toldailytopic: What adjustments will the Republican party need to make if they are to

Nathon Detroit

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The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for May 31st, 2013 05:00 AM


toldailytopic: What adjustments will the Republican party need to make if they are to be successful in the 2016 Presidential Election?






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The Barbarian

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Come back to America. In as many ways possible. Rush Limbaugh admitted in a fit of honesty, “We are outnumbered and we are losing ground. This was not a glitch. This is the trend. That happened last night. This is the trend. We are outnumbered. Whether you want to put it in terms of, ‘Have we lost the country or not?’ There’s no other explanation.”

The answer is not to blame America for not buying what you want to sell. The answer is to figure out what it is about republican ideas that are good for America, and sell those.

Hint: it's not about tax cuts for the rich, and it's not about hating homosexuals. And it sure isn't about becoming the democrats; one left-center party is plenty. It's about becoming American, again. It's about becoming a right-center party that can rule without gerrymandered congressional districts. As good an idea as that seemed at the time (and it worked; we'll probably see republican majorities in the House a few more election cycles, even if most voters go democrat, as happened last time) it is part of the thinking that led the party into the current debacle.
 

Granite

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They might want to stop cracking wise about rape, for one thing.

They might want to stop with their racial tokenism. One Latino and one black guy here and there does not racial diversity make.

They might want to stop acting, and talking, like crazy, demented, out-of-touch lunatics who appeal to no one but an increasingly small and isolated amen corner.

They might stop acting like anti-intellectual buffoons disinterested in facts or reality.

They might, in other words, drop the crazy routine, stop acting as though Americans don't "really" understand their message, and retool themselves from the bottom up.

First, let evangelicals walk. If they want to start their own party, fine. Evangelicals hijacked the GOP in the Seventies and in large part have run the party right into the ground. Support gay marriage (or at least support the right of states to decide the issue) and force the Christians out. Fewer and fewer people care what they think anyway.

Next, oppose American imperialism and demand an end to drone strikes, pre-emptive and illegal wars, and the empire building in the Middle East. Enough is enough.

Third, end this foolish War on Terror and nip the burgeoning police state in the bud.

Fourth, end the equally inane War on Drugs, and really deal the police state a death blow.
 

genuineoriginal

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toldailytopic: What adjustments will the Republican party need to make if they are to be successful in the 2016 Presidential Election?
The Republican party has been unfaithful to its voter base.

It needs to publically admit that it has been lying to the conservative voters and prove it by introducing a law that would remove sexual preference from being a protected civil right and another law that would define abortion on demand as murder.
 

resurrected

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The Republican party has been unfaithful to its voter base.

It needs to publically admit that it has been lying to the conservative voters and prove it by introducing a law that would remove sexual preference from being a protected civil right and another law that would define abortion on demand as murder.



yep



they've been too focused on pandering to the undecided middle-of-the-roaders to whip them into shape and define the struggle as one of good vs evil
 

Sherman

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The Republican party needs to listen to its voter base. That is what it hasn't been doing the past 15 years. It needs to stop fielding RINO candidates and copies of Obama. A big reason why the Republicans failed this election is Romney. It needs to offer viable alternatives to what the Democrats are doing to America-not another version of it.
 

PureX

Well-known member
The republican party is the party of the rich. And they always have been. So the wealthy will, and have always voted for them. The problem is that fewer and fewer citizens are wealthy, anymore, or have any hope of ever being wealthy. So they have to find a lot of stupid non-wealthy people who will vote for them; and against their own economic interests.

Enter the ignoramus: the folks who routinely ignore science, reason, education, facts, and pretty much any other aspect of reality that they don't agree with. They're easy to manipulate, easy to stir up because they have lots of biases and prejudices against other people, that the republicans could use to aim them against opponents. And once you have them, they remain pretty loyal by their own ignorance. So that they were the perfect solution. Or so Karl Rove and the rest of the republican party thought, anyway.

But over time, the ignoramuses got politicized, and wanted into the party. And the party couldn't refuse them, forever, or even an ignoramus would get wise, eventually. So they let some of them in, and they pandered to them more and more on social issues, until it has now become a real problem. Because most americans recognize real ignorance when they see it. And they're sick of seeing it in the republican party.

The party of the rich is trying to serve the rich and the ignoramus at the same time, but these two groups don't always want the same things. And now that the ignoramuses are feeling their oats (thanks to years of republican pandering and politicizing), they're pulling the party apart, and making it look like the collection of toadies, panderers, and lunatics that they are.

What to do?

I predict they will dial down the rhetoric a little, and remain exactly what they have always been: the party of the rich. They'll try to keep as many ignoramuses as they can, but they already know it's time to trade them off for more main-stream voters, if they can figure out how to get them, which is questionable.
 

The Barbarian

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The Republican party needs to listen to its voter base. That is what it hasn't been doing the past 15 years. It needs to stop fielding RINO candidates and copies of Obama. A big reason why the Republicans failed this election is Romney. It needs to offer viable alternatives to what the Democrats are doing to America-not another version of it.

That's like saying that it hurts when you hit yourself on the head with a hammer, because you aren't using a big enough hammer.
 

Huckleberry

New member
Unfortunately, I don't think they'll have to make any adjustments. Obamacare will really start impacting in about a year and it will get progressively more horrific from there. All a Republican will have to do to get elected is not be a Democrat or, more specifically, not in any way be associated with Obamacare.

Which means the Republican party will have no reason to make any adjustments at all and consequently won't. If they won't embrace conservatism when they have every reason to, then they certainly won't when they have no reason to.
 

Huckleberry

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That's like saying that it hurts when you hit yourself on the head with a hammer, because you aren't using a big enough hammer.

More like recognizing that it hurts when you hit yourself in the head with a hammer rather than the nail. And that it also utterly fails to get the job done.
 

Totton Linnet

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They can't change their fiscal policies [their backers won't let them] so they will change their moral stance...which always was just lip service anyway.
 

genuineoriginal

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That's like saying that it hurts when you hit yourself on the head with a hammer, because you aren't using a big enough hammer.
That is part of what the Republican party needs to change.

They lost the election in '08 because they put forth a candidate that was too far away from the conservative base's desires.

Their answer in '12 was to put forth a candidate that so far from the conservative base's desires that he made the '08 candidate look conservative in comparison.

When the choice is between two candidates with the exact same platform, the incumbent will always win.

The Republican party should try something new, and put forth a conservative candidate, to give the voters a real choice.
 

IMJerusha

New member
Come back to America. In as many ways possible. Rush Limbaugh admitted in a fit of honesty, “We are outnumbered and we are losing ground. This was not a glitch. This is the trend. That happened last night. This is the trend. We are outnumbered. Whether you want to put it in terms of, ‘Have we lost the country or not?’ There’s no other explanation.”

The answer is not to blame America for not buying what you want to sell. The answer is to figure out what it is about republican ideas that are good for America, and sell those.

Hint: it's not about tax cuts for the rich, and it's not about hating homosexuals. And it sure isn't about becoming the democrats; one left-center party is plenty. It's about becoming American, again. It's about becoming a right-center party that can rule without gerrymandered congressional districts. As good an idea as that seemed at the time (and it worked; we'll probably see republican majorities in the House a few more election cycles, even if most voters go democrat, as happened last time) it is part of the thinking that led the party into the current debacle.

Where do you live?
 

The Barbarian

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That is part of what the Republican party needs to change.

They lost the election in '08 because they put forth a candidate that was too far away from the conservative base's desires.

Rather, too far away from the desires of the American People.

Republicans didn't lose because conservatives didn't turn out. They did. They lost because the far right is not numerous enough to win a national election.

The Republican party should try something new, and put forth a conservative candidate, to give the voters a real choice.

They did. Several of them. And they couldn't even make it out of the primaries. They were rejected by republican voters. That alone should be a revelation for you.
 

Granite

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:up:



:up:

I would also add that it needs to really scrutinize its candidates. I'm not too interested in ending up with a flip flopper such as Rob Portman.

Yes, please. Scrutiny would be nice. We don't need candidates assuring us they aren't witches.
 
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