Talk Elections

Perhaps our 1997 is your 2008.

This is the 4th time in 5 elections the GOP has lost the popular vote at a presidential election. Are the GOP now a 'regional' party? What can be done about New England? Has Nixon/Reagans grand coalition collapsed?

How can the GOP sell conservatism again and who will lead a drive towards modernisation?

Become the party of the "big tint" and kick the right wing bible thumping nuts out.

Its time for the Real Republicans to take there party back once again.

Honestly, I'm speaking against interest here, but "New England" as such just doesn't carry that much weight electorally. The issue is the northeastern metropolitan regions in general, which covers parts of New England, along with the midwestern metropolises that are starting to vote like northeastern ones.

We need to get back to our roots. I am afraid of the populist, social conservative wing of the party. If we go down the road of big government, we are finished as a party. We need to go back to small government, low taxes, individual freedoms, and less emphasis on social issues. It's fine to remain pro-life and anti-gay marriage, but pushing for an amendment to ban such things will alienate moderate, which have all but left the party.  In fact, both parties are losing moderates.

It's hard to say, but I would put money on the fact that the infighting and division among Republicans will not be pretty. Reaganomics have been rejected and the GOP's  issue of specialty (military policy) is no longer the number one issue in the country. I expect different factions to arise and barring a catastrophic first couple of years for Obama, the situation isn't going to get much better for Republicans electorally in 2010 as there are certainly more vulnerable Republicans slated for that election there are vulnerable Democrats. The Republicans aren't a regional party, but they are certainly in 1980s Democratic Party shape.

Agreed.

Smart Republicans.

A coherent *fresh* message, along with attacking Obama intelligently is the key to success.

The pendulum swings back and forth, but...the GOP faces two very big long-term problems:

1) demographics - the GOP has sadly failed to attract minorities- that's not gonna cut it with the demographic changes

2) the social conservatives simply will NOT bend on the issue of abortion and homosexuality.  We'd rather lose elections (and even our lives) than lose our souls.  We believe that the world is destined to embrace sin more and more as the end approaches, so we are expecting that the world will agree with us less and less.  Our allegiance is with the Truth, not the Republican party.  

You will be seeing a re-alignment.  What that will look like is still too early.

Yesterday looked a lot like 1976.

next time, manage wars properly. It's bad enough that the prewar intel sucked (or was manipulated, but who cares at this point?), but seriously, the incompetence demonstrated in Iraq up until around 2007 was ridiculous. Even worse, instead of attempting to change strategy/relieve the incompetents of their duties, you guys essentially chose to live in denial for about four years. That's not going to work when everyday we  woke up to hear reports of U.S. and civilian deaths. Just FYI.

And the 51% strategy employed by Rove really showed its weakness once you guys started to piss of certain segments of that 51%. Feel free to run along divisive lines in an attempt to shore up that 51%, but don't piss them off after you've won. Same thing happened in 1992.

Wait until theres a negative reaction to an Obama policy/policies. Similar to how Democrats eventually took the mantle in 2006 or GOP in 1994 and 1980.

no, I think Obama should be given, and will be given, wide latitude in his economic and foreign policies in the 1st 2 years.  As long as he doesn't have any skeletons in his closet, his approval ratings may be >65% over his first two years, barring some foreign policy disaster.

America needed a change, so America will give Obama time to see if he fits the change that is needed.

Well I agree, any negative reaction to his change wont be showing up till 2012-2014 anyway. Bush didn't illicit negative reactions till late 2005 which was thus expressed in 2006 midterms and 2008 election.

LOL

yep, 9/11 changed the mentality of the nation so much that Bush was given a lot of slack.  Same with the current situation - Obama will be given a lot of slack, but perhaps not as much as Bush.

Misreading the election, alas...

Me or jmcfst?

Since economic responsibility is pretty much the reason why the GOP lost ... The Small Gov't people are likely to be ejected. II am not sure where, but if the GOP wants to survive, we have to be more Moderate/Populist.

how so? very few like the state of our economy or the state of the war on terror, Obama can't do much worse.  And I for one will be extemely glad to have a president that can complete a sentence.  And it will be refreshing to see a black man in the oval office.

I think they should move in a more Libertarian direction. Moderate Libertarianism can work in this country.  Like Duke said, if we focus on curtailing spending and cutting taxes for the middle class we’ll go a long way to reforming. Social issues are a bit harder, and I don’t know how they should be addressed. I don’t think the party can afford a wishy washy approach to them, they need to really pick a side. Ideally I’d be in favor of downplaying social issues, but there’s no way that would work. So, I don’t know. Hopefully the Republican strategists are a good deal smarter then me, ha ha. But the focusing on responsible economics is a good start, I‘d say, if they can actually practice what they preach for a change.

If the GOP becomes Libertarian, where does The South/Religious/Populist/Other people go?

I don't necessarily disagree with your comment.  But those who voted for him (or a lot who don't) have very high expectations of him, most of them being quite unrealistic.

Good question, and I don’t really have an answer. I’m just suggesting the route I’d like it to go. Maybe populism and social conservatism is better for the party in the long run, considering changing demographics, but if it goes any further in that direction it honestly won’t be my party anymore, to sound rude. You guys can have it then, and I mean that with no offense intended. Ha, I might just spout a Dem avi in that case. And I really don't want to do that, since it's a rather ugly shade of red.

     Welcome to the club. :)

     Anyway, I agree that the GOP needs to become more libertarian. Social conservatism is by its very nature a declining sum. Societies become freer & more equal, not the other way around. Fundamentalism is no longer a winning proposition in the United States.

     There's enough of them for a party to remain fairly large but that isn't what we want. If the Republicans become our electoral version of the LibDems, who is going to be the major party that stands up to the Democrats?

yeah, but I think you underestimate the impact of having a president who can actually talk will have on the American people.  I don't think Bush's approval rating would have ever dropped below 40% if he had the ability to communicate.  

And the scary thing is, Bush's speaking abilities have only DECREASED since he has been in office, which tells me that he never really had an idea where he wanted to take the country.

Yeah, because if any Conservatism is hurt this year, it is Fiscal rather than Social. And there are too many Social Conservatives for the GOP to stay Libertarian. We won't be accepted into the DEMS. And without Social Issues, I'd have more in common with the DEM party instead of the GOP.

agreed.  but the GOP left Fiscal conservatism behind over the last 5 years - beginning with Prescription drug bill in 2003.  it actually started to end in 2000 - that's when earmarks started to make a comeback.  The modern Fiscal conservative era was 95-99 when the GOP led congress really held the line on spending increases.

In reality, the 2000 election was about how to spend our prosperity and we are still spending as if the economy was in the late 90's tech boom.

but you can't be fiscally conservative when we're facing a meltdown of our banking system.  We had no choice but to pass bailout bill.  Over the next 18 months, social conservatives will be viewed as standing in the way of fighting the economic fire

Except Barack Obama won his election by a much larger margin than Carter did.

Are you going to continue repeating this garbage for the next 4 years?

The South was absent from this election in a way they haven't been since what... 1972?  Also, McCain hardly ran with a populist message... it was certainly more conservative on economics than Bush's policies and more liberal on social issues (mostly in that they were not front and center and McCain didnt try to push them very hard)...

We didn't lose this election because of the Religious Right or our social conservative roots. It's seems like I'll be arguing against the idea that that cost us the election for awhile now but oh well.

I think we need a clean sweep when it comes to the "leadership" in Congress. We need fresh faces, not a mad dash to the left.

We lost because of the economic crisis. There was little we can do to stop it so let's stop thinking that we have to dump what we believe in (especially on social issues) because of a bad loss.

All that being said, I'm still sticking with the idea of taking a serious chill pill for awhile. Obviously, the leadership elections in Congress can't just be put on hold but everything else should wait a few months.

true, but McCain probably only stood about 20-25% chance of winning even without the meltdown.  It is extremely hard for one party to maintain the whitehouse for 3 consecutive terms

Unlike the guy who said "GOP should be a big tent, kick the religious conservatives out," the solution really is to have a big tent party.  The unifying message needs to be small government.  A key plank in the platform, recognized by Reagan, Fred Thompson, Ron Paul, and others, is federalism.  Religious conservatives are best served when Washington butts out of their business.  Most importantly, judges need to faithfully interpret the Constitution.  That by itself is reason for the Republican coalition to stick together.

The biggest challenge for Republicans is the dearth of effective communicators who will stand up and defend our beliefs.  I think the Bush presidency is one cause for this, as Bush himself is neither eloquent nor ideologically consistent.  Also, members of the party have been been muted in their criticism, for understandable reasons.  But above all, we need advocates who can build the party rather than Rovian tacticians who can find 51% of the vote in a given election.

Listen to "Supersoulty Republicans (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=87515.msg1800926#msg1800926)" or continue to be marginalized.

     Pretty much. Unfortunately, Supersoulty & his ilk are fighting a losing battle. I guess I'm not helping by jumping ship & joining the Libertarians. :-[

     With that much said though, I still will generally support the Lincoln Republican. It's only the modern theocon that I refuse to lend my support to. Hopefully others will join me in supporting Libertarian candidates against them.

     Maybe if enough theocons go down in defeat due to large numbers of GOPers voting Libertarian, they'll get the message that we are not to be trifled with. If they don't get the message, I'll be a card-carrying Libertarian for a very long time to come. :)

Then, where would I go, as a  Gov't lover?

Palin is already being thrown under the bus by McCain loyalists. It's pretty ugly actually.

I'd like to see the GOP return to its more pragmatic Roosevelt/Eisenhower/Nixon roots, but I doubt that will happen.  Actually McCain sort of fit that mold and the right panned him as a RINO and forced him to run a campaign of pandering and falseness.

The danger with "small government" as a unifying principle, although it is a powerful principle, is that it rapidly translates into "anti-government" and that has been at the root of the Bush Administration's problem and the trashing of the brand.

The social conservatism alienates some kids and adults and it makes the party look trivial during a time of crisis, but we know it is not fundamentally a deal-breaker for the party. I'd love to play concern troll and say "embrace gay marriage and your problems will melt away" but that is stupid.

Competence is the deal-breaker.

If the Republican Party can develop a coherent small government party that doesn't attract ideologues and rentseekers whose policies are only to smash the place up, cut without concern for a basic safety net (and I mean "don't leave Katrina refugees for a week" safety net, not Medicare prescription drugs), while still trying to spend big for their districts, that could be promising. If it looks like Terri Schiavo gets more attention than "health care" as a policy portfolio, people in the middle get angry.

Republicans need moral officeholders who aren't looking for a future lobbying career. You have some in Congress already, for certain. Somehow, you need to find a way to stop the districts from sending up single-issue ideologues who connect with their voters on that one issue but come across as economic illiterates and tone-deaf harridans on everything else. (You know who I'm talking about. Some of them were dispatched this week, but others are in safe districts.) The Democrats learned this lesson.

Yeah, I heard they said she didn't know Africa was a continent, didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, "threw temper tantrums" (oh the irony) about bad press coverage, and refused their help to prepare for the Couric interview, which they thought was fair.

Will Kristol and Barnes carry water for her now against this, I wonder.

Oh I certainly agree that the main reason McCain lost was the Wall Street meltdown. Looking back, I actually believe it would've been best for him to oppose the bailout and rail against Obama and those who did want to bailout Wall Street. I was a big supporter of it at the time, but it probably wasn't the best move for McCain to agree to go along with it. This was always going to be a hard race. I agree that we shouldn't chastise the religious conservatives, but we don't need to make that the central issue of the party. We need to bring back the small government message. That is a message that resonates with a majority of Americans. It's why Obama tried to appear to be a small government moderate during the elections. We got away from that after 9/11, and now is the time we need to return to that in order to get back into relevance.


You should probably be a Democrat if you love big government. It depends which is more important to you: big government or your social values. The reason I am a Republican is because I believe in small government.

The argument from social conservatives will be as follows...

"Everytime the GOP has run a moderate (even if they are mainstream conservatives perceived by the right to be moderates)...the GOP has lost.  Everytime they have run a staunch social conservative, they have won."

And there is merit to this.

Gerald Ford, moderate, loses to Carter.
Ronald Reagan, social conservative, defeats Carter and Mondale.
George H.W. Bush (who RAN as a social conservative) defeats Dukakis.
George H.W. Bush (who governed as a moderate) loses to Bill Clinton.
Bob Dole, fiscally conservative but not an arch social conservative, loses to Clinton.
George W. Bush, extremely socially conservative and religious, defeats Gore.
GWB, using hot button issues appealing to the RR, defeats Kerry.
John McCain, perceived by the right to be "moderate", loses to Obama.

No matter how much I would love to see the GOP become the party of Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Landon and Houghton once again...(because I really like having a choice)...I don't think it will.  Undoubtedly, the few moderates remaining will argue for this.  But are there enough of them left?  

One other possibility -- and this one could gain traction.  Extreme fiscal conservatives, basically Libertarians when it comes to money, could come to the fore...and simply try to dramatically downplay their social conservatism.  Mike Pence may be one of these.  He's every bit as far right as Jim DeMint or Jim Inhofe on social issues.  But he doesn't talk about them.  He just votes.  He TALKS about money, cutting spending, reducing taxes on the wealthy and on the corporate sector...but you don't hear Pence say much about wanting to criminalize abortion or restrict gay rights, unless he's at a prayer breakfast.  

This is the tack I think the party will take.  Because as much as I like moderate and liberal Republicans, the fact that I -- basically a liberal Democrat -- like them, is seen as an indictment of them in the minds of conservatives.  And probably rightly so.

I like the Democratic principle of big government, but I can't stand Social Liberalism. I am not sure where to venture, And I don't wanna be under Obama's banner either.

I think the GOP should hold onto most of its core philosophies, but change its image.  I could write up a longer analysis of this eventually, but I think some of the key things to do should include:

Aggressive minority recruitment, especially Hispanics and Asians.  The latter is oftentimes traditionalist, religious, and economically climbing - Asian-Americans would be a natural addition to a GOP coalition.  The reason why they haven't been thus far is probably because the GOP is perceived to be the xenophobic, White Southern party, most self-selecting Asian-American politicians are lawyers and thus consistently Democratic, and the GOP has not made the effort.

Hispanics  are a tougher nut to crack.  It's ironic that Bush and McCain butted heads with their own party over immigration but did nothing to change the GOP's image as the party of the giant wall.  This group is also economically climbing and traditionalist.  Perhaps one of my few platform suggestions for the GOP would be to give up on the wall.

In general the GOP should be a big tent.  Run secular mavericks in the West and Baptist ministers in the South.  Discourage the primary-ing of moderates.

Anyway, you can't win by being the all-white party.  AA's are probably lost to the GOP for a decade thanks to Obama's victory, but why not go for the two fastest growing minority populations?  The GOP will probably not be able to win a national election until they can stop Hispanics from breaking 2:1 against them, but maybe they can find a way.

I support this as well, I have a few Asians friends that usually sound and/or swing Conservative.

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.

Most likely, this is just a matter of a bad environment in this election cycle. However, the real danger would be if a new force were to emerge in the Northeast to challenge them for the second spot: they are so weak nationally now, it could be feasible. It's not that this is a regional party - but it completely lost one of the regions :)

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.

At this point....Funk 'em!  I hope they go down in flames.  Hopefully the libertarian phoenix rises to take their place.  (note that's a little l.  A libertarian party doesn't have to be the Libertarian Party.)

A libertarian party would have to be a "softly" libertarian. People are pretty convinced of the necessity of Social Security and public schools.
Also, I think the obituaries for the GOP are a little premature. The election was much closer than the Electoral College would have you believe.

The problem for the GOP is widespread right now.  The hard line social conservatism has turned off so many moderate Republicans and Republican leaning Independents from the ranks (especially among suburban voters).  No question the economic crisis hurt McCain and the Republicans big time, but I think the current crisis was the tipping point for many of these voters who were already unhappy with the direction of the party, and already moving away from the party. 

First, the party needs to dump its national leadership as well as most state leadership. While the economy certainly didn't help matters, Republican support for the war is hurting the party. Ditch the neoconservative foreign policy. (Is this the first time neoconservative has appeared in this thread? That's a surprise if it is.) Ditch the neoconservatives altogether since most of them are not socially or economically conservative. While I don't like using our soldiers for political tools, if Republicans want to have a shot in 2010, they better hope Obama fails to get the troops out of Iraq and then run on a platform of getting out. And don't run the recently defeated incumbents. Run new candidates that have never served in congress before. Criticize the bailout that both McCain and Obama supported. Forget about not wanting to say bad things about Bush. Do it. Criticize him for expanding the government more than the Democrats. Criticize him for not being a conservative. I know they won't get to Constitution or (pre-Bob Barr) Libertarian Party levels of limited government, but they need to at least move towards that direction.

While I was probably going to vote for a non-Republicrat anyway, McCain (or Obama for that matter) did not try to get my vote. Obama reached out to the supporters of the other candidates. Kerry did the same in 2004. But as a Paul supporter, McCain, by his actions, said he did not want my vote. He let a non-conservative speak at the convention and he let a non-Republican speak at the Republican convention. But he would not let the Republican I supported speak and required him to be escorted at all times. Not that Obama deserved to win, but neither did McCain.

The big issue for social conservatives has been dependent on the Supreme Court. Many single issue voters vote Republican for that one reason. And by supporting an unpopular war, the party many have depended on to election constitutional judges to overturn the relevant Supreme Court decision (besides the fact the candidate they nominated was less than reliable on the issue) may have set the movement back 5 or 10 or more years.

Federalists 1789-1801
Democratic-Republicans 1801-1825
Democrats 1829-1841
Republicans 1861-1885
Republicans 1896-1913
Republicans 1921-1933
Democrats 1933-1953
Republicans 1981-1993

Lose after exactly 2:
1860, 1920, 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2008

Yeah, pretty much half of the time they win a 3rd term.

I feel for you.  The Democratic Party, which used to occupy that ground, moved out from under you.  Since there are only 2 viable parties, I guess the primaries become more important for you.  Do like the Ron Paul supporters and try to take over a party? :)

I disagree with your premise.  GOP candidates are a good fit for most of their districts on the social side, and a lot of Dems are actually way out in left field compared to their constituents.  "The hard line social conservatism" is largely a caricature, and the GOP would lose rather than gain voters (yes, also in the suburbs) by sidelining social conservatives.  The GOP absolutely loses in framing the debate.

Currently, it looks like the GOP is seeking to turn itself into a small, hard line, Evangelical fundamentalist party. Why don't the "moderate" Republicans create a third party? They can take the DLC/"Blue Dogs" with them too, BTW. Then the Democrats could also join the Socialist International (http://www.socialistinternational.org/) and we'd have a more 'normal' political system compared to other Western countries.

New Leaders, new message.

Mainly it's time to drop the practice of trying to "ban" things, we can do better. We can do the job by leaving the big social issues to the states, and stop trying to amend the US constitution to our social tastes. We need to stand for strong economic strategy and more personal freedom. We need to defend the 2nd amendment w/o going nutter about guns. We need to emphasize conservation over environmentalism, and most of all promote FAMILY values, not radical right social polices.

If the GOP becomes that, I'll turn my avatar blue.

True. 

One thing that I should point out is that two candidates in PA, Barletta (R, PA-11) and Morganelli (D, PA-AG) had, as a signature issue, an anti-immigration stance.  Both lost.

Here's what the GOP should do:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=87895.0

(warning: good read)

In summary, the GOP should change its beliefs so that they match mine.

It's remarkable how everyone seems to agree on that.

The problem with this is that right now young Hispanics and Asians overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party, much more than their elders. Most are also more socially liberal than their parents, which means that the Republicans can't rely on many of their current conservative family values for much longer. However, I agree that many wealthy and affluent Asian Americans can be coerced back to the GOP - shouldn't be too difficult for obvious reasons.

The GOP is really screwed with Hispanics though. As we saw with McCain this year they can't both appeal to the base and win Hispanics any longer. With their current coalition, the only way they can win Hispanic votes is to find non-Mexicans who don't really care about immigration. They're not a monolithic block of single-issue immigration voters as they're simplified to be.

They should push for the prompt restoration of the Articles of Confederation.

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".

And dont forget that Carter also picked up no seats in the House or Senate for Democrats in 1976, although they already started with big majorities. 

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.

I honestly have no idea what the GOP should do. I'm sure there will be a correction election relatively soon, but I think the Democrats will have the long-term advantage in foreseeable future regardless.

Attracting socially conservative, upwardly mobile ethnic and racial minorities (with the notable exception of African Americans -they are lost for good to the GOP to all intents and purposes) is the only way the Republican Party can survive in the 21st century as a viable political party.  Which must make their recent xenophobia towards Hispanics all the more heart-wrenching for any in the GOP interested in reviving Karl Rove's dream of creating a 'permanent Republican majority'. 

The best thing they should do is eject all the dogmatic religious fundamentalists/social conservatives and reinvent themselves as being for pragmatic and conservative (small c) solutions to problems in order to attract those who have been turned off by Rovian tactics.

But in all likelihood the opposite will happen.

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

The culture wars should be left in 2004, where they belong and move on.

But the culture wars is what the base want to fight again and again. Now the base is all the GOP have they will make pretty sure it stays on the agenda.

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.