Who/what did the most damage to the GOP brand name?

[sg0508]

Obviously, it's a lot of things, but who/what did the most damage? Can you pinpoint what basically helped to strip the party bare and make it what it is? The media doesn't help of course, but the party has made itself nearly unelectable now in a presidential year with higher turnout.  They can win locally with lower turnout in off years.

Ideas?

-Newt
-George Bush
-Akins, O'Donnells, Angles, Mourdocks
-The outdated social platforms
-The media itself
-The top 1% label

[Donerail]

An outdated focus on social intolerance, which is only made more prominent by the Akins and Angles and such, which the media can emphasize, a focus which really came to prominence with Bush's election. So most of them. Probably not Newt or Occupy, though.

[soniquemd21921]

Bush. That entire period during the second half of the Bush administration (Teri Schiavo, 109th Congress, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff scandals, Mark Foley, Larry Craig) I consider to be hands down the worst period for the party ever - even worse than Watergate and the New Deal era. Now that they've moved away somewhat from that family values crap, things have slightly improved - but still not a lot. The party is still much worse now than it was in 1937 when there were only 16 Republicans in the Senate and 89 in the House.

[Del Tachi]

It's mostly the fact that the GOP is unable to find candidates who are good at communicating conservative messages without coming off as highly reactionary or elitist.  The Democratic/media orgy machine is also very good at highlighting the worst-of-the-worst in the GOP (i.e. Mourdouck, Akin, Angle).

[soniquemd21921]

Can you think of any high-profile candidates or party leaders in a DeLay/Frist/Santorum/DeMint/Coburn/Palin/Akin/Bachmann/Angle/O'Donnell/Mourdock vein in the New Deal or Watergate eras?

[sg0508]

It's mostly the fact that the GOP is unable to find candidates who are good at communicating conservative messages without coming off as highly reactionary or elitist.  The Democratic/media orgy machine is also very good at highlighting the worst-of-the-worst in the GOP (i.e. Mourdouck, Akin, Angle).

Those candidates however personify the social platform of the party, which is out of touch.

[Blackacre]

If I had to pin it on one thing, I pick the media. Fox drove them away from reality, allowing the crap to rise to the top and stink up the party image.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

The Tea Party movement, coupled with ideological purity.  This one-two punch made the GOP look like a bunch of crazy right-wing extremists and cost us many winnable elections in 2010 and 2012.

It's mostly the fact that the GOP is unable to find candidates who are good at communicating conservative messages without coming off as highly reactionary or elitist.  The Democratic/media orgy machine is also very good at highlighting the worst-of-the-worst in the GOP (i.e. Mourdouck, Akin, Angle).

Those candidates however personify the social platform of the party, which is out of touch.

Exactly.  I don't think Republicans should compromise on social issues, but they should downplay them (except with Latinos), much like the Conservative Party in Canada.

[hopper]

Probably after the 2010 mid-term elections in which they went very hard right especially with social issues and immigration(self-deportation with Romney.) They should know the hispanic community on issues better than that by now(I mean its 2011-2012!) even if the hispanics  do vote dem. At least in 2008 the GOP didn't have hard right stances on issues except maybe on taxes but thats another thing.

[hopper]

If I had to pin it on one thing, I pick the media. Fox drove them away from reality, allowing the crap to rise to the top and stink up the party image.

I do think Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingraham, and even Sean Hannity a little bit did drive them away from reality. Give Sean some credit at least for waking up on the issue of immigration though.

The thing is and I might ruffle some feathers a little bit is Fox does have the #1 ratings out of the 3 Politicals Networks but I think its mostly older white people that watch the network(age 30+) and obviously not the coveted 18-29 demographic that the Dems have done very well with since 2008. Hispanics probably watch Univision and Asians probably watch something else(maybe MSNBC or CNN.)

The GOP is in a tough spot if they go away from the far right base their white base won't like it but not moderating you basically give Asians and Hispanics away to the Dems by 40 points.

I am white by the way but I'm just being frank with my opinions.

[Person Man]

It really does seem that the only way the Republican Party maintains relevance this far to the right is that they rely on midterm elections to keep winning local positions by turning out middleaged and eldery whites who have nothing better to do but complain about how things were when they were growing up and trying to get established. By winning local offices, they can gerrymander the Federal Districting so they can have the House, too. However, because of the limitations of the human body's longevity, the Republican party may no longer be able to rely on this tactic and may then either move to the center or become the permanent protest party.

I wonder what the effect of the ability to make people live longer will have on American Politics.

[they don't love you like i love you]

The single worst individual for this, though certainly far from the only one to blame, is Sarah Palin.

[soniquemd21921]

Who was largely responsible for 'new' "God's Own Party" image? Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Ralph Reed?
 

[Bandit3 the Worker]

-Newt
-George Bush
-Akins, O'Donnells, Angles, Mourdocks
-The outdated social platforms
-The media itself
-The top 1% label

All of these except The Media. The Media supports Republicans.

[Blackacre]

-Newt
-George Bush
-Akins, O'Donnells, Angles, Mourdocks
-The outdated social platforms
-The media itself
-The top 1% label

All of these except The Media. The Media supports Republicans.

The Media follows a nonbias fallacy that plays to Republican benefits. But look at it from a different lens.

"The Media hurt Republicans". That could mean the right-wing media bubble driving them into the realm of the crazy, or the rise of MSNBC, or both.

[HiramJohnson]

Pete Wilson.

He alienated/awakened the Hispanic vote (and to a less understood extent the Asian vote) in California which turned a state that provides 20%+ of the electoral college votes needed for the presidency into a Democratic stronghold.

Before his tenure began in Sacramento (1991), the state had gone GOP in every election since 1948 with the exception of the 1964 landslide. After his myopic opportunism re: illegal immigration  in particular, the state hasn't even come close to casting its 54/55 for a Republican.

[hopper]

-Newt
-George Bush
-Akins, O'Donnells, Angles, Mourdocks
-The outdated social platforms
-The media itself
-The top 1% label

All of these except The Media. The Media supports Republicans.

The Media follows a nonbias fallacy that plays to Republican benefits. But look at it from a different lens.

"The Media hurt Republicans". That could mean the right-wing media bubble driving them into the realm of the crazy, or the rise of MSNBC, or both.

Sure there is conservative media on FOX but the mainstream media leans left(NBC, CBS, and ABC.) It has leaned left for 40-50 years

I do blame the GOP's fall on the media 20-25% but the GOP's downfall is 75-80% their own faults.

[hopper]

Pete Wilson.

He alienated/awakened the Hispanic vote (and to a less understood extent the Asian vote) in California which turned a state that provides 20%+ of the electoral college votes needed for the presidency into a Democratic stronghold.

Before his tenure began in Sacramento (1991), the state had gone GOP in every election since 1948 with the exception of the 1964 landslide. After his myopic opportunism re: illegal immigration  in particular, the state hasn't even come close to casting its 54/55 for a Republican.

I do blame Pete Wilson a little bit for the GOP's fall in California but the GOP's political  platform for California sucks. They want the platform for CA to match match the one from the Deep South. Hello CA has nothing in common with The South especially on social issues.

[hopper]

Who was largely responsible for 'new' "God's Own Party" image? Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Ralph Reed?
 

Ah the religious fanatics on the right then you have the environmental fanatics on the left.

[justfollowingtheelections]

The Bush presidency was catastrophic for the Republican brand.  On one hand you have a president that comes off as an illiterate buffoon that keeps embarrassing the country worldwide, and then you have an army of evil masterminds such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove that most of the country despises.  The war in Iraq and the fact that many people felt misled by this administration really hurt their credibility.

[hopper]

The single worst individual for this, though certainly far from the only one to blame, is Sarah Palin.

That was a mistake trying to make Palin a face of the party for a couple years before the conservative media started to go nuts for Rubio. I know Sean Hannity likes Palin alot but she isn't the person that is gonna drive the party into the 21st century politically. She doesn't have appeal to moderate and hispanic voters and thats the problem with her.

[hopper]

The Bush presidency was catastrophic for the Republican brand.  On one hand you have a president that comes off as an illiterate buffoon that keeps embarrassing the country worldwide, and then you have an army of evil masterminds such as Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove that most of the country despises.  The war in Iraq and the fact that many people felt misled by this administration really hurt their credibility.

The Bush Presidency hurt especially on the issue of Iraq but to me it only hurt Republicans mahorly in 2006 and the 2008 elections a little. The Bush W. Presidency didn't hurt Republicans at all in the 2010 elections.

[PolitiJunkie]

Most recently, Senator Santorum. His official platform positions on pornography along with his war on birth control transcended the views of anyone who has, within recent years, gone so far in a primary.

[justfollowingtheelections]

People such as Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson or Pat Buchanan were all relatively extreme on social issues and they all did well in the Republican primaries.
In the end the Republicans nominated the guy who once claimed he was more liberal than Ted Kennedy, so I really don't think it had anything to do with Santorum.
I really do believe the stench of the Bush presidency is still very strong.  If it wasn't, the Republicans wouldn't be doing everything they can to hide him and everyone else from his administration (with the exception of Condoleezza Rice for obvious reasons).

[Marokai Backbeat]

Allowing the conservative movement to take over the party and ceasing function as an actual political organization, allowing all sorts of crazies to simply walk in and get elected with little to no effort. This has been slowly happening for a few decades, but progresses in waves of elimination and re-election. The wipeout after the Bush years and the lucking out of getting re-elected on the backs of misdirected media-co-opted outrage allowed them to replenish their numbers without being ready to do so, and now there is effectively no party anymore.