Why the path to victory for Republicans is aLOT more complicated than "appeal to Latinos"

Your post is symbolic of current Republican hand-wringing - it's not that the Republicans have failed the populace, it's that the populace have failed Republicans by being immature and money grubbing. If only they realized the danger of the Democrats, of course they'd vote Republican - but they just weren't smart enough! The problem is, this election was lost by the Republicans on the issues as much as anything else - the taint of the Bush years justifiably sticks to Republicans, who're not willing to move on.

A few points:

1. Most people say they support limited government, but most people also want things government provides. This is an unreconcilable paradox which lets both parties claim their belief system is the one that's supported by the populace. What people really prefer is a limited government that provides more stuff. That's why after stating they want limited government people being polled say that they don't want to cut funding to the programs they like.......which is basically the military, social security and health care - i.e., nearly the entire budget.
2. "Big invasive government" is not a core belief of the left. That's just something the right has made up. Seriously - I'm a liberal (and happy to call myself one) and none of my core values has anything to do with "big invasive government".
3. Here's a news flash for you - the Democrats overwhelmingly believe in "free market, individualism, private property, and limited government". Same as Republicans. Honestly, what Democrats are arguing against private property? You're again conflating what you think Democrats believe and what they actually do. Those are all solid liberal beliefs - they're not exclusively Republican in any way.
4. You didn't lose this election because you didn't sell conservatism well enough. You lost this election because you oversold conservatism. That's why Romney's largest ratings boost came after he veered strongly to the center, away from the Republican primary positions. That's the same reason why nearly all the Tea Party candidates got trounced - not because they didn't explain how conservatives are the better ideological position, but because the electorate disagreed with their ideology! This was not a failure to sell the election properly, it was the public's realization that many of them simply didn't want to buy what the Republicans were selling.

 

Did this happen on planet MSNBC? Perry's candidacy floundered because Perry was a massive lightweight who couldn't keep 3 talking points in that pretty little head of hair. A confident candidate could easily have gotten a more progressive immigration stance past a Republican primary - McCain did it just four years ago and someone like Rubio or Paul Ryan would have far less trouble with it.

 

First off, I'm still shocked that Romney lost. Maybe it's because I listened to Dick Morris one too many times, or maybe it's because I thought for sure that enough Americans recognized that Obama has been a bad prez and that Romney was the right guy for the right time.
Having said that, I pray that Obama somehow, someway turns into a slightly darker version of Clinton and accepts entitlement reforms, then gets out of the way.
I suspect that he will veer even farther left and he will lead further gov't grabs. After healthcare, school loans, & GM, what will fall next? None of this will matter, of course, once our economy freefalls and makes 08' look like a picnic.

After a few days to take all this in, I still don't know quite what to think. I took to twitter to get some stuff off my chest, in which my liberal and moderate friends thought I was overreacting. Never did it occur to me back in 92 or 96 that if Clinton were to win, the America I grew up knowing would drastically change. Sure, I voted for Dole, but deep down I wasn't really scared of Clinton, because he was forced to the center and we had a pretty good economy. I haven't decided if there is a future for conservative president, anymore. On one hand, the Dems have successfully become the party of free stuff and it's hard to get people to vote against "free" stuff. Who in theor right mind is going to deny an Obama phone, disability checks, food stamps, or unemployment cash? My next door neighbor hasn't worked in two years, and I'm surrounded by other neighbors, who are on some kind of disability. They sit around all day, drink, and toast to the Democrats. My best friend's brother is one of the millions who gets disabilty, because he has "anxiety" issues and can't work. He laughs about it and calls them his "crazy" checks. He LOVES Obama. This can't go on, before it all crashes down.
Now on the other hand, every losing party wrings their hands and thinks they'll never win another election. 2010 was a pretty good year for the Republicans, and I'm guessing 2014 will be a good one, too. And even though Romney got less votes than McCain, which is crazy, Obama won with less votes than 08'. I had heard that 3 million conservatives stayed home, so if that's true, this was a winnable election and the "not enough old white guy" theory is bunk.
Chances are, the economy is going to tank either before or after Obamacare kicks in. If it's not too late, someone will lead us out of the mess. The Republicans have 30 plus governors and quite a few of them will be president worthy, along with Rubio and Ryan. We shall see. In the meantime, I will continue to pray for Obama and our country and hope that for my family's sake and all Americans, things improve. If they don't, Obama can always blame himself for the mess he inherited.

 

Winning!

 

Sean Hannity said Thursday he has “evolved” on immigration and now supports a “pathway to citizenship.”
Hannity told his radio listeners Thursday afternoon that the United States needs to “get rid of the immigration issue altogether.”
“It’s simple to me to fix it,” Hannity said. “I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here — you don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done.”
“You can’t let the problem continue — it’s got to stop,” the conservative radio host added.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media...immigration-and-support-a-pathway-149078.html

 

I mean this in the kindest way possible, but there's no easy way to say this...

Having just received a demonstration that your reality testing is somewhat flawed, might it be worth your while to assume that the flaw might be fairly deep; deeper than the failure of 3,000,000 hypothetical Republicans to go vote?

Deep enough to have aroused unjustified fears which are warping your perspective?

 

The fact based community is not strong with this one.

I'm a registered Democrat - where do I get my Obama Phone? Also, when do I get all this free stuff I've not been promised? Given that close to 90% of Americans work, the notion that Obama won by getting the "unemployment/disability collecting" vote makes no sense. But, again, fact based and stuff.

 

Try this. Turn off Fox News, right wing radio and websites/email subscriptions for a couple months. Live in a fact based world for a bit without all these conspiracies that get the right wing all worked up. Take a trip to CO or WA and chill a bit; your twitter friends were right, you're overreacting.

 

Quayle, if you were shocked that Obama won, you weren't reading the polls properly. You were listening to idjuts who get mad and deny facts and science when it doesn't tell them what they want to hear. He "could" have lost, but that would have been the shock. He had a 95% chance of winning according to the polls and you were shocked he won? That's just crazy.

The writing was on the wall, clearly.

 

Posted this also in the Post Mortem thread; Quayle's gonna get really depressed if he reads Nate Silver's latest. Which he probably won't, I know. But the gist of it is that the Republicans are screwed by the electoral college, and that a GOP candidate can't win if the popular vote is split. The GOP needs to win the popular vote by 2, maybe 3 percentage points to take the electoral college.

Ouch and double ouch.

 

You keep reading the wrong sources. Many votes yet to come in. Per CNN, California has had 9 million votes scored, Florida 8 million. California has 38 million people, Florida has 19 million. A whole lot more California votes coming in.

 

I posted this in the P&CE thread about the future of the GOP, but is seems relevant here, as well. This WA Post article about the Reeps efforts to figure out what went wrong, and how to fix it, contains the following item that highlights just how deeply ********ed the part is vis-a-vis its relationship with Hispanics:

 

Inevitable. Similar with many Eastern Europeans, who once were staunchly Republican in their shared opposition to the Soviet Union. Now sliding into purple or even blue camps.

 

Hey everyone, we have a celebrity posting! Don't you all realize that Quayle is Karl Rove?

 

So you're kinda backing away from the "Let's drop immigration and a small percentage of Latinos will come running to the GOP!" argument, huh?

I mean, who cares about the exact breakdown? The point is, the Obama platform generally appeals to a lot of people, and when the other side is so far off the mainstream, generally going in the right direction is enough.

 

Brace Yourself for the Shocking News, but Charles Krauthammer Disagrees

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: Border fence plus amnesty. Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement. ​

​

Well, actually he just provides the sort of fodder your post is reacting to.

 

I hope they listen to him. The "we just need to get rid of candidates that say poor things about rape" ignores the fact that much of their constituency actually agrees with those statements. That's the problem, and the reason they lose moderates, not that these candidates badly answered gotcha questions. If your position is hugely unpopular if spoken out loud, it's a policy issue, not a public relations issue.

 

I just completed a letter to the editor of the Wash Post that states the same thing. Typically, you were more concise.

 

I see plenty of opportunity for Republicans if labor unions are not restrained over the next four years. Particularly the public sector unions. Too many concessions to organized labor and there's the opening the Republicans need. And public sector unions generate the nightmare of big government that can never be whittled down.

If Obama either ignores key union requests, or presents the image that he does, then I don't see any other opportunity for the Reps.

 

As an outside observer, it seems to me that the GOP is, for reasons I am at loss to understand, able to sell it's "fiscally conservative, small government" image over and over again, despite huge amounts of data to the contrary. And it seems to me that that image resonates a lot with a majority of the US electorate.
What caused them lots of harm in this election was their backwards thinking on social issues like gay rights, abortion, rape-a-palooza, etc. which are dictated by their religious core.
I think that if they were able to break away from the Jesus freaks that control their social policies and continue selling their (amazingly wrong) image of "good for the economy" and whatnot, they could recover lots of ground, maybe not enough to win many elections, but it would at least bring them back within striking distance of the Democrats.

 

Galaxys only available in battleground states, yo.

 

Who's planning some crazy give away to public sector unions?

 

I'm not saying it will happen. Reread my last sentence. I'm only saying that if organized labor goes overboard with its demands, and the Dems push that agenda, that that is the only way I see the Republicans regaining the White House in 2016.

In my lifetime, organized labor has overplayed its hand several times. Reagan used that fact to his advantage. So my speculation is not entirely hypothetical.