GOP asks for help from the Internet

[Blue3]

The Republican Party is asking for people to fill out a survey and type out specifics on how the party can improve in future elections.

http://growthopp.gop.com/default.aspx?s=pro

What will/would you recommend?



When I got to the comment box, this is what I wrote:

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[sg0508]

1) Get away from social issues.  Most people north of the Mason Dixon Line don't want to hear it.

2) Start talking about the Middle Class

3) Stop nominating the O'Donnells, Akins, Bucks, Angles, Mourdocks, etc.

[Indy Texas]

At least you're being constructive. Some maleficent Dems might send multiple surveys in with "Keep talking about rape" in the comment section.

[hopper]

1) Get away from social issues.  Most people north of the Mason Dixon Line don't want to hear it.

2) Start talking about the Middle Class

3) Stop nominating the O'Donnells, Akins, Bucks, Angles, Mourdocks, etc.

Well R canidates can still on being pro-life but not banning abortion on the case of life of the mother or rape. I think they get the immigration issue now since the lost in November.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

My advice:

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[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

It would be fun to see a party that shares Oldiesfreak's beliefs on slavery and race.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

It would be fun to see a party that shares Oldiesfreak's beliefs on slavery and race.

But it's true.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

It would be fun to see a party that shares Oldiesfreak's beliefs on slavery and race.

But it's true.

This debate has been won many times over and I don't feel like having it right now, but I'm just saying that it's going to be a happy day when the Republican presidential nominee says that the half-Kenyan President is from the racist party.

[pbrower2a]

1. Recognize that Dubya was an awful President. His economic policies created the economic meltdown that made President Barack Obama possible if not inevitable.

2. Recognize that Barack Obama is an above-average President. Consider yourselves lucky that the Democrats are not going to nominate another black person for President for a very long time. Recognize that all that kept him from winning a landslide analogous to that of Eisenhower in 1956 is that millions of people won't vote for a black for President. In 2016 you will face someone who will not win 5% less of the vote for that reason.

Except for Obamacare, he has achieved mostly what Republicans could be proud of doing had it been a conservative Republican who did them. Stopping the worst economic meltdown in 80 years, saving the American auto industry, getting the US out of Iraq without disgrace, having an exit plan for Afghanistan, whacking a bunch of terrorists, and putting an end to much of the anti-American protests worldwide is pretty good. If he can get a well-drafted gun-control bill passed -- the sort that leaves law-abiding people alone but reduces crime, then he will have won on one of the usual conservative issues -- law and order.

3. Rediscover the old conservative agenda of well-paid work, thrift, enterprise, and investment. Foster small business anew even at the expense of economic elites. Tax breaks for existing elites will not promote small business which as a rule starts on a shoestring. Barack Obama will go that way if he has a chance, and Republicans had better beat him to it if they don't want to lose what could potentially be a large part of the vote.

Cheap labor and brutal management, let alone corruption, is not the way to go. Republicans cannot promise a speculative boom that nobody will trust.

4. Cut the overweening anti-intellectualism that offends the sensibilities of one of the largest occupational groups in America -- schoolteachers. Promotion of pseudoscience and pseudohistory to pander to Christian fundamentalists and corporate interests is one way to get what may be the most sophisticated people in many communities to influence youth to the detriment of the GOP.  They don't have to say "Vote Democratic" to influence the young-adult vote to the detriment of the GOP in a few years.

5. Recognize shared sacrifice as  a necessity. Republican pols in several states have introduced Right-to-Work (for much less) legislation that will not so much create jobs as cut pay (and the jobs to be created will largely be in sweatshops). They have made fools of themselves by opposing disaster relief. If living standards must go down to promote thrift and investment, to win necessary wars, and to conserve resources, then don't let it seem that the economic elites are getting all the breaks. We are all in it together or we will be at each others' throats.   

6. Don't be afraid of high taxes on earners (as a Democrat I would say "grabbers") of high incomes.  The concept of ability to pay begins with the ideological hero of capitalism, Adam Smith. 

7. Consider paring back the military establishment as a budgetary measure.

8. Give up on the anti-feminist issues of contraception and abortion.

9. Quit pitting poor whites against the middle class and organized labor.  Note well that right-wing populism is more likely to morph into left-wing populism than into obedient conservatism. Poor whites can turn on conservatives -- and do so every couple of decades.

10. Don't be afraid of the reality of moderation.  Maybe your party needs to attract the likes of Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, Ed Brooke, William Miliken, Tom McCall, and Arlen Spector in the future. The Eisenhower-Rockefeller Republicans are running from the GOP to where they are more comfortable. Such people may be harder to control for now -- but they are good at local organization. When the Democrats have them the GOP loses badly in the northeastern quadrant of the US and the Far West.   
   

[fezzyfestoon]

It's just a spam scam...I still did it though.

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I got a little whiny and melodramatic, but thus is the way of politics, isn't it?

[Niemeyerite]

My advice:

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"Vote for me, I have been nominated by the same party that nominated Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago!!!". It wouldn't be damaging and racist, at all.

[Maxwell]

Basically it was de-emphasize social issues, start attempting to abandon completely, and run to the left of the Democrats on civil liberties and privacy issues, abandoning the Bush era Big Government police state. Also, to stop building strawmen (i.e. Socialist Obama) that never really connect with reality.

[soniquemd21921]

Basically it was de-emphasize social issues, start attempting to abandon completely, and run to the left of the Democrats on civil liberties and privacy issues, abandoning the Bush era Big Government police state. Also, to stop building strawmen (i.e. Socialist Obama) that never really connect with reality.

Ever since Obama's first election I've been saying that all but the first two years of the Bush administration was the absolute low point of the GOP. It seemed like the only thing GOP leaders EVER talked about in that period was "family values" and emphasizing stupid crap like "Real American values vs. San Francisco values". And then you had the Patriot Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, the entire Teri Schiavo fracas, the Jack Abramoff/Tom DeLay scandal, the Mark Foley and Larry Craig sexual abuse scandals, and more.

Don't drop social conservatism altogether, but keep that only at a regional basis since the overemphasis on social conservatism is what has badly hurt the party's reputation in places that had been Republican since the party's foundation (e.g. the rural/small-town Northeast, much of the upper Midwest, suburban areas). Playing the "family values" card may still work in Mississippi and Utah, but in old-time GOP bastions it is a major turnoff. An appeal to immigrant voters I would suggest as well, along with a re-emphasis on fiscal conservatism, fiscal responsibility and an opposition to big government.

Also, they should try to do something about all that stupid "RINO vs. Real Conservatives" nonsense that Tea Party activists love to engage in. People are beginning to grow tired of this, as we saw last year with Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock losing seats that would have been otherwise safe. And let's not forget that the TP's biggest hero, Ronald Reagan, would have been a major critic of "RINO hunting".

[td191]

Move to the center on social issues. Avoid extreme positions like Bob McDonald or Richard Murdoch on abortion. If pro-life, must be pro-choice on cases of rape and incest.

Support a "leave it to the state" position on gay rights. If supreme court rules in favor of gay marriage, accept it as settled precedent.

Neoonservatism is outdated.

Embrace the libertarians. They are the future of conservatism in America and in 20 years, they will dominate the GOP.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Basically it was de-emphasize social issues, start attempting to abandon completely, and run to the left of the Democrats on civil liberties and privacy issues, abandoning the Bush era Big Government police state. Also, to stop building strawmen (i.e. Socialist Obama) that never really connect with reality.

Ever since Obama's first election I've been saying that all but the first two years of the Bush administration was the absolute low point of the GOP. It seemed like the only thing GOP leaders EVER talked about in that period was "family values" and emphasizing stupid crap like "Real American values vs. San Francisco values". And then you had the Patriot Act, the Defense of Marriage Act, the entire Teri Schiavo fracas, the Jack Abramoff/Tom DeLay scandal, the Mark Foley and Larry Craig sexual abuse scandals, and more.

Don't drop social conservatism altogether, but keep that only at a regional basis since the overemphasis on social conservatism is what has badly hurt the party's reputation in places that had been Republican since the party's foundation (e.g. the rural/small-town Northeast, much of the upper Midwest, suburban areas). Playing the "family values" card may still work in Mississippi and Utah, but in old-time GOP bastions it is a major turnoff. An appeal to immigrant voters I would suggest as well, along with a re-emphasis on fiscal conservatism, fiscal responsibility and an opposition to big government.

Also, they should try to do something about all that stupid "RINO vs. Real Conservatives" nonsense that Tea Party activists love to engage in. People are beginning to grow tired of this, as we saw last year with Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock losing seats that would have been otherwise safe. And let's not forget that the TP's biggest hero, Ronald Reagan, would have been a major critic of "RINO hunting".

Bravo!  You just summarized my views perfectly!!!!  This is why I'm going into politics and planning on becoming a Republican strategist.

[sg0508]

The problem goes like this. All that's left in the GOP bloc appear to be the rich, the declining population of married whites and far-right Christians.  You stop talking about family values and start talking more liberally on social issues and these people won't show up to the polls.

The party purged itself starting with Buchanan's "Culture Wars" speech of moderates and now, they're paying for it.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I don't think Republicans need to move to the left or center on social issues, just downplay them.  That way, the social/religious conservatives will stay with us and we can still expand our base.

[hopper]

1. Recognize that Dubya was an awful President. His economic policies created the economic meltdown that made President Barack Obama possible if not inevitable.

2. Recognize that Barack Obama is an above-average President. Consider yourselves lucky that the Democrats are not going to nominate another black person for President for a very long time. Recognize that all that kept him from winning a landslide analogous to that of Eisenhower in 1956 is that millions of people won't vote for a black for President. In 2016 you will face someone who will not win 5% less of the vote for that reason.

Except for Obamacare, he has achieved mostly what Republicans could be proud of doing had it been a conservative Republican who did them. Stopping the worst economic meltdown in 80 years, saving the American auto industry, getting the US out of Iraq without disgrace, having an exit plan for Afghanistan, whacking a bunch of terrorists, and putting an end to much of the anti-American protests worldwide is pretty good. If he can get a well-drafted gun-control bill passed -- the sort that leaves law-abiding people alone but reduces crime, then he will have won on one of the usual conservative issues -- law and order.

3. Rediscover the old conservative agenda of well-paid work, thrift, enterprise, and investment. Foster small business anew even at the expense of economic elites. Tax breaks for existing elites will not promote small business which as a rule starts on a shoestring. Barack Obama will go that way if he has a chance, and Republicans had better beat him to it if they don't want to lose what could potentially be a large part of the vote.

Cheap labor and brutal management, let alone corruption, is not the way to go. Republicans cannot promise a speculative boom that nobody will trust.

4. Cut the overweening anti-intellectualism that offends the sensibilities of one of the largest occupational groups in America -- schoolteachers. Promotion of pseudoscience and pseudohistory to pander to Christian fundamentalists and corporate interests is one way to get what may be the most sophisticated people in many communities to influence youth to the detriment of the GOP.  They don't have to say "Vote Democratic" to influence the young-adult vote to the detriment of the GOP in a few years.

5. Recognize shared sacrifice as  a necessity. Republican pols in several states have introduced Right-to-Work (for much less) legislation that will not so much create jobs as cut pay (and the jobs to be created will largely be in sweatshops). They have made fools of themselves by opposing disaster relief. If living standards must go down to promote thrift and investment, to win necessary wars, and to conserve resources, then don't let it seem that the economic elites are getting all the breaks. We are all in it together or we will be at each others' throats.  

6. Don't be afraid of high taxes on earners (as a Democrat I would say "grabbers") of high incomes.  The concept of ability to pay begins with the ideological hero of capitalism, Adam Smith.  

7. Consider paring back the military establishment as a budgetary measure.

8. Give up on the anti-feminist issues of contraception and abortion.

9. Quit pitting poor whites against the middle class and organized labor.  Note well that right-wing populism is more likely to morph into left-wing populism than into obedient conservatism. Poor whites can turn on conservatives -- and do so every couple of decades.

10. Don't be afraid of the reality of moderation.  Maybe your party needs to attract the likes of Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, Ed Brooke, William Miliken, Tom McCall, and Arlen Spector in the future. The Eisenhower-Rockefeller Republicans are running from the GOP to where they are more comfortable. Such people may be harder to control for now -- but they are good at local organization. When the Democrats have them the GOP loses badly in the northeastern quadrant of the US and the Far West.    
    

Addressing your points:

1.) Bush was a horrible president-Well I didn't like him because of his disastorous 2nd term but to me Obama is worse.

2.)Obama wouldn't have won in a landslide in my own opinion if he were 100% white.

5.) Right to work-Whats wrong with Right To Work? If you don't want to be in the union no harm no foul that should be a person's choice. Sweatshops? What are you getting at with talking about sweatshops?

6.) Raise taxes for higher earners? They just did that. Obama got 60% of what he wanted in that bill of renewing tax cuts for people making 450,000 dollars a year and down. He raised income taxes for people making over 450,000 dollars a year.

7.) Cut the military budget: Budget Control Act of 2011 cut 487 billion dollars of military spending.

9.) Pitting Poor Whites against middle class and unions: as a low income white myself I don't think the GOP has ever done that. I do think though we don't need Scott Walker's or Jon Kasich's destroying collective bargaining though.

Agree with you there about the R's needing a viable moderate wing so they don't get their tail kicked in the Northeast and West Coast. Also agree they need to stop the anti-feminism stuff also.  Even donors from the financial industry in NYC thinks the GOP puts to much emphasis on social issues as I read in an article on politico today.