It starts: In the aftermath of President Obama's victory over Mitt Romney, there has been a lot of attention paid to how the Obama campaign successfully defined Romney as an out-of-touch corporate raider. And most of the credit has gone to Obama campaign boss Jim Messina, who made a"grand bet" to saturate the summer airwaves with anti-Romney ads while the GOP nominee was still recovering from a drawn-out primary battle. But this victory narrative misses a very large point: Messina's gamble was enabled by Newt Gingrich. The Romney campaign was well aware that Bain Capital would become a major issue in the general election. After all, the late Ted Kennedy had created the blueprint in his 1994 Senate race against Romney (the only time Romney had run against a Democrat, and lost). What it didn't expect, however, was that one of its primary opponents would bring the issue to the fore. After all, John McCain didn't touch the subject four years earlier -- with the only mention of Bain coming from Mike Huckabee, who suggested that Bain's ownership of Clear Channel was why he had failed to secure endorsements from some of the company's conservative radio hosts. "No one in the campaign believed that Republicans would attack business enterprise in a primary contest," explains a Romney campaign consultant who declined to be identified. "That was, in hindsight, a big mistake." http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/09/gingrich-culpability-in-romney-loss/
Conservative talk radio host Steve Deace, a longtime Romney critic, tells Business Insider that the "civil war" within the Republican Party has already begun in the wake of Mitt Romney's loss to Barack Obama. Deace, a prominent Iowa Republican and longtime Romney critic, emails: "He [Romney] killed us all over the country. Look at [same-sex] marriage. We've never lost the issue before, until it shared a ballot with Romney then we lost it four times on one day. Heck, we even won marriage in California on Election Day 2008 for goodness sake. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deace-gop-romney-obama-2012-11#ixzz2BkdhGacl
It’s been less than 24 hours since the polls closed and already the first shots in an emerging civil war within the conservative movement are being fired. Right-leaning pundits have been taking turns beating up on Mitt Romney and blaming him for the loss last night. Donald Trump just tweeted, “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.” And GOP leaders are already taking to the barricades on either side of the divide, which basically comes down to this question: Were Romney and the GOP too conservative or not conservative enough? Steve Schmidt, a top Republican strategist who ran John McCain’s 2008 campaign, invoked the term on MSNBC this morning. “When I talk about a civil war in the Republican Party, what I mean is, it’s time for Republican elected leaders to stand up and to repudiate this nonsense [of the extreme right wing], and to repudiate it directly,” he said. But on the other side of the fight, Herman Cain, the former presidential candidate who still has a robust following via his popular talk radio program and speaking tours, today suggested the most clear step to open civil war: secession. Appearing on Bryan Fischer’s radio program this afternoon, Cain called for a large faction of Republican Party leaders to desert the party and form a third, more conservative party. http://www.salon.com/2012/11/07/gop_civil_war_herman_cain_calls_for_3rd_party/
Sounds vaguely familiar. Ah yes, no one "eats their own" like the Republican Party. Some real gems from ITN in that thread, too. Such as:
No surprise here. The Republicans lost to a marginally effective president with an economy that is still sputtering and could only muster what must be the weakest slate of presidential contenders (pretenders?) in recent memory. The national party should be in crisis mode. We'll just have to wait and see whether the storm is all bluster or realistic reassessment.
Ummm yeah. Just like the Ron Paul revolution. 17% of Republicans swore allegiance, the real Republicans were false. Then in the general election about 0.5% went for Gary Johnson, 0.5% abstained, and the other 16% voted for Romney. Republicans exist to combat Democrats. Cain can try to split them up, but they'll all come back to the fold when it matters.
Rush, Hannity and all are saying that Romney lost for not being conservative enough. I look forward to them doubling down.
Romney was a fake and being so obviously fake doesn't help. But the real reason for the Republicans losing not just this election wasn't merely about Mitt Romney being a fake conservative. An even bigger problem has to do with what has happened to the Republican party. The Republican party has been hijacked by a coalition masterminded by the neocons and is firmly under their grasp. A coalition comprised of (1) evangelicals, espousing not merely reactionary views on social issues, but also ultra Zionist (aka Christian Zionist) agendas, funded in some cases behind the scenes by groups that, ironically, once would shudder thinking of being in the same room with them; (2) the military-industrial complex and the special interest groups affiliated to it, who needed a new enemy to replace the Soviet Union in order for them to be able to peddle their various projects and protect their perks and who were easy converts for a Project for New American Century; (3) influential elements within the pro Israeli lobby, with key supporters among various law firms, defense firms, think tanks, and other future employers affiliated to Israel, willing and able to promise politicians who followed their lead not merely their support while in office, but a safe landing if they happened to get out office; and (4) left-over racists and jingoists who could easily be recruited to face off against this new "Islamic" enemy. In this process, two components of the old Republican party have been largely sidelined. One is what was once referred to as "Eastern establishment Republicans", who were moderates on social and foreign policy issues, caring more for stability and the status quo than risky adventures, but who of course advocated economic policies that favored the corporate class. This group, among whose ranks are many of the "realists" in American foreign policy, really don't care much for the new Republican party even if old alliances have kept them in the party still. The other component is one that had been largely sideline already during the cold war, but which was resurfacing thereafter. This component dates back to the pre-WWII debates pitting the so-called Republican isolationists against FDR and the policies that saw the US get involved in WWII. That wing represented by folks like Ron Paul or, alternatively with a less libertarian twist, Pat Buchanan. These two components are being largely weeded out of the Republican party. The coalition that has been created and which controls the Republican party is a powerful one that cannot be easily dislodged from its position from within the party. Yet, it is also a coalition with limited room to expand its horizons and appeal to broader segments of the US electorate, particularly considering the significant demographic changes in the US. Which is why, regardless of how inept Gary Johnson's campaign proved itself, the ground is genuinely ripe for a third party that offers a libertarian alternative to the policies of empire that both parties are pursuing, albeit with differing degrees of vigor, ambition, and commitment.
It takes a very special brand of self absorption to believe that the Republicans' problem right now is the ideology that supported the Iraq war and supports an attack on Iran. Meanwhile, on planet Earth, the Republicans lost primarily because they've alienated single women with their position on abortion, and they've alienated and motivated Latino voters with their position on immigration.
But this goes back to "core values." For a good chunk of the republican base (greater than 50%), these positions against women and lantinos are "core values" that aren't going to change. If some republicans decide to redirect the party to support women and racial minorities, we'll see the party break in two.
Single women. Republicans still won married women if I remember correctly, Democrats won Single women by a lot, which is why overall they got 55% of the women vote. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/09/single-women-voted-favour-obama Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/2012-election-what-to-look-for-in-the-exit-polls-84468/#zylrpugfgdjuFMV8.99 Yes I know the sources are a bit bias, bit I do remember a post poll analysis on CSPAN saying the same thing about the gap between married and sinlge women.
The problem I alluded to is about the nature of the coalition that has been put together and not about particular policies per se. Even though the purpose of the coalition for the neocons is focused on their hegemonic designs and their ultra Zionist proclivities, to keep the coalition together, the component parts need to be satisfied. Hence, on social issues, the evangelicals need to be appeased and kept happy, even if the neocons are mostly interested in the evangelicals for their ultra Zionist positions. The glue that keeps all of them together right now, however, is the script I alluded to, even if each of the component parts have different issues that motivate and focus them. In this mix, obviously many single women might feel alienated by the positions that these folks advocate and that might be for them the single biggest reason not to vote for them. Others might find other issues alienating. On the whole, however, the positions taken by the Republican party composed of this coalition are ones that aren't going to win them too many elections down the line in light of demographic realities and changes to the American political landscape. That will be true absent significant changes in the make up of the party, which appears unlikely because without the evangelicals, this new Republican party doesn't really have any grass roots base at all.
It isn't a matter of what kind of candidate to run. The Civil War is because the evangelicals feel completely used. They sat back and took it when Rove manipulated Santorum in order to get Romney as the candidate because they thought Rove would help them get a Republican - of any stripe - in the office. The evangelicals got maneuvered and then had to vote for a Mormon and they have less than nothing to show for it. If the everlasting had not fix'd his canon 'gainst slaughter, Rove would be the first to get it.
I see it as a three-way civil war between the evangelicals, the teabaggers (who, despite some overlap, are not necessarily evangelicals) and the country club moderates. Each group has its own distinct agenda. Evangelicals have been getting used and mostly ignored since the Reagan years so they should be used to it by now. The teabaggers, OTOH, are even more butthurt than the evangelicals because their Congressional candidates for the most part got slaughtered, which is not only going to hurt them against the Dems but also against the country clubbers, and being newer they're not as used to defeat (unless they're also Paulistas).
I hope that turns out to be accurate, but it sounds to me as though everyone on all sides is looking at eggs but counting chickens.
Ha... I look forward to hearing the birthers twist themselves into knots in 2016 trying to justify their approval of Ted Cruz.
Yeah, a Canadian-born immigrant whose dad fought for Castro. I don't think he'll do great in the primaries.
Isn't he already a Tea Party darling? I think they'll be more than willing to overlook his perceived shortcomings as long as they like his rhetoric. I'm going to enjoy pointing out their hypocrisy in four years' time though. I wonder how Donald Trump will handle it.
This pretty much covers it. And when people get called out for the contradictory statements, it will be a liberal media conspiracy.