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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
In other words: if the Romney campaign, of all things, inspires fears of theocracy, then there’s no real point in assuaging such fears. No reason not to spray the building for libertarians, take out the socially latitudinarian trash, sow the ground with salt, and mix any metaphors left unmixed. If the 2012 GOP campaign looked like an actual pursuit of the "culture wars" to anyone, those observers have gone too long without seeing an actual culture war. Might as well really brown some Dockers. Deus lo vult! All right, I (semi-)kid: "damn the torpedoes, " perhaps.
The more that the Republicans veer right, the more they will lose, assuming the dems don't move left in the same manner.
I'll vote Republican when we get a fiscal conservative who isn't a private sector shill running. Romney looked like he got pumped out of some factory that makes the same rich, white, strong chinned men in suits that the reps always put up for election.
Can we just clone ourselves a younger Bush Sr? You know, a man with integrity and actual trains of thought beyond subversive party politics that lie to the people?
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But he lost the primary. Isn't this the whole problem for Reps. Anyone crazy enough to win the Rep primary is unable to win the general election.
That will be a tough sell to the base. It's hard to deprogram a bunch of people you just spent the last 4-8 years brainwashing.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:24:24 AM by nightwyrm_zero
I'll vote Republican when we get a fiscal conservative who isn't a private sector shill running. Romney looked like he got pumped out of some factory that makes the same rich, white, strong chinned men in suits that the reps always put up for election.
It beggars the imagination that any fiscally conservative candidate—Romney or otherwise—wouldn't be portrayed as a baby-munching corporatist plutocrat of some sort; and yesterday's election suggests that unless the political facts change drastically, the charge would stick. In light of that, winning might not be on the table, period, in the short-to-medium term. And as the saying has it, "might as well get hanged for a sheep as for a goat."
BRILLIANT suggestion on the Economist article linked earlier:
We've said this many times, but Obama practically stole Reagan's playbook, and he was caught cheating off of Clinton-era Newt Gingrich's test booklet. If you call this man a commie liberal, you have gone so far off the deep end of the reality pool that you're beyond saving.
The process you are describing is that of a party committing suicide.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:32:45 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
x5 So, you're saying that if the Republicans sink far enough into unelectable territory, they'll simply keep lurching further and further towards the ideals of their current fringe because they won't bother worrying about even a token appeal to any voters outside of the hardcore base?
I'm almost tempted to start up a dead pool (no, not him, nor the movie) on which ambassador will wind up killed next, now that Obama has four more years to continue on his trainwreck of a foreign policy, where aside from treaty ratification it's pretty much all on him.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:33:08 AM by Nohbody
All your safe space are belong to Trump@Nohbody: Is that Joking Mode? Because Obama's foreign policy has been stellar by all accounts, unless you're a hardcore liberal (or Libertarian) in that regard, and they have no meaningful representation at the ballot box.
@Tomu: Nothing earthshattering that I have seen so far. A lot of hand-wringing from the right but otherwise it's been fairly quiet. There isn't even any point in contesting the results considering that Romney can't win even if a recount should miraculously hand him Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.
Edit: Bachmann seems to be barely clinging to a lead in her House race, and Allen West is barely losing.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:37:36 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I think I'm more excited about Californians voting for an increase in taxes to fund education than about Obama winning.
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." TwitterFair enough: but though such rhetoric has always fired up the bases on both sides, the voters in the middle generally aren't stupid enough to buy such unlikely charges. If they actually started swallowing whole the narrative you describe, you might reasonably conclude there's some generalized intellectual rot at work; and that rather than appealing to such mooks, the Left would do better to keep its powder dry, wait for the political facts on the ground to change, and try not to get any of the crazy on them. That's not so much "suicide" as it is weathering out a political silly season as best one can. Mutatis mutandis, that's all I'm pondering.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:46:38 AM by Jhimmibhob
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
@Jhim: You do realize that, by most accounts, Romney's failure to resonate with moderates is precisely that he comes across as a corporatist who is utterly disconnected from the issues of the middle class, right? Romney's main appeal to these voters was that they didn't see a dramatic economic turnaround under Obama, so they might be willing to try a different brand.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:56:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

That is the Stereotype: see Eagleland, Type B.
edited 7th Nov '12 9:16:45 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On