What exactly will Republicans run on?

[Fuzzy Bear]

Different Republicans will run on different things.  I don't believe Jeb Bush will be nominated, but he may be, and he can't run on the kind of Tea Party stuff that the others are going to run on.

I think that the GOP may well resort to racial backlash issues.  Public support for "civil rights" declined when the discussion shifted from color-blindness (equal employment opportunity, voting rights) to racially-based remedies for inequality (affirmative action, busing for school integration).  And the "silent majority" agreed with Nixon; liberals seemed to blame race riots on everyone but the rioters themselves, so don't think Ferguson, MO won't be an issue for the GOP.

That won't be a good thing for America, but it's something all Republicans may discover.  The GOP is now the party of White People; aside from Florida Cubans and some Vietnamese communities, the GOP gets very little support from non-whites of any kind.  But they get a higher percentage of the white vote than ever before, and that rate may not have maxed out.  It also suggests an issue that the GOP may well be able to do something about.  There is a degree of resentment how so many public policy questions have become all about race, and there is a perception that many Democratic politicians can't say "No" to their African-American base, even when they're wrong.  Not that the GOP has been able to say "No" to the desires of the nuttier members of their base; they cater to Ted Nugent the way Democrats cater to Al Sharpton.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Being serious:

- balancing the budget by some arbitrary figure, maybe 2020.
- although the GOP probably won't actually close the EPA, for electability's sake, they will probably order the rescinding of mercury regulations on coal plants and refuse to count CO2 as a pollutant. Coal is dead with or without the government, but the War On Coal is still a good talking point.
- privatisation of Social Security, and raising the retirement age
- some kind of genetic anti-welfare move like making increasingly arbitrary requirements for food stamps.
- cutting corperate tax to Canada levels, possibly lower.
- although some elements of Obamacare will be retained, the less popular parts like the mandate and the medical equipment tax will be expunged.
- more fellation of Bibi
- declaring the Iran treaty null and void.
- national right-to-work
- even more invested in deporting teh migrants

That's pretty much a moderate GOP platform that has a handful of sweeties for the base, some goodies for the doboes, but refuses to go all the way to unsettle the dwindling swing population.

There would need to be some honey to swallow the stuff the general population doesn't really like, like jiggling with retirement funds. A war? A moon base? Another Mount Rushmore? God knows.

This actually sounds like a coherent strategy for the GOP.  The only thing that may not work is more warmongering.  It's been successful for the GOP in the past, but it won't be successful now, as Americans are pretty tired of fighting other people's wars.