What is the better strategy for Republicans?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think this is one of the crucial ways Republicans hamper themselves. Worldwide there is a formula for defeating the left of the political spectrum - to insinuate they are nice enough, but out of their depth and unwilling to make HARD CHOICES. That#s a good way to undermine the left, who often receive top marks for "people like me" and emphasise such "nice" concerns as education/health/worker's rights. The thrashings of people like Dukakis in America proves this is a salient point in the US as well

 However modern Republicans (perhaps because of the increasingly demographically segregated voter bases) always fall back on a curious trope of "fundamental transformation". That Obama as Rubio emphasises "knows exactly what he's doing". IMO this isn't a winning strategy (and the greatest political talent of the GOP seems to agree with my assessment, using the former strategy in his screeds). a) It makes Republicans look like divisive tinfoilers; b) it effectively surrenders huge amounts of popular policy to the Democrats and c) I don't think the general audience (as opposed to the primary voters) respond that well to partisan demonisation.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I think the Rubio strategy is actually better, and for several reasons.

One reason is that the strategy is more reflective as to the split between the parties.  The average Republican today really believes that the Democrats are ACTIVELY trying to transform America into a more secular, majority-minority country so they can elect more Democrats.  They also believe that the Democratic Party is populated with whites who hate themselves and indulge themselves with guilt, athiests and non-Christian thiests who loathe traditional Christianity, people who view the traditional family as oppressive and wish to remove from law those vestiges of it which encourage marriage and family formation, folks who are not only non-interventionist, but who believe that America is an evil nation, guilty of genocide, and minority groups who hold a perpetual grudge against Middle White America, who believe that Middle White America owes them repirations for past discrimination, and are bound and determined to ram through policies to bring this about.  In that vein, the average Republican has more to fear from competence then from bumblers.

Another reason the Rubio Strategy is better is that it is more aligned with reality.  Obama isn't incompetent, not at all.  He has incrementally advanced all of his objectives, probably as much as he could, given the nature of opposition to his polities.  He rammed through Obamacare because it was either that or nothing.  He issues executive orders because he knows he can't get anything through Congress anymore.  In foreign policy Obama has had some setbacks, but he's (A) done what folks want in not bringing ground troops back to Iraq, (B) recognized that in Syria we don't really have a dog in the hunt, and (C) done as well as could be expected with the Arab Spring, given that there was popular support in these nations for the revolutions but not the civic institutions to support democracy.  Obama's economic policies have worked in the sense that they have lowered unemployment and brought about a sustained recovery; the real cost of that recovery and the depth of that recovery is what's debatable.  But Obama is NOT incompetent.  Not in the least.  America fits his vision much more now than in 2008.

If the GOP could articulate THIS issue, it could not only galvanize cultural conservatives, it could convince many non-liberals that they are personally closer to the GOP view of the ideal America than the Democrats' view.  While Northeast and Midwest Republicans are more moderate than Southern and Western Republicans, they ARE more culturally conservative than the norms in their states. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Option 1, because this is what conservative voters want to hear. They see the "other side" as evil and bent on all sorts of conspiracies, and they're not ready to believe that any bad (or supposedly bad) consequence of their policy was unintentional.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Option 1, because this is what conservative voters want to hear. They see the "other side" as evil and bent on all sorts of conspiracies, and they're not ready to believe that any bad (or supposedly bad) consequence of their policy was unintentional.

What he said.

[Bismarck]

Option 1, because this is what conservative voters want to hear. They see the "other side" as evil and bent on all sorts of conspiracies, and they're not ready to believe that any bad (or supposedly bad) consequence of their policy was unintentional.

I think you can believe that Obama wants to transform America without it being intentionally malicious or conspiratory. And this is a bit of what-aboutism but arguably the left is just as bad about conspiracy theories. Lots of democrats I know believe republicans are deliberately hurting the middle class/ poor to help the rich. And let's not forget about jet fuel and steel beams.

[Mr. Smith]

Option 1, this electorate is simply too polarized for anything else at this point.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I made a fairly entertaining typo in the poll, lol.

Option 1, because this is what conservative voters want to hear. They see the "other side" as evil and bent on all sorts of conspiracies, and they're not ready to believe that any bad (or supposedly bad) consequence of their policy was unintentional.

What he said.

But I think this is the sort of thing that turns off "moderates". It's interesting that you brought up Maggie Thatcher because I think that was one of the problems the Left had against her. Instead of highlighting her goofs in power (e.g. the flawed economics of the council house strategy, the pissing away of oil revenue) they painted her as some sort of evil monster to satisfy the base. And that made the middle vulnerable to the Tory message of being "not nice, but more interested in results". And I think the GOP mainstream is copying that strategy in a way that coulf be electorally damaging to the swing voters of America. (who do exist, even if very little pundits understand them)

(as it turns out, I do believe Thatcher was a malicious scheming type; but if I was in charge of Labour during the 80's I wouldn't rely on that trope, even if it seemed to be true.)

[Antonio the Sixth]

While it's true that swing voters matter to some extent, modern America is exactly the kind of setting where the comparative benefits of rallying the base vs. winning over swing voters leans more toward the former. This is especially true in non-Presidential years, which is when the GOP has been doing best (and you can argue that it served them well overall, seeing that they now control both Houses of Congress and a solid majority of State governments).

Besides, seeing as Rubio's comments were directed at the primary electorate, it makes even more sense that he would go for this angle. Had he pulled that off competently, nothing would have prevented him from shifting emphasis after winning the nomination.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

The first is probably better for the primaries, the second is probably better for the general election.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

The second option has appeal to both the base and moderates. Option one doesn't have the same appeal to those in the middle because at this juncture, getting anything done at all is an accomplishment.

[Xing]

Option 1 is better for winning primaries, and perhaps good in mid-term elections, which are direct referendums on the incumbent president. Option 2 is better for a general election.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

True, although I think the motivations of the voters that need to be rallied are worth pulling into question. The convention is that they are orthodox ideologues who need to be rallied by up by a true ______ agenda. I tend to disagree. People who are confident in their beliefs universally are more likely to vote. If you are actually worried about a fundamental transformation (either left or rightwards) you may complain about something your candidates being not committed enough to the cause, but you will typically turnout (and the small minority of extremes: trots, white supremacists, survivalists, ancaps, dominionists etc. don't matter). The people that don't turnout for the most part:

Have a "heretical" set of political beliefs, that head all over the spectrum. This means both the supposed strategies of turning them out (running a milquetoast person who commits to the middle of all issues or a committed idealogue who will "enthuse" them) fails.

Because of this heresy, they won't understand (or care) about arcane matters of "fundamental transformation". that's the thing only bases care about (and by "base" I mean the activist base, not the voting base.

The things that do "enthuse" them are novelty and - most importantly - optimism. That's what FDR understood, Reagan understood and what no candidate (except for Trump) understands. Real voters don't care about ideology, they want results. I've often thought that a good conservative strategy for America might be based around stealing that popular issue of infrastructure from the Democrats (the GOP activist base will whine, but they are different from the GOP voting base and so don't matter) and endorse China style megaprojects. That would enthuse the "happy times are here again" non-voter, get business (and even unions) on board, allow the economic liberalisers some easy prey (like working right laws, environmental laws etc.) to be sacrificed. Apparantly Trump agrees with me, because his damn wall would probably be the biggest megaproject since Eisenhower's Highways.

[tpfkaw]

Both/neither: They should portray the Democrats as incompetent while also taking every opportunity to remind swing voters about hostile Democratic rhetoric and policies towards groups they belong to (whites, men, Southerners, workers in oil/agriculture/mining/finance/insurance/law enforcement and so on, etc).

[IceSpear]

Option 1 strokes the fire of the base, option 2 would appeal more to the extremely small sliver of true independents left.