Why O won and R lost?

[loosechickens]

Hard for me to understand that I find myself completely in agreement with conservative David Boaz, of the Cato Institute, but Republicans in general really need to listen more to folks like this, and less to Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and the rightwing blogosphere. Hard words, but with a ring of truth:

David BoazExecutive VP, Cato Institute (on Politico)


"The first thing Republicans should do is stop reading only the conservative media.

The conservative echo chamber apparently convinced them that Romney was winning the election. Romney himself is reported to have been "shell-shocked" by his loss. I wasn't, because I'd been reading the polls, including the swing-state polls. If the conservative media are going to tell Republicans what they want to hear, then smart Republicans had better start looking at a broader range of media.

My colleague Roger Pilon can't think of much the Republican Party should change. I'll try to think more creatively. Let's see . . . the Republican Party might have avoided running up federal spending by a trillion dollars during the Bush administration, alienating libertarian and tea-party type voters in the past few elections. It might have avoided miring the country in two endless wars, undermining its advantage on national security issues. And it might come to grips with its decades-long alienation of black, female, Hispanic, and gay voters.

During the civil rights era, conservatives - including party-switching Democrats such as Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms - adamantly resisted the push for equal rights and equal dignity for African Americans. When women began to demand an equal place in society, politics, and the economy, conservatives said that a woman's place was in the home. After those positions were no longer tenable, conservatives and Republicans came to accept race and gender equality, and they don't understand why they still face a gender gap and overwhelming opposition from black voters. In our own time Republicans have sent hostile messages to Hispanics on the immigration issue and to gay voters on marriage and other issues. And they are in the process of permanently alienating those voters, too. As former Reason magazine editor Virginia Postrel says, "Policy aside, people rarely vote for pols they think despise them."

Conor Friedersdorf blames Rush Limbaugh for Republicans' image problems among minority voters. Maybe so. But it's a problem that began before Limbaugh, and certainly can't be blamed entirely on him or other pundits. The idealized Republican/conservative message of individual liberty, limited government, and economic growth ought to appeal to most voters. But Republicans have to accept, as even Dick Cheney saw, that "freedom means freedom for everyone," and then they have to be consistent in delivering and applying that message. The hole they've dug with voters outside their straight white male base will take time to climb out of. They'd better get started."

[loosechickens]

But on a lighter note....James Carville said a mouthful on Bill Maher, after the election:

“Sometimes in the south people will say, ‘In order to get that boy’s attention sometimes you’ve gotta hit him upside the head with a 2×4.’

The sound you heard on election night was pine on skull.”


We shall just have to see if the lesson has sunk in.....I've spent several days since the election, lurking on a number of rightwing websites, blogs, etc., reading the pieces, AND the comments beneath them, and from my "research", I'm not so sure.

A few, certainly, such as the Cato Institute VP I quoted above, certainly "get it", but I've really seen a whole lot that gives me comfort that the Dems will probably have a lock on their coalition for quite a while, if not a lifetime. The 2 x 4 doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on many.

[peggy]

This is why Romney lost. This!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...oters/1706223/

And he just. doesn't. get it!

[try2bfrugal]

This is why Romney lost. This!
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...oters/1706223/

And he just. doesn't. get it!

What many other industrialized countries consider government fulfilling basic human needs he calls gifts. He is complaining that families making 20 - 30K a year are getting subsidized health care worth 10K! If they paid for health care they would have to live on 10 - 20K a year or significantly below poverty level for a family with kids. Yet his base of senior citizen voters get highly subsidized Medicare and have for decades. His red state supporters are mostly from taker states in terms of federal expenditures versus tax dollars.

He doesn't get it, yet blames the Obama campaign for maligning his image. They didn't malign his image - they just shined a light on it. His biggest campaign problem was the words coming out of his own mouth.

[SteveinMN]

This is why Romney lost.

The "gifts" meme is a GOP talking point, no more. O'Reilly and others were bloviating about it on Faux News right after the election. Like plutocrats don't get "gifts" from the government....

Romney is clueless. But he's also pretty much out of the picture at this point. He won't run in 2016. Ryan might, but he's going to have to tack toward the center if he has any hope at all. Then again, that's sort of true for the entire Republican party. The party that is risks increasing marginalization in a changing America. If they want to be leading influences, they're going to have to step back from the abyss of ignorance. I think they will do that. It may not happen for another decade, but a Republican party that does not take serious stock of itself after this election eventually will be named along with Whigs and the America First Party as a failed political idea.

[Alan]

...but a Republican party that does not take serious stock of itself after this election eventually will be named along with Whigs and the America First Party as a failed political idea.

I think the real 'failed political idea' is this nation's founding as a Republic. It seems that Mr Franklin's admonition of "If you can keep it" when asked what kind of government they had formed, along with his later belief that "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic" were prescient warnings of the early 21st century.

[ApatheticNoMore]

But "gifts" and "the people can vote themselves money" couldn't possibly be why we have a neocon Republican party rather than the moderate to libertarian Republican party Zoebird is pining for (which frankly I don't believe is ever going to happen, parties change, but man that would be a 180, a seismic shift, like the reallignment of the South or something). I mean isnt' there MASSIVE amounts of money being doled out in the military industrial complex? How many people are employed in defense companies? Do all those people really want less government? To what extent is that the Republican party base a bunch of people seeking military industrial complex gifts? Then there's homeland security, NSA (millionaires are being made there I read, some new silicon valley, disgusting), massive security state apparatus being built (like the data center in utah) etc.. They'll be very entrenched interests there that will vote for continuation of that forever, still gonna blame grandma and her Social Security check? There's profit to be made off government debt as well, which is neither here nor there, except this debt sometimes increases under Democrats (the recession might have something to do with it) and always increases massively under Republican rule.

I frankly find this Republic entirely broken. When people are only voting for candidates because they are the "lesser of two evils", even if they have to hold their nose from the immense stench in the voting booth (they'd vote for David Duke over Hitler afterall - and it would be entirely 100% consistent with "lesser of two evils" reasoning), um excuse me but then the choices and the policies we get in NO WAY, NO WAY AT ALL, reflect the people's genuine policy preferences. Their preferences themselves may be desirable or not, but the system is so rigged currently (also see jerrymandered congressional districts, congress has a 10% approval rating and yet the bums are continually voted back in) to not allow these preferences to ever have any representation in government.

[Gregg]

I think the real 'failed political idea' is this nation's founding as a Republic. It seems that Mr Franklin's admonition of "If you can keep it" when asked what kind of government they had formed, along with his later belief that "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic" were prescient warnings of the early 21st century.

There is a chicken / egg element to this (not that it really matters). I'm not sure if the bribery from Congress came first or if the members were simply responding to the demands of the people. A quote from Alexis de Tocqueville seems to work pretty well in conjunction with Mr. Franklin's idea.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

[Gregg]

"The first thing Republicans should do is stop reading only the conservative media."

So very true. When you boil it down I think everyone should listen to a broader range of inputs, but people in general like to hear things that align with their personal beliefs and so will seek that out. It's not just conservatives. But to be on point, I completely agree that a wave of GOP apathy was partially generated because the voters were spoon fed from the spin cycle.

[The Storyteller]

Having seen so many fakes, I never trust quotes on the internet attributed to famous people unless they are sourced.