Republican Analyst Says 2014 Was Disaster for Republicans, Long Term

Politics & Elections
81

That seems like a funny example of people getting tired of one-party rule. The GOP controlled both houses of Congress, and Bush was elected President.

And 2014 does not strike me as a good example of an end to one-party rule - the Dems went from controlling the White House and the Senate to controlling the White House (to the extent a lame duck exerts power).

If the window has moved to the left, identifying oneself with Obama and his perceived left-wing slant would have been a winning move. It wasn’t, to say the least.

Of course part of that is that Obama has very little by way of coattails, or persuasive rhetoric, as the inimitable George Will pointed out rather witheringly -

Cite.

My point is that the Dems on the SDMB is starting to talk themselves into belief in Democratic victory in 2016 in somewhat the same way they talked to themselves in the lead up to 2004. By golly, this was the time when they were going to sweep to victory on angels’ wings, because they were Right and everybody had better see it and there is not one single good thing to say about the GOP and not one single bad thing to say about the Democrats and everybody who is anybody says so! So there!

Only, not.

The only thing one can really learn about US elections in this forum is what the Democrats believe, and want everyone else to believe.

I mean, come on - someone posts a column from DailyKos, for heaven’s sake, as an example of a clear-headed analysis of Just What’s Wrong with Those Darn Republicans, and y’all lap it up.

:smiley:

I’ve been a member here for more than a dozen years. If there is anything I have come to expect, it is periodic predictions of the disappearance of the Christian church, and periodic predictions of the upcoming doom of the GOP - especially right after they have won some national elections.

Because, after all, young people who don’t vote lean left. Then when they grow up and have kids and start voting consistently, they vote Republican. Then they get old and vote every chance they get, and lean even more heavily Republican. And based on this, the GOP will be a burnt-out match come 2020.

Okie-dokie. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Regards,
Shodan

82

This sounds just like the kind of myth you’re criticizing from the other side.

83

Which part did you think was a myth - that young people don’t vote as much, but lean left, that people with kids vote consistently Republican, or that old people vote consistently and usually lean GOP?

The idea that the GOP is doomed because of the above is, I would agree, mythic.

Regards,
Shodan

84

Using those sorts of past demographics to bolster your confidence in Republican victory is pretty much the same as using racial demographic trends to bolster one’s confidence in Democratic victory.

85

Could you cite where I confidently predicted Republican victory in 2016?

Regards,
Shodan

86

Could you cite where I said that you confidently predicted Republican victory in 2016?

87

Note that these are two separate groups. :smiley:

88

I disagree with all of this “blue wall” talk. We had two close elections in 2000 and 2004 where only a handful of states were in play. Then in 2008 and 2012 we had two elections that were Dem victories and weren’t so close, and all of a sudden “OMG, we won ALL of those close states and then some!”

Yeah, that’s what happens in a not so close election. To establish the baseline from a 51-47 win is spotting yourself 4 points. If we get an election where the GOP candidate wins 52-47 nationwide, then he/she wins all of those states plus NH, NM, NV, CO, and maybe a WI or PA. Each state is not necessarily its own contest: they all swing the same way.

If you show me a plausible scenario where a popular GOP candidate can win 54-45 but lose the EC because of demographic switches in key states, then we might have something.

89

Absolutely. It’s not like a Republican can win the popular vote by five points or more and still lose the election because blue wall. If the Republicans have a problem it’s simply that they are not winning a majority of voters in Presidential elections. If you’re not doing that, the electoral college doesn’t matter.

90

The idea of the “blue wall” is that there’s very little possibility that the Democrats will do worse in 2016 than they did in 2014, and in 2014, they still won statewide elections in swing states like Virginia and New Hampshire. If they can win VA in 2014, that means VA might not be a “purple” state any more, and might be a legitimately blue state.

Not that I’m super-optimistic. I’m hopeful, and I think the Democrats’ chances are good, but plenty can change before '16.

91

They won Virginia with a popular incumbent by a very small margin. And lost MAryland, Maine, Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts.

Not that Republicans are likely to win those states in a Presidential election, but with the right candidate, there isn’t a state in our union that isn’t winnable by either party.

92

No, not logically or necessarily so.

“Yesterday’s 31-28 Cowboys victory over the Giants was a sad thing for Giants fans, and a sad thing for people who like teams from the Northeast.”
The red and green categories could have a lot of overlap.

93

You’re talking different groups of voters. Presidential voters are much more in number, more democratic, younger, and more liberal than midterm voters.

There are plenty of states that are off limits. Mississippi will never vote for a Democrat, Massachusetts will never vote Republican.

94

Massachusetts voted for Reagan in 1984. Mississippi is actually quite winnable for a Democrat, you just have to break that white voting bloc that goes 90% for Republicans. It can be done with the right candidate.

We’ve had a few close elections so we see these elections as basically a fight for a few swing states with all the other states set in stone. But that will only be true as long as elections are close. An earthshaking event, like a successful Republican Presidency, would shake all that up in much the same way that Reagan’s Presidency did.

Conservatives are supposedly on the brink of extinction, but they were much worse off in the 1970s than they are today. Reagan was considered an unelectable right-wing extremist. But lo and behold, he did manage to get elected, he governed in a way that made him broadly popular, and there wasn’t a state he couldn’t have won.

If 2016 is a change year and a Republicans squeaks into office much like Bush did(hopefully this time by actually winning more votes), then that’s an opportunity to change the landscape. If that Republican manages to govern well, he’ll win an awful lot of states that Republicans just aren’t supposed to win in 2020.

95

Reagan was an anomaly- a once in a century candidate with charisma that others could only dream about. At the time, saner heads thought him to be a right wing extremist, nowadays he would be well to the left of anyone who could get the GOP nomination. After death, he became the patron saint of all things conservative just as conservatives believe all the Founding Fathers were right wingers. So yes, Reagan won Massachusetts. But no Republican will ever do it again.

Similarly, Carter won Mississippi. But that was before the rightward shift of the Republican Party was completed. Today, no Democrat has a prayer, even a southern Democrat. If Jesus ran under the Democratic banner and Satan ran for the Republicans, Mississippi would vote for Satan in a landslide.

96

The demographics that matter are not ethnic but generational. Millennials have little use for social/cultural/religious conservatism – and that is set in stone, they won’t grow more conservative as they age.

97

What Nate Silver would tell you is simply that in order for a Democrat to win Mississippi, he’d have to win the national popular vote by about 15 points.

Likewise, if a Republican today won the popular vote by the same margin Reagan did over Mondale, he’d probably take Massachusetts as part of the deal.

The “blue wall” only matters as long as elections are 50-50 or 52-48 affairs. Once you get into 55-45 range, all kinds of states start flipping. Even at 53-47 you’re likely to see at least a couple of non-swing states flip. Happened in 2008.

All the blue wall means is that if a Republican wins by like 500,000 votes as Gore did in 2000 that he’s probably going to fall a little short in the electoral college. So just getting close isn’t good enough. A Republican has to win by at least 2% to be sure of electoral college victory.

98

True, but the main battleground in politics is over economic issues and that does not trend left over time. What millenials care about when they are in college and what they care about when they are raising families will change a lot of voting habits. And the current generation of 18-24 year olds is a lot less Democratic than the 18-24 year olds who elected Obama in 2008. They’ve lived under Obama as long as they can remember and they’ve seen government failure after government failure. They will be skeptics of activist government as long as they live despite their social liberalism.

99

That may eventually be the case, but it won’t be while the GOP remains firmly in the grip of the Talibornagains.

100

The real substantial activity of our federal government, both Democrats and Republicans, is indeed economic, mainly, increasing the power and wealth of the oligarchy and putting the tax squeeze on the middle class instead of the people who have all the money. The dog and pony show in Washington is all about other things: gay marriage, Middle Eastern wars, marijuana legalization, Ferguson, Missouri, and whatever other stuff the leadership of both parties can gin up to entrance the electorate so the looting by the big money boys can continue unobserved. But it’s not the main political battleground … it SHOULD be, but it’s not.