Where the GOP goes from here

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Seems like the popular topic currently. The GOP lost to unpopular president with country at war with a struggling economy, for all intents and purposes they should of won. The lost seats in a senate that they should of gained control of. Was it the candidate or his policies? 'Or did Obama just run an effective campaign? Some blame the hurricane.

A lot of people are blaming the 'far right' of the Republican party, depends of who you consider 'far right'. A lot of people are blaming the Tea Party, depends on who you consider the Tea Party. Romney was a Northeast Republican, he wasn't really a conservative in any sense besides culturally although he was easy to caricature him as such due to his wealth and Mormon faith.

I think the Obama campaign was extremely effective driving issues like abortion, gay marriage, contraceptives, rape, etc to the forefront of the race with the dumb comments/positions of other Republicans. Those comments didn't really reflect Romney's beliefs but he did trend socially conservative. Not only did this hurt Romney, it was disastrous down ticket and was directly responsible for losing multiple seats in the senate that they should of won.

I don't think pro-life positions need be abandoned, I still think it can be an winning issue if one isn't too extreme or make stupid comments. There is no way to defend rape and attacking contraceptives and sex education is a generational step backward on the issue while also being counter-productive to the goal of less abortion. I don't think the Tea Party is to blame on this, I don't think this was a Tea Party issue or a new position, it's a social conservative issue and has been present with in the GOP for awhile. I definitely agree however that social conservatism needs to be de-empathized from future campaigns however.

I'll continue on but I'd like to hear what other people think.

The Republican party is too exclusive. They don't like immigrants, they don't like minorities, they don't like non-Christians, and they don't like gays. They also have an offensive, nineteen-fifties view of women's rights.
You can't run a political party like a country club and expect to win elections.

It will probably end up being a regional party in the South and in the Mormon West.

Which is quite ironic, given that it was the Republican Party that kicked the South's ass in the first place.

Your country is turning the corner on social issues.

Approval of ballot measures regarding same sex measures and the defeat of a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage in Minnesota are, I suggest, evidence that the momentum has moved away from social conservatives. Republicans must sever the control that social conservatives have over the party platform, and move to the center on social policy issues.

The United States is a pluralist country in which diversity is a fact of daily life for the vast majority of the population. Not only must the Republicans move to the center on social policy, so too their economic policy must move to a place that resonates with that diversity. The guileless promotion of the interests of business and the wealthy is going to increasingly marginalize the Republican Party as the ever widening income gap demonstrates to the working poor that business' interests and workers' interests do not go hand in hand.

While Republicans are perfectly correct that measures that inhibit growth hurt everyone; they are quite wrong in their claim that benefits "trickle down" from the wealthy to the working class. The Republicans have to find new economic minds that will focus on regrowing the middle class.

Back in the 1850's the Republicans replaced the Whigs. It is time to replace the Republicans. The downfall of the Republican party is that it became the party of Evangelical Christians. American politics must be religion neutral or the Liberals will simply take over and eat the rest of us alive.

The Liberal program can be opposed purely on grounds of reason, fact and history. The last thing we need is Bible Thumpers.

ruveyn

Back in the 1850s, everyone was a Bible thumper.

The Republican Party of Lincoln was quite progressive, abolished slavery and at least tried to enfranchise everyone born in the country. The Democratic Party was the party of racism and White Privilege.

This started to reverse, first with FDR's new deal, and then finally with the racist Dixiecrats splintering off and joining forces with the Republicans, who are now decidedly reactionary.

Things have changed a lot since the era of Lincoln, and will change a lot again over the next 150 years. Either the Repugnicans will change with the times, or they will become a curious footnote on the ash heap of history.

Where the GOP goes from here?

Into obscurity, with any luck.

They'd better realize that it is possible to be a fiscal conservative, but also think mainstream on social issues- that gays should be able to marry and enjoy same-sex benefits, not think that it is your place to control a woman's right to choose, and have no problem with any member of society living and working next to you as long as they are an upstanding, creative, and contributing member of society- no matter if they are white, black, or minority.

The Republican party left me behind when they stayed hard-line on social issues. I haven't agreed with them in a long time...

If the GOP were smart they would follow the example of the UK conservative party. Open to the idea of gay marriage, seperation of church and state, more friendly towards ethnic minorities and the economically challenged. Or at least create a facade of trying to be these things.

Fortunately they are too concerned about the opinions of the tea party and the tin foil brigade so they will become increasingly irrelevant and detached from mainstream thought.

Last edited by thomas81 on 08 Nov 2012, 11:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

They have to pick candidates that are suited to a region's electorate. The ideological purity thing is fine in red states but not in purple and blue states. Democrats don't run Nancy Pelosi in Montana. Republicans just need to choose some better candidates next time. Having to pass the purity test obviously hurt Romney as well.

Plus the Obama campaign machine is very very good at what they do. Maybe the best. That helped other races. Republicans will copy it now.

The abortion issue (pro-choice) was decided decades ago, but the right continues to debate it.

Voting rights were decided decades ago, but the right still doesn't understand.

Equality for minorities was decided decades ago, but the right can't accept that.

Conclusion, the right is no longer conservative, they have become ancient.

I absolutely agree with that. I know for years I have watched the Democratic party run campaigns and think (sometimes out loud) "What the hell are the Republicans doing?" Not just on idiots like Akin talking about rape, but just general tactical stuff, blunders, stupid moves, missed opportunities to connect.

Interesting fact, as I signed up for both campaigns this year for email alerts to see what they were both saying. I just counted them last night because I was curious how many messages I got.

I signed up on 8/1/12 for both, and here were my final counts of contacts between 8/1/12 and 11/8/12:

Obama 2012: 188 messages/emails

Romney 2012: 37 messages/emails

I have received 3 thank you messages from Obama 2012 since election night, and 0 messages from Romney 2012.


@oldout- I have accepted all 3 of those things, I don't think it is correct to label "the right" as all inclusive to those opinions that you have. That's why many of them didn't vote for Romney in the first place. Democrats hate sweeping generalizations as much as the next party...

The problem isn't just social issues. It's the angry Tea Party rhetoric that seems to be exclusively blaming the poor and minorities for our country's deficit problem and economic woes. The Republican image is now tarnished with an image of sour, angry, doom-and-gloom, the-sky-is-falling, everyone's-gotta-fight-for-themselves-from-now-on rhetoric. Mittens and Ryan failed miserably at convincingly distancing themselves from the mean and hostile rhetoric coming from the right. Then there were the instances of racism on full display.

Reagan was able to sell an optimistic message to the public. Today's Republicans are failing that. Republicans can rile up a certain contingency of voters with the message that misguided liberals and Democrats are driving the country off a debt cliff but, when viewed from outside it's own emotional bubble of fear and loathing, the conservative message does not appear any more responsible, well-thought-out, or grounded in reality than the message coming from the other side of the isle. The Democrats at least appear cool and collected while the Republicans screech from the screed of chicken-little with the occasional poorly-veiled sprinkling of racism and classism.

Last edited by marshall on 08 Nov 2012, 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The GOP needs to target the youth vote but they need to change to have any credibility. They ostracized Ron Paul but there is reason why so many of his supporters were young people. There's a reason why a million voters went for the Libertarian party.

You can no longer stand in the way of gay marriage and its only hurting yourself by denying them that right. The are gay business people and gay families and they have the same concerns about the economy and everything else but it's just a non-starter for them with the GOP because of the bigoted opposition to gay marriage.

The neoconservative foreign policy was rejected once again, it's not a traditionally conservative position and has been recent infiltration of the last 40 years. This is another position young people just aint going to fall for, the peace candidate will ALWAYS win. Obama had a prototypical neoconservative foreign policy and trying to attack him as weak was just stupid, there was real room to attack him from the other side on those issues.

2 states just voted to legalize marijuana and now the federal government is assuredly going to move to crush the will of the voters in those states. It's HUGE opportunity to win people over to the issue of state's rights. The drug war must end. I know too many people who has wrecked their future with drug convictions and what did they really do wrong?

There are other issues like generational theft that could really to the youth vote but the GOP's ancient views on certain issues will stop a lot of people from ever listening.

The GOP came into existence in the 1850 in order to re-adjust the politics of the U.S. It looks like it is time for a new party to form to replace the GOP. The GOP used to be a party of reason and good sense, but it has been hijacked by the religious right. It is therefore useless for opposing the disastrous policies of the liberal left.

Perhaps the country will wake up when the Democrats run the United States into the ground.

ruveyn

I don't disagree that the Democrats probably will run the US into the ground eventually. That is the problem with centrist politics, they try to appease both sides of the social divide which is impossible so end up aggrivating both. If the GOP is the voice of corporate America then what American politics needs is a true left wing party in congress and the senate that is unapologetically the voice of the working poor. The democrats don't cut the mustard.