Why O won and R lost?

[Zoebird]

When I went to our state-level Republican convention as a delegate, it was pretty clear to me the Republicans were toast.

There were a *lot* of younger folks there, of *all* genders, and a fair amount of racial and economic diversity. Among the Ron Paul supporters, which were a significant part of the delegate crowd.

The Old Guard used every dirty trick in the book to try to marginalize and expel this group of energetic motivated people. And they were pretty successful at it.

A telling comment at a dinner I was at during the convention, from a 20-something: "well, we'll just have to wait until they all die of old age...". She was probably quite right. At 49, I was pretty much the oldest person in their crowd, but near the younger end of the spectrum of The Old Guard faction.

The Republicans rudely threw away the next generation or two of supporters at that convention. People who basically were socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and fans of smallish government and local action.

Bae,

Thank you for this evaluation and observation. I think that this is true of my own experience.

I did find that a lot of us who are as you describe "socially liberal, fiscally conservative and fans of smallish government and local actions" have been marginalized within the party. I would say that's a pretty good description of myself.

In law school, I started to head in that direction and got active in local republican actions. I was really frustrated with how it all went down. There were several of us under 30 (at the time) who were quite motivated by these great ideas and grass-roots effort and the whole concept of working locally (ie, "occupy style"), and the people over the age of 55 were really . . . well, nasty with us. Lots of yelling and freaking out if we disagreed with them. Marginalized is. . . well, it's a nice way of putting it. We were commonly patronized too.

So, then Dean comes into power over the DNC and they start talking about grass roots organizing and what not. My friends and I head across the street (as in literally) to those offices. I always thought it was funny how the offices were *across the street* from each other in my town. made me giggle to no end. I have an absurd sense of humor.

Anyway, I head across the street and at first they are all like "yay! Young people interested in our action! woohoo!" But they didn't like us much at all. The over 55 set treated us the exact same way - yelling at us when we brought up alternatives or new ideas, calling us names, really being patronizing (over-influenced by our parents/professors/media/someone else, not thinking for ourselves, being too young to really understand/know, etc).

As such, most of us rather "gave up" and started to meet with each other in a sort of loose political salon where we talked about ideas and basically wait for the other group to move out of power.

We also wonder if our parents were this frustrated when they were our age or what.

My sister and her husband have decided to become activists within the republican party, but they are a mix of thecon lite, neocon heavy, and a smattering of libertarian (or at least, he likes the A.Rand books). I think that their local office is happy to have ANYONE helping out, so my sister and her husband are practically celbrities. but they are also pretty square within the party, too -- not very many waves honestly -- so they haven't been marginalized. They also bring my parents to many of the events, so this perhaps legitimates them a bit or something. I don't really know.

Anyway, yeah.

[catherine]

Who creates and promotes the caricature? How many times today on these very forums has someone typed "old white guys" as a representation of nearly half the population of the United States?

I don't know. It's a great question. But people don't come up with these mental pictures out of nowhere--and as I said, even DH puts himself right smack in that cartoon imagery. And he is an absolute prism of different attributes. But that's what branding is all about.

In market research we try to identify the "brand personality" of products. The GOP needs to understand why the brand personality of the GOP is perceived to be the fat white guy--and change it.

[Bartleby]

I don't know. It's a great question. But people don't come up with these mental pictures out of nowhere--and as I said, even DH puts himself right smack in that cartoon imagery. And he is an absolute prism of different attributes. But that's what branding is all about.

In market research we try to identify the "brand personality" of products. The GOP needs to understand why the brand personality of the GOP is perceived to be the fat white guy--and change it.

"Romney surrogate" John Sununu didn't help.

Old, white, mean and obnoxious.

Why would they constantly put a guy like that out there?

[Lainey]

Another article which agrees with the reasons cited by the OP:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/18...ction-day-2012

[freein05]

On the Newshour (PBS) tonight they were saying what has been said above about the Republican Party has dug itself into the old white male population demographics. They fail to understand that the demographics in the US are changing. Latinos, Asians, and women are now a very large part of the elector. What was said about evangelical Christians controlling the party are also true. The nation has moved to the left on social issues like gay rights and women's rights. The Republican party with it's evangelical Christian base has not.

The US elector is basically in the middle not too much left or right. The Republicans have moved too far to the right.

[flowerseverywhere]

Who creates and promotes the caricature? How many times today on these very forums has someone typed "old white guys" as a representation of nearly half the population of the United States?

actually half the population of the US did not even vote. About 120 million votes were cast. The population is about 315 million so if 57 million people cast votes for Romney, that is less than 20% of the total population, not half.

That is my impression of the current republican party, as those were the types that I saw on all the many political ads that constantly ran on TV, the people who were the most vocal Republicans in my community (although there were some old white women too) and Donald Trump is not a big help either. The crowds that were shown on the news coverage when Ryan came to my area were not young, not of color, and largely male in an upper middle class community.

and from cnn

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politi...html?hpt=hp_t2

"Romney lost embarrassingly among young people, African-Americans and Hispanics, a brutal reminder for Republicans that their party is ideologically out of tune with fast-growing segments of the population.
Obama crushed Romney among Hispanic voters by a whopping 44 points, a margin of victory that likely propelled the president to victories in Nevada, Colorado and possibly Florida."

and there were a many women I knew who were really really upset about the anti abortion, no funding for planned parenthood line out of the mouths of the two rich white candidates Romney and Ryan and they feared instead of working towards the good of the country they would spend their time attempting to impose their "religious" morals and oppress women. I know you disagree with this but it is not a man's decision unless he is willing to raise the child.

[Bartleby]

Bet I know what the Romster is doing today.

He was going to buy himself " another Weimaraner" if he won. Since he lost ... he will probably console himself by filing an amended tax return for 2011, claimng tax deductions on the rest of his "chartiable contributions," i.e., his gifts to the Mormon church.

Time is money, my friend, time is money...

[heydude]

Alan, the term "old white guys" came from CBS news in which one of the guys quoted a REPUBLICAN saying our party cannot continue to win with just "old white guys"

[try2bfrugal]

Alan, the term "old white guys" came from CBS news in which one of the guys quoted a REPUBLICAN saying our party cannot continue to win with just "old white guys"

Here is one place of many references -

"Our party needs to realize that it’s too old and too white and too male and it needs to figure out how to catch up with the demographics of the country before it’s too late,” said Al Cardenas, the head of the American Conservative Union and a longtime GOP leader.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz2BbxhvI7J

[ApatheticNoMore]

Kinda so what? A lot of movements are kind of white, like the environmental movement is rather white (although probably pretty female). Are the consequences of heedless exploitation of the environment any less real? Thats not meant as a backhanded defense of the R party, far be it, more a be careful what corner you paint yourself in thing.

I think R lost because he was mostly an empty suit, there was little reason to vote for him, he wasn't much of an opposition to many of the worst policies of the O administration, and frankly you could never be entirely sure where the guy stood on anything. Isn't that enough?

Maybe marketing for Pepsi could be changed, but as for changing minds via marketing (by which I mean propaganda of course) why believe it's always hard? I've heard that polls generally showed people in general tended to show favorably for GMO labeling, but maybe this was a weak rather than a strong conviction, apparently it was nothing massively one sided marketing couldn't change. I dont' know. I don't care (although that particular is unfortunate). But I mean a populus that's a little better swayed by this or that marketing is so far from what I consider desirable or good in any way that ...