It's the Culture, Stupid!

[GURPS (Premo)]

Originally Posted by BigBlue

lol,yes Rush has the answer.This mind set is why the GOP will never win another national election unless they change.

Change into what ? Democrats

[PsyOps (Premo)]

Originally Posted by BigBlue

lol,yes Rush has the answer.This mind set is why the GOP will never win another national election unless they change.

You do know that the GOP won only 2 years ago.

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by PsyOps

You do know that the GOP won only 2 years ago.

The GOP typically does well in off presidential year elections - I think because a larger portion of its members are more interested in politics. I think the left has theirs too, but it doesn't form a very large portion of the Democratic Party.

[PsyOps (Premo)]

Originally Posted by SamSpade

The GOP typically does well in off presidential year elections - I think because a larger portion of its members are more interested in politics. I think the left has theirs too, but it doesn't form a very large portion of the Democratic Party.

I think considering the democrats ruled congress for about 40 years prior to 1994-1996 the history on this is pretty short.

The '10 election was a pretty major shift though taking control away a pretty large majority from the democrats.

[SamSpade]

Originally Posted by PsyOps

I think considering the democrats ruled congress for about 40 years prior to 1994-1996 the history on this is pretty short.

The '10 election was a pretty major shift though taking control away a pretty large majority from the democrats.

Checking the history - I misspoke. Control or not, the GOP has lost seats more often than won them, in my lifetime, on or off year. Most years, the losses are small, and they have won big, four times that I could see (66, 80, 94 and 10).

The conventional wisdom I've heard is that midterms usually go against the party in the White House, and second mid-terms usually break badly for the party in the White House. (Election years usually favor the party elected to the White House).

This is the pattern for the past fifty years with two exceptions - Clinton in 98 - probably due to voter disgruntlement with the GOP over Monica - and 2002 - as many pundits mentioned, partly due to the fact that Dubya had very short coattails. The supposition for this is, representatives get elected sometimes with thin leads, because of voter support for the President - but in off years, that support disappears.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by SamSpade

I watched O'Reilly early this morning, and while he was being a bit obtuse - he was making a reasonable argument, and his guests wouldn't get on board - it was sensible.

His argument was that certain constituencies *OVERWHELMINGLY* voted Obama, and the only argument propped against it was that Mitt was unable to convince those groups that he was on their side, that he cared about them and what they wanted. O'Reilly tried to make the case of - well, what does on your side MEAN? See, this is more, in my view, commentators making stuff up to avoid the central issue; there was no compelling case made by Mitt, or for Mitt, that he would do a better job. Add to that the implicit "It's not my job to worry about that lazy, shiftless, no good 47%..." and, instead of being able to define himself as being a better kind of Republican than Bush then being the path to being better than Obama and, boom, he let them define him.

I don't think a Ronald Reagan COULD be elected today, just as I don't think a Jack Kennedy could be nominated as a Democrat, today. I do not know a single person in any of Obama's named constituencies who EVER had the intent of voting Romney - or Republican. That is nothing new. D's have always voted D and R's R. The data shows a few of each crossing over but, the presidential race has been refined down to your base v. theire and turnout. The D's did a fabulous job of maximizing their turnout where it was most effective. However, lets not lose sight of a simple fact; 11,000,000 fewer white people voted for Obama this time than last and NO ONE predicted that. Nor, of course, did anyone predict any universe where Mitt would UNDER perform McCain.

You want to make the case that it has to do with Republicans not holding true to their conservative roots. As Vrai observes, you give voters WAAAAAAAY too much credit. Most voters couldn't tell you a tenth of the reasons you find fault with the GOP. They just think they're the rich white guy's party, and that they won't do nothing on their behalf. Ok but, if you DON'T run on those principles and THEN govern by them, this is all a wasted exercise anyway, yes? I have NO interest in winning with another George W. Bush. His spending and governmental growth were stunning for anyone but, especially so for the party of small gummint. Simply stunning. And people DO know that. They do know names like Med Part D, TARP, TSA, DHS. It's not like someone had to be a hard core political type to understand what the GOP did when they had the power.

I have a rather smart niece who voted against Romney because she's more or less on board with OWS - the whole 99% stuff. And imagine her thoughts if the TEA party walked out there and said "The OWS people are right! Something is terribly wrong with Wall Street. We just disagee with their solutions! We are all in this together!" Instead, she, and everyone else saw what from the right? Again, that doesn't take some genius to understand either. GOP = pro Wall Street I have another who is in all likelihood married to an illegal immigrant, and declared that she would not vote for a man who might deport her husband. And the women in my office pretty much voted for him, because of his race. You 100% could never hope to engage ANY of them in the myriad reasons you cite - the mass of voters don't think that deeply. Can you blame them? I don't expect government contractors to support Ron Paul because he would cut a lot of their jobs. Mitt took an antagonistic path for no gain. He was never going to do anything of the sort of deport her husband but he damn sure made it easy to argue he would be far more hostile to immigrants than Obama

I suppose you disagree, but I think Romney was the best candidate the GOP put up since Reagan,Dude, after the first debate I was signing Mitt's praises as the new Reagan. He just fell off horribly, playing it safe after that. including both Bushes. He couldn't beat one of the worst records I've seen in my lifetime, because the throngs of persons who voted for Obama were never going to vote Republican, no how, no way.

This race was winnable, easy but, BUT the GOP will NOT come to grips with what WE did wrong nor how to do better next time. That is a SIMPLE argument. We fail at it for two reasons; one, many GOP constituencies don't want smaller gummint and 2, a lot of R's simply do not think Bush was all that bad.

Imagine Romney in the last debate saying "The reason President Obama has failed is because he has repeated so many of the mistakes President Bush made when he was in charge; too much government. To much spending. President Obama's choices and those of President Bush are, in practical terms, identical. TARP, the bailouts, the Stimulus, Med Part D, Obamacare. All are examples of far too much government."

Where the hell does the press go with that? Voters can't help but turn an ear and say "Huh. Maybe this guy IS better????"

[Cheeky1]

Originally Posted by aps45819

I don't think man is responsible for the climate changing

. . .I am more concerned about what WE do with waste than anything else. Proper disposal of trash, pollutants, nuclear waste.

I'm no environmentalist or 'clean-freak', but I can see, sometimes blatant, irresponsibility.

[DipStick]

Even if climate change is a hoax and we do take steps to reduce emissions, is there really a lot of harm in making the world a better place?

Coal and oil won't be there forever, but we use it as if it will be.

There's just no harm to even taking little steps to make the world a better place.

[DipStick]

Originally Posted by GURPS

Change into what ? Democrats

Fiscal Conservatives?

[GURPS (Premo)]

Originally Posted by DipStick

Even if climate change is a hoax and we do take steps to reduce emissions, is there really a lot of harm in making the world a better place?

There's just no harm to even taking little steps to make the world a better place.

at the price of crashing the economy, double or tripling energy costs


the USA is the Saudi Arabia of Coal ........ we ought to be doing something with that



yes it is irresponsible to dump chemicals ala 1970s ....... but a lot has been cleaned up, but there is never enough with these guys


they always want MORE Power, MORE Control





as Larry has mentioned ....... what about that 11 yr cycle of greater solar flare activity ? now that is has died down - Opps the Planet is now COOLING Again




yes there is warning and cooling cycles, but you are arrogant to think MAN can change the course of the planets climate in 200 yrs