What's up with New Hampshire?

[Scam of God]

first he became one of the greatest warmongers in the Senate, then ditched all of his moderate positions to endear himself to social conservatives.

This. I have family in New Hampshire; they trend towards libertarianism, they do not trend towards conservatism, and seem to dislike it more than liberalism. McCain version 2.000 would have been perfect for the region; McCain version 2.008, the social fascist version, was not.

Hate to break it to you, Reaganfan, but those Southern Baptists your Party relies on so much are repellent to many other people who might otherwise consider the G.O.P.

[Scam of God]

Hate to break it to you, Reaganfan, but those Southern Baptists your Party relies on so much are repellent to many other people who might otherwise consider the G.O.P.

I'm not a "southern baptist" and I don't find myself afraid of religion or of "southern church-going" voters. So they go to Church and have a strong faith, so what?

Southern Baptist is a denomination of Christians, fool; that's their name. And they make up a goodly majority of your Party's base, and it's why the G.O.P. has, from 1980 onwards, put forward a fundamentally anti-liberty, anti-freedom social platform aimed at restricting the cultural opportunities provided to women, homosexuals, and religious and racial minorities. They ought to be met with massive resistance on all fronts, and the good people of New Hampshire realize this.

[Scam of God]

Hate to break it to you, Reaganfan, but those Southern Baptists your Party relies on so much are repellent to many other people who might otherwise consider the G.O.P.

I'm not a "southern baptist" and I don't find myself afraid of religion or of "southern church-going" voters. So they go to Church and have a strong faith, so what?

Southern Baptist is a denomination of Christians, fool; that's their name. And they make up a goodly majority of your Party's base, and it's why the G.O.P. has, from 1980 onwards, put forward a fundamentally anti-liberty, anti-freedom social platform aimed at restricting the cultural opportunities provided to women, homosexuals, and religious and racial minorities. They ought to be met with massive resistance on all fronts, and the good people of New Hampshire realize this.

It's my understanding that gays, women, and minorities have the same rights as everyone else. They are free to work, to vote to do whatever.

Are homosexuals at liberty to marry? If your Party were to follow its platform to the letter - which, of course, it never does once it attains power; why end the sole issue which drives evangelical Christians to the ballot to vote for your Party? - would women retain their fundamental liberty to take command of their own bodies and have an abortion should they so choose? Is anyone at freedom in a Republican Administration to ingest substances of their own will, which harm nobody other than themselves? No? It is because your Party despises freedom, and fears it, and will do whatever it  takes to curtail its benefits for as many citizens as possible.

[Scam of God]

Hey brittain, are you active at all in Democratic politics?

[Scam of God]

Hey brittain, are you active at all in Democratic politics?

No... I've done some volunteering for legislative campaigns, but not recently. I'm absolutely not cut out for elected office. Why do you ask?

I'm trying to find some way to push through this crazy 'liberaltarian' notion of mine, that would unite liberals and (principled) libertarians on social issues. But I'm only nineteen, and the only person I know myself who could run for office and win is a few years away from being eligible for a position of any importance.

[Scam of God]

I had a woman tell me that she was surprised that I would be intimate because I was a Republican.

If that's what we've become as a party....we're done not just in NH but everywhere.

Yeah, and you can thank that jerkoff Ronald Wilson Reagan for making possible massive (albeit temporary) gains in the 1980's in exchange for massive losses in the 2000's, and, probably, for the foreseeable future. He opened the doors to the fundamentalists who now have free reign over the Republican Party and who are beginning to drive the socially moderate free-marketeers and old money out the door.

Look here:



This is where the Democrats were in the first quarter of the 20th century, when they were by far the more conservative of the two parties, going against a liberal Republican. Now the Democrats are making motions to the libertarian mountain West. This map shows where you people could be very soon if, say, a candidate Huckabee runs against a popular incumbent Obama - or, indeed, if the gradual social liberalization of my generation continues at its present pace, for the discernible future.

[Scam of God]

Flip MD, VA to Obama and UT, OK, ID, WY, KS, WV to the Republicans and that could very well be a map in an Obama/Huckabee (or similar populist social conservaitve) election.

No doubt it's not an exact match, and the G.O.P. would certainly retain control over Utah and Idaho through the Mormons, Oklahoma and Kansas through the fundamentalists, but West Virginia could still conceivably go Democratic in the right political climate. Still, the Republicans today run the dire risk of becoming the Southern Party (with a little bit of the western plains thrown in for good measure). That's not a good prospect for them in the medium-long term (15-30 years). It's also why I expect there to be a seismic shift leftwards within about that timeframe, at least matching Nixon's mini-revolutions.