area to support instead of the overall picture. You touched on a couple of them. ie: abortion, yes it's over and never going back.

But I also think there will never be the support for the GOP because the GOP expects people to earn their way through life not get it handed to them because it's their right.

Yah, democrats don't want to work. I've found this to be true as well

Republicans are all very hard working and don't want handouts.

[RedskinsFan44]

Obama = Santa Claus. That is why he won. Rush told me so.

[Larry]

Yah, democrats don't want to work. I've found this to be true as well

But not paying any taxes does make it better.

[visionary]

Obama = Santa Claus. That is why he won. Rush told me so.

Can't be. Santa Claus was listed seperately as a write-in candidate here.

:pfft:

[Larry]

Can't be. Santa Claus was listed seperately as a write-in candidate here.

:pfft:

How does someone get "listed as a write-in candidate"?

[penasquito]

The funniest thing I heard on Wednesday was Sean Hannity saying, "What do Republicans need to do to win next time? We'll talk to Frank Luntz after the break."

They're really not treating this as a policy problem.

[88Comrade2000]

After reading the threads and thinking about it; like I posted earlier in this thread- LET the GOP die. The core coalition of the GOP doesn't represent a winning national majority anymore. If the Republicans got someone who would've appeal to the voters that didn't vote last time; odds are they would've lost other parts.

The best thing to do is to take the suggestions for the GOP and use that as a basis to form a new party. Start in 2014 by running candidates against the Dems and GOP for congress,senate,state andlocal offices Then keep on doing that. In 2016 , run someone for PResident. No, that personal probably won't beat Hillary in 2016 but they could beat the right wing gOP nominee. Overtime that new party will became a alternative to the Dems and the GOP will go the way of the whigs.

The GOP is a dead party and deserves to die it's eventual death. You thought Mitt was out of touch; just wait until 2016.

[brandymac27]

The GOP is a dead party and deserves to die it's eventual death. You thought Mitt was out of touch; just wait until 2016.

At this point, I couldn't agree more. They're completely out of touch with reality and the majority of sane people, and they're self destructing. They did it to themselves. Thank you tea party.

[alexey]

The unregulated free market of ideas produces people who push ideas for money and the whole thing crashes like the economy.

[88Comrade2000]

At this point, I couldn't agree more. They're completely out of touch with reality and the majority of sane people, and they're self destructing. They did it to themselves. Thank you tea party.

The hard right wants the GOP to continue to obstruct where they can and they will try again in the next elections. Several people are already asking OBama to leave the union. It will be funny if Obama says, go ahead. I got Puerto Rico ready to coming in, can make D.C. a state, etc...

Also, some of the right think Obama stole the election.

The Republicans will not have learned their lesson by 2016. Hillary has nothing to worry about. She will run, Bill won't give her peace until she does.

[DogofWar1]

The hard right wants the GOP to continue to obstruct where they can and they will try again in the next elections. Several people are already asking OBama to leave the union. It will be funny if Obama says, go ahead. I got Puerto Rico ready to coming in, can make D.C. a state, etc...

Also, some of the right think Obama stole the election.

The Republicans will not have learned their lesson by 2016. Hillary has nothing to worry about. She will run, Bill won't give her peace until she does.

I wonder what Republicans will do if they don't retake the Senate in 2014? 20 Ds are up and only 13Rs. If they don't get it back that time around, they're looking at an uphill battle in 2016, where they're largely just defending victories from 2010.

[SnyderShrugged]

How does someone get "listed as a write-in candidate"?

Its very state specific in terms of process and rules. It varies greatly. For most it means a candidate would need to be a "certified" write in candidate and register with the state as such.

[Bliz]

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.

and...in that same vein, get far away from these people.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/12/15117305-petition-for-texas-to-secede-from-us-reaches-threshold-for-white-house-response?lite

The petition on WhiteHouse.gov asks the Obama administration to "peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government." The petition had surpassed 34,000 signatures as of Monday evening. It was created by a person self-identified only as "Micah H." from Arlington, Texas.

The petition cites the nation's economic woes as an issue and says that the condition of Texas' budget and economy make it "practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union."

[plus they can totally defend themselves with that giant standing army of theirs...]

Petitioning to secede kind of conflicts with your whole "we're patriots and good Americans" message.

On the other hand, ridding this nation of the scourge that is the Cowboys would be quite a service.

[JMS]

After reading the threads and thinking about it; like I posted earlier in this thread- LET the GOP die. The core coalition of the GOP doesn't represent a winning national majority anymore. If the Republicans got someone who would've appeal to the voters that didn't vote last time; odds are they would've lost other parts.

The difference in the popular vote was less than 3% of the total votes cast.

[The Evil Genius]

The difference in the popular vote was less than 3% of the total votes cast.

That's still 3.3 million.

Or, more than 21 states individual populations (including for some perspective, Iowa).

[mistertim]

Petitioning to secede kind of conflicts with your whole "we're patriots and good Americans" message.

Not in those wingnuts' minds. In their view, America is "over", "done" since Obama was reelected and in their minds they are the lone stalwart patriots who are left to defend the cause of freedom. It is pretty wacky but all you have to do is check out FR and you'll see it.

[Thiebear]

Like they said about the Districts in Philly that had absolutely zero votes for Romney. (its not voter fraud, its consolidation).

the rural areas are not going to get you the same numbers.

Appeal to the major cities and the people in them or understand you have to get the same 8 swing states each year and hope for change going forward.

[Bliz]

Not in those wingnuts' minds. In their view, America is "over", "done" since Obama was reelected and in their minds they are the lone stalwart patriots who are left to defend the cause of freedom. It is pretty wacky but all you have to do is check out FR and you'll see it.

Thanks, but I'll pass. I don't need my eyes opened THAT far to what the craziest of the crazy believe in this country, so I'll take your word for it. Point taken though. So, to clarify, in the eyes of reasonable independent-minded moderate swing voters, petitioning to secede kind of conflicts with your whole "we're patriots and good Americans" message.

After reading the threads and thinking about it; like I posted earlier in this thread- LET the GOP die. The core coalition of the GOP doesn't represent a winning national majority anymore. If the Republicans got someone who would've appeal to the voters that didn't vote last time; odds are they would've lost other parts.

The best thing to do is to take the suggestions for the GOP and use that as a basis to form a new party. Start in 2014 by running candidates against the Dems and GOP for congress,senate,state andlocal offices Then keep on doing that. In 2016 , run someone for PResident. No, that personal probably won't beat Hillary in 2016 but they could beat the right wing gOP nominee. Overtime that new party will became a alternative to the Dems and the GOP will go the way of the whigs.

The GOP is a dead party and deserves to die it's eventual death. You thought Mitt was out of touch; just wait until 2016.

How quickly people forget 2004.

Dems were dead. They had lots of soul searching to do. The US was pivoting toward a theocracy. etc etc etc. Amazing how one great politician can completely reverse the rudderlessness of a party led by Al Gore and that flip-flopping Bizarro Romney guy.

The Republicans will soon be back, and in greater numbers.