Where now for the GOP?

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Right now, the GOP has been pretty effectively anathemized outside the dry states and the South (not even including Appalachia, since they vote GOP only in national elections). The party -- has made no attempt to address that, considering it's in practice defunct -- but among the living, we have two options, already offered here on this forum:

1. Keep the South within the coalition, and try to retain what is left of the marginalized rump existing outside it.
2. Junk the South, and hope beyond reason that the New Yorkers and Californians notice that and have an electoral change of heart.

Minority recruitment would be a failure -- I've had discussion with dazzleman about this, and have come to the conclusion that the fear of minorities being labelled sellouts within their ethnic community will block all attempt at GOP outreach. Not that the GOP should stop, but they should always expect disappointing results.

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Right now, the GOP has been pretty effectively anathemized outside the dry states and the South (not even including Appalachia, since they vote GOP only in national elections). The party -- has made no attempt to address that, considering it's in practice defunct -- but among the living, we have two options, already offered here on this forum:

1. Keep the South within the coalition, and try to retain what is left of the marginalized rump existing outside it.
2. Junk the South, and hope beyond reason that the New Yorkers and Californians notice that and have an electoral change of heart.

Minority recruitment would be a failure -- I've had discussion with dazzleman about this, and have come to the conclusion that the fear of minorities being labelled sellouts within their ethnic community will block all attempt at GOP outreach. Not that the GOP should stop, but they should always expect disappointing results.

Were Hispanics demonized within their own community for supporting Bush?  Of course not.  And better marketing and outreach towards minorities (Asians and Hispanics) would de facto, in the process, reduce social ostracization?

Besides, what alternatives do they have?  Keep being whiter and whiter as the country gets less and less so?  How could NOT doing strong minority outreach to the two fastest-growing minorities in the country be a good long-term decision for the party?  If they fail to do this then Hispanics and Asians will go more and more for the Dems, and even whites will be turned off.

You misunderstood what I wrote. I said that the GOP should not stop minority outreach, only, that it would be entirely ineffective.

And while no group ostracizes minority members of the GOP to the extent that blacks do, it is still apparent, even among Asians and, more so, among Latin Americans not from Cuba or Colombia.

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Right now, the GOP has been pretty effectively anathematized outside the dry states and the South (not even including Appalachia, since they vote GOP only in national elections). The party -- has made no attempt to address that, considering it's in practice defunct -- but among the living, we have two options, already offered here on this forum:

1. Keep the South within the coalition, and try to retain what is left of the marginalized rump existing outside it.
2. Junk the South, and hope beyond reason that the New Yorkers and Californians notice that and have an electoral change of heart.

Minority recruitment would be a failure -- I've had discussion with dazzleman about this, and have come to the conclusion that the fear of minorities being labelled sellouts within their ethnic community will block all attempt at GOP outreach. Not that the GOP should stop, but they should always expect disappointing results.

I'm going to say more about this later.  But while the problem is geographic, we are looking at the wrong geography.

We are losing because we are being locked out of both urban and suburban areas.  In order for us to make a comeback, we have to reach out to those people, and that means we are going to have to change to do that.

If we are relying on rural whites to carry us, all you have to do is look at the data and see that that is a losing strategy, because America is going on the opposite direction.  If we open our tent back up to people outside of so-called "real America" then we can start bringing states back in.  Will it net us fundamentally liberal states, no, but it will help us get back states like North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Florida Indiana, Wisconsin, PA, and allow Republican candidates to be competitive in even more states.

We took our most inclusive candidate, and through out the course of the election, found ways to make him unappealing to people who weren't in the loop with "The Base".

That's the rub: "The Base" have indubitably made themselves obnoxious, but on suppressing them, or even just reminding them that they stand as one part of a coalition, would anyone  even notice, let alone use that as sufficient justification to vote for a "De-Based" GOP?

The more I consider it, it's not entirely the fault of "The Base" that the GOP's fortunes have ground down. Just look at the motley crew that makes up the Democrats -- members of the Democratic coalition barely acknowledge each other socially, but they all still vote Democrat. It's the fact that the GOP stands for nothing at all that is killing them -- it's too bound to Wall Street to make a case for ameliorating the effects of free trade on the middle class, too bound to lobbyists (who vote Democrat!) to make a case against pork-barrel politics, and too scummy to defend marriage and traditional values (it's necessary to make the case for squareness, even in 2008). What that leaves the Republicans is just inanity and Congressional show-outrage.

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They should trend towards European style Conservatism. They will of course not do that.

Why should they? European "conservatism" is not conservative at all, from a US standpoint. They fully accept the social democratic concept of the state, which alone rules out a place for that in the US.

Now, a turn to Stephen Harper Conservatism is altogether far more acceptable, if it weren't for the fact that the GOP's Harperites like Jim Talent and John Sununu were already voted out.