What happens to the GOP if they fail in November?

[Mr.Phips]

What happens to the GOP esp. within it? If Obama happens to win reelection, combined with the possibilty of the Democrats strengthening their hold on the Senate?

I ask this because the Republican ticket from Romney down should be doing electoral cartwheels around Preisdent Obama and the Democrats everywhere. Specifically considering that the man at the top of the Democratic reelection ticket for President Big O is not popular at all, let alone his policies or his handing of the economy since taking office in 2009. Furthermore, since August the economic news overall has not been good for Obama at all such as it has been for the past nearly 4 years. All & All though it appears somehow the 2nd coming of Jimmy Carter is going to win a return ticket to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW DC.

My take on this is that if Romeny does lose this, the GOP base blew it for him & all the other Republicans running this year to tossup seats in ether the Senate or Congress. The reason I say this is that the extreme idological demands of groups like the Tea Partiers & others helped push the level of debate within the GOP to the right with it. In turn offending independents, Latinos, Women, etc.

Likewise as well all saw, this continued after the primaries with people like Todd Akin's more interested in talking about rape & dead fetuses then they were about ether the unemployment rate or other pressing problems with media(which is already as a whole in Obama's pocket) all too eager to pick up on all of this radiating from the Republican Party.

My question is this.

Does the GOP continue to double down on the ultra-conservatism? Or will it learn from the Democrats post-2004 in turn it's energy & message into something more understandable for the average voter? Ex. Will the GOP move to the center again?

I'm actually starting to believe that a 2nd term for Obama is a blessing in disguise for the GOP. As I think the President & Democratic Party as a whole will continue to burdened by the unpopularity of their legislation combined with the mounting problems with the budget & other economic problems. Also, we have the midterm elections upcoming in 2014 and I think the GOP will def take the Senate then considering that many of the Democratic Seats up are in deep Red states like Louisana, Arkansas, South Dakota, Alaska and Montana. Or are upopular Democrat's/retiring Dems in traditional swing states like Oregon & New Hampshire, Iowa, or Michigan.

Likewise, I think it's the kiss of electoral death for the Democrats since I think if Obama does win in November it's going to be like the D version of W's 2nd term for them.

So what direction does the Republican Party go in with it's ideology, message, and more if Obama wins?

I tend to agree with your statement about a blessing in disguise. If Romney's defeated, then the party will have a chance to reexamine itself and look towards building a winning coalition like the Democrats did in 2008.

Second point, I see what's happening to the Republicans as a lot like what happened to the Democrats from 1969-1993. (During that time only one Democrat served a single term) The party was struggling to find itself, much like what happened to the Democrats as they tried to break with the New Deal Coalition and embrace more centrist and moderate approaches. The end result for the Democrats was the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, and if the Republican play their cards rights and in a sense 'figure themselves out' then 2016 should be a very good year for the party in terms of presidential politics.

I think this is exactly right. The Democrats post-Great Society, and in fact even post-New Deal were largely seen as performing a negative function, ie. defending the gains of their past achievements for which the voters handed them control of congress and local politics.  Their actual new ideas were quite unpopular and unwanted, with the exception of briefly flirting with them in the early 1960s they were uniformly rejected.

By the same token I think the GOP is viewed largely the same way. People vote for them to defend the suburbs, to defend them from greater taxes, from unions, etc. but contrary to claims that the GOP has somehow won the battle of ideas, its actual policies are deeply unpopular. Notice that much of the criticism of Romney is that he is refusing to run on actual policies, but like the Democrats in 70s and 80s there is a reason for that. The official Republican policies have been allowed to fester in an unrealistic environment of opposition and groupthink(much as the Left's did during the late 60s and 70s) and are not only in some cases mutually contradictory(defense and deficit reduction) but deeply unpopular.

In this sense I think we are entering an era where Republicans have an advantage in congressional control, while Democrats have a built-in advantage for the Presidency. I think Bush distorts the picture. Had Bush lost in 2000, we probably would have had one GOP president over a 20 year stretch, whoever won(probably McCain) in 2004 over Gore, who in turn would have been swept out by the financial crisis.

If you look at the GOP Presidential vote since 1992 it is

37%
41%
48%
51%
46%

Whereas the Democratic vote is

43%
50%
49%
48%
53%

The Democratic floor has been pretty close to 50%. And while I don't fully buy the Democratic Majority theory of demographic change, the Democrats have both lost and gained votes over the last decade, the Democratic losses have tended to make red states redder without delivering the Upper Midwest to the GOP as of yet(this may yet change). By contrast, the Democratic gains seem to have brought into contention a number of GOP states, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, and to be on the verge of putting out of play federally Nevada and New Mexico. North Carolina's demographic change has continued unperturbed through the recession, and it is quite possible it will have an even PVI by 2016.

If Republicans can't make corresponding gains in the Upper Midwest, they will be at a real disadvantage in Presidential races, and I would not be shocked to see revived moves for say Pennsylvania and Michigan to split electoral votes by CD.

Wouldnt Democrats also have an advantage in the Senate, since Republicans cant redraw the lines in Senate seats to their liking?  Obama will probably win at least 28 state, which would mean that 56 Senate seats voted for Obama.