I’m certain I read a number of posts over the last couple of years asserting this, only with 2012 instead of 2016.
As has been explained here before, the current crop of “independents” is heavily salted by Republicans who, for obvious reasons, do not want the embarrassing party label attached to them. As a result, the Republican share of the “independent” vote is pretty much maxed out already (unless more self-identified Republicans defect to the “independent” camp, which doesn’t actually produce more Republican votes).
IMO, the Republican’s won’t bite the bullet and nominate such a candidate until they are hit with a 1964-level trouncing that pounds it into their heads that they have no other option.
I think this is a big problem for the Republicans - they appear to have no back bench of possible candidates. Of course, Obama was an unknown just a few years before he was elected, so that can change very quickly.
On the other hand, the Democrats have Hillary and Biden, who both look to be strong candidates. I’d vote for Hillary in a heartbeat, and I think Biden is strong, too (though he’s not as great a candidate, as he’s got some quirks that some folks don’t like). I could easily see the Dems winning 2016 and 2020. 2020 is so far away in political terms that it might as well be the 22nd century.
N.B.: Not the same thing, though there is some overlap.
Well, for one thing, just this past year, they pretended Ron Paul deserved to be taken seriously. And who even called him out on his crackpot “End The Fed” goldbuggery and shit?
You just lost two electoral landslides in a row, nothing has to flip red but a lot of states have to flip blue for you to have a chance.
No they didn’t. They stomped on his delegation at the convention and didn’t offer him a chance to say what he wanted to say. “End the Fed” was a catchy slogan but he only advocated for auditing the Fed’s deliberations on monetary policy and their agreements with foreign central banks. He advocated for competing currencies as described by Hayek, not a gold standard (though he did admit a gold standard would be preferable to our current system). Oh but “goldbuggery and shit”, nevermind. I forgot a return to the monetary system under which we experienced the fastest growth in our history would be “crackpot”.
How would a gold coin standard align with anarcho-capitalism anyway? Ron Paul doesn’t claim to be an anarcho-capitalist.
My point is the Tea Party crowd Hyde is talking about is more Ayn Rand than Murray Rothbard.
The economic growth of the 1800s correlates far more closely with population growth and technology advances than with monetary policy. You might as well say we should bring back syphilis, because hey, the Victorians were rich.
Best line I’ve read today. Good one!
No, they were talking about how they were going to win because what else could they say? But do I need to explain to you, of all people, about the difference between what the Republicans say and what they do?
Realistically, the Republicans knew they’d be a long shot in 2012. That’s why so many major Republicans sat the election out and we saw Mitt Romney and a bunch of fringe candidates.
And by all appearances they genuinely were sure they’d win; Romney for example notoriously didn’t even bother to write a concession speech, but did write a victory speech (Obama wrote both). Really, we saw pretty clearly right after the election how badly they’d deluded themselves.
I thought this also, until his comments after the election. Maybe they were just sour grapes, but they seemed to me to be from someone who really believed in the 47% elitist message. However, before the Ryan nomination there were stories about the pressure the rightist donors were putting on him, so I don’t doubt the pressure existed. The question is whether he was leaning that way already or caved in.
Let’s look at it from a Republican, not Romney, point of view. During the primary it was very clear that he was bad at closing the deal. He struggled the whole time against a field of has-beens, loonies, and has-been loonies. I’m sure you agree that despite his failings he did a lot better in the general election than any of his opponents would have. The real problem is that there is a big field of extremists against a small number of the more moderate. That helps the moderate get the nomination, but if the only moderate has the kind of flaws Romney had, it does not help in the election. And the extremists might get it together with the help of the big money next time.
I’m not sure trying to make Romney a guy would have helped - though they did try. Putting Dukakis in a tank sure didn’t.
This is not the place to debate this on the merits, but to make any changes is going to require that the average person thinks that the party or candidate has their interests at heart. Reagan was able to lead the bigger changes required in Social Security exactly for this reason. As long as Republicans are seen to care more about the 1% than the 99% they are going to have a hard time selling their program. It is a shame because Social Security can be fixed easily. Medicare is a lot harder.
You’re on to something with bringing up advances in technology during this period. During the period where we had a gold standard real wages and even nominal wages rose in the face of falling prices and huge gains in productivity. Since the end of Bretton woods, productivity has continued to soar while real wages have stagnated, destroying the middle class in the face of huge price increases. I’ll take 1800s gains in productivity coupled with rising real wages to your gains in productivity coupled with stagnating real wages any day.
Growth is easy when your starting from dirt-poor. Look at the growth in the third-world- some years it’s absolutely massive. But we wouldn’t trade our quality of life for theirs.
Quite honestly, I believe you’re wrong. I believe the Republicans offered the best they had in the honest belief on their part that the election was a no-brainer for their side. If you can offer the names of some major Republicans who sat it out waiting for 2016, I’ll certainly reconsider my thoughts.
ETA: the partial title is a typo.
Rising wages have nothing to do with the gold standard. I’ll simply note that since we (the US) have been off the gold standard, we have had nothing like the crippling depressions of 1796, 1807, 1815, 1853, 1865, 1873, 1882, and 1929; all of which lasted longer than three years. That’s not even to mention the far more frequent recessions.
So you’re contention is that the US in the late 1800s was comparatively dirt poor next to other countries at the time?
“Can The Republican Party Ever Win Another National Election?”
Yes they can, and they will the next time.
(Unless they nominate a complete doosh-bag.) But that’s how these things
have been going for the last few decades. It’s the Republicans’ turn next time. No one will be more surprised than me if the Republicans fail to win the Presidency next time around.
That us indeed the standardized refrain, but it’s wrong.