I count 23 that Romney participated in.
What “extreme” positions did McCain and Romney take that made them unacceptable to the electorate?
You may say abortion, or SSM, or tax cuts for the rich, but none of those ideas elicit a visceral “no” response except from the base on the left which wouldn’t vote GOP anyways. And yes, there are some on the right like the “God willed the rape pregnancy” that will chase away moderates, but let’s not set up the straw.
What are the “extreme” positions that GOP Presidential candidates have taken that had they not taken them, would have resulted in victory?
That list includes the three “Huckabee Forums”, which weren’t really debates.
Acting like amnesty is a shocking violation of American values is pretty extreme. The abortion platform sets up a backdrop where people are going to believe the worst of you when the Akins of the world start talking. Saying you’ll never raise taxes on the wealthy is also extreme.
Whether you agree or disagree with his positions on these issues, they aren’t moderate.
Romney also “extremely” misstated Obama’s record and accomplishment. He and the others trying to get the nomination created a mythical President to run against. Now I know all politicians take some “license” with their opponent’s record, but I think Romney lost a lot of credibility by living in a right wing echo chamber and repeating things he heard there.
Ehhh… Obama really hasn’t really accomplished anything, which is why he argued everything other than his record.
Sure, not accomplished anything.
PPACA
End of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
End of war in Iraq
Drawing down of war in Afghanistan and clear end in sight
I’m sure a few other things too, but this is just the most obvious off the top of my head list.
But that’s nothing to you. :rolleyes:
This earns a hearty belly laugh from me. I really wonder where you get this stuff from…
Off the top of my head:
Lily Ledbetter act
Killing Bin Laden
Student loans reform
Mortgage re-finance assistance
Nuclear START treaty
Obama hasn’t done anything, which is why the Republicans nearly plotzed with frustration and hatred while running against him.
I argued for a lot of the campaign that in 2008 and 2012, the Republican candidates who won had to move so far to the right to get the nomination that they can’t appeal to voters in the middle (by which I mean people who could vote for either candidate, *not people who used to be Republicans but now call themselves independents *). This was a problem for McCain and it was a huge problem for Romney. It’s true that McCain and Romney were not the most conservative candidates in their primary cycles, but they were seen as more electable and more palatable than the alternatives. By the time they had said and done everything they needed to do to win the support of the far right wing of the party, they’d damaged their own ability to appeal to Democrats. McCain had a reputation for bipartisanship and honesty but had to suck up to people like Pat Robertson, and Romney had to reverse himself on healthcare and pretty much everything else. It’s not just a function of the number of debates they had, but that probably didn’t help.
Saying that the candidates aren’t viable is going too far. McCain got 45.7% of the vote and Romney got about 47.5% (I’m still hoping that does down 0.1% so they can round it down to 47%). They lost and their ability to appeal to people in the middle was a problem, but I have trouble with the notion that guys who get almost half the vote in the general election are not viable candidates. They lost for electoral reasons and others and the Republican Party needs to sort some things out if it wants to start going above those percentages.
Yes, yes: Obama hasn’t accomplished anything and is a tyrant who will destroy the country, and if you run negative ads, it doesn’t count if you win.
True, but they were forced to nominate rightist VP candidates. McCain was kaput no matter what happened, especially after he was shown to be clueless about the economy. Romney could have tacked left, and I’m surprised that he didn’t. Actually, not after his latest statements; it appears that he really does hate the 47%.
Democrats seem to be able to go more centrist without losing the base. It remains to be seen if the true reactionaries would hold their noses and vote for a Republican who moved to the center. Romney seemed to be trying to in the last few debates, but he was so all over the place that you need a good regression package to figure out his true position.
Yeah, but have you checked the crosstabs on those?
He waited until the debates to start doing it, which was kind of absurd.
I say no in answer to the OP, as the current model exists. That’s why it will change. You can already detect the shift. The GOP (my party) recognizes that the current formula won’t work and that the brand has serious issues.
Romney had to out-conservative Perry with all that “self deportation” stuff to survive the primary, then couldn’t tack back to the center and lost 70% of the Latino vote (as an example). He was on the wrong side (from Ohio’s perspective) of the auto bailout issue. These two items by themselves were the only positions Romney could have taken to not be dismissed by an unconvinced base, and those two items by themselves were enough to lose the election.
We have to find ways of fixing the brand, and that means showing people that we actually care about their concerns. The Dems kick our asses at appearing to feel people’s pain. All this “party purity” is silliness in politics–and I’m not suggesting we become another Democratic party. But we can’t start by making people think we want to deport their grandmothers. There is a great argument (IMO) to be made that keeping Medicare and SS viable is only possible with reform. But nobody listens if it sounds like the basis for the reform is to “take back from the freeloaders.”
I believe right now that the only candidate that can survive the primaries is someone who won’t win the general election. The demographics show it’s only getting tougher. The good news? That’s becoming blindingly obvious to all, and survival instincts will force us to change the formula.
Nope.
The arch-conservatives are digging in & blaming the Old Guard pros, as are many of the money people.
Further, the Tea Farty is blaming the Old Guard.
So, you got 3 hostile factions.
[ol]
[li]Old Guard Political Pros (problem solvers)[/li][li]Tea Farty (blames pros for loss–not populist enough)[/li][li]Arch-conservatives/money men (blames pros–not conservative enough.)[/li][/ol]
It’s gonna be a civil war, and it’s gonna be ugly.
Yes, that’s the problem–the GOP doesn’t agree with itself, and will continue to rip each other apart for the next few cycles.
People like OMG, ABC, for example, who LUUUUUURVED Romney in September and October, because he wasn’t Obama, were dismissive of him early on, when he was saying things less believable than Rick Perry and Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann about his policies. Back in the spring, it was all “Gotta defeat this Obama-lite dude” making it problematic after he became your candidate. I mean, you hardline rightwingers HATED Romney, didn’t trust him as far as you could throw him, and he outsmarted you (not too tough) by consistently winning the fraction of your party that was anywhere near the middle while the other six clowns divided up the majority of your party’s primary votes.
The ideological core of your party is committed, for the next few cycles anyway, to opposing policies that the majority of the country wants:
Healthcare
a sane and humane immigration policy
Roe v Wade is the law
tax the rich before taxing the poor
etc.
These are going to look to like plain-vanilla, common-sense, life-in-America positions that MOST REPUBLICANS ABHOR. They’re not switching on these anytime soon, and the Democrats are going to exploit that electorally.
Personally, I don’t care even if you switch over–to me, that’s just going to look like Johnny-come-lately doing the expedient thing, but while that process is taking place, over the next few decades, the core of your party is going to oppose it with every fibre of their being. Good luck with that (not really.)
I disagree. The day after the election we had people like Hannity and Coulter talking about their “evolving” perspectives. Jennifer Rubin from the Post as another example. All the complaints I’m hearing from the money people are not directed at Romney–more at people like Rove.
The far-right absolute loonies will never change. We need to abandon them. The GOP (like the Dems) wants to win and will do what they need to. On this board we like to pretend that everything’s about evil or noble ideals. The main thing politicians want to do is get elected. They won’t stick with a losing formula.
If Romney ran on his record as governor of Massachusetts he might have won the election. I think he still would have won the Republican primary. His opponents in the early primaries were just getting press because they said such outrageous things which brought ratings for the media organisations and thus more press and more political entertainment. But Romney was quickly the front leader once real primaries started because his opponents were running for book sales and Fox News pundent jobs not the presidency. He was a gutless wonder and followed the conservative entertainment’s lead instead of trying to have ideas of his own.
I think you’re misremembering. Romney’s primary campaign was by no means a sure thing, and his greatest peril, discussed endlessly, was the concern the far-right base had with his “conservative cred.” His last major competitor was Santorum, for Pete’s sake. The prevailing wisdom was that if he didn’t get the nomination it would be because he could never convince the base to hold their noses and vote for him.