It’s a poor analogy. A restaurant chain can do a good business by filling a second place niche. But there’s no second place in running for office.
The voters had a choice between McCain and Obama and Romney and Obama - and they picked Obama both times. As you pointed out, McCain and Romney’s opponents painted them as being arch-conservatives just as Obama’s opponents painted him as being an arch-liberal. And people chose the supposed arch-liberal over the supposed arch-conservatives.
How many more lost elections will it take for the GOP to wake up? At some point, the Republicans have to realize that the voters aren’t electing conservatives.
And any Democrat is going to be called a socialist. That’s the way political campaigns work.
You have to step back and see what works. If the majority of voters are true conservatives, then calling a Republican candidate a extremist wouldn’t hurt him. Republican candidates would be saying “Damn right, I’m an extremist. I’m the most conservative guy running. I’m so far to the right, I think Barry Goldwater was a hippy.” and then ride the landslide into the Oval Office.
But, as you said, it doesn’t work that way. Sticking the “too conservative” label on a candidate hurts him. So how do you reconcile that with the belief that losing Republican candidates should have been more conservative?
That’s a broad brush, innit? I never considered McCain extreme (much less the most extreme), dishonest (much less the most dishonest), or unethical (much less the most unethical). I did consider him out of touch, but only after the Palin debacle. After all, who in their right mind would willingly select her …although, to be fair, I did read somewhere that McCain’s hand was forced with regard to Palin. I don’t know how true that was.
My point is you are not correct in your assertion. The issue is every one of the current crop of candidates in both parties has at least one of the attributes you listed. Hillary is dishonest to a degree, and I suppose you could say Sanders is a little out of touch. The challenge for the Republicans is most of the current candidates have some combination of 3 of 4 of your attributes. Perhaps Kasich, Gilmore, and Graham have just 2 of 4.
The voters had a choice between Bush and Gore and Bush and Kerry … fill in the rest. How long did it tale the Democrats to realize that the voters aren’t electing liberals?
A: they never did and Obama was elected twice.
There’s always a lot of other things going on, and the fact that you’ve lost a couple of elections doesn’t mean you go out of business and become the other party.
There was an article, I think it was Washington Post or a link from 538, that I read where Trump supporters worry about “electability” least out of 5 or 6 reasons why they’re supporting him. The thinking is, the establishment told them that Romney and McCain was electable, but they lost, so this time, they’re going to support who they want and forget about the electability nonsense.
As a liberal, I say good! Keep that fighting spirit! When Clinton is elected, maybe the Donald can come back in 2020 as an encore to cement her 2nd term!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but more people voted for Gore than voted for Bush.
Credit where credit is due, one cannot forget the gracious humility with which Bush accepted his “victory”. You know, that speech where he emphasized that his win was technical and marginal, and in no way reflected a mandate. You remember that one, right?
The fact is that both McCain and Romney did run to the center in the primaries and to the right in the general election. This is an idiotic move, and it’s not at all clear just why they did it, but the fact is, they did. Is Rubio going to do the same thing? Well, it’s possible. I don’t know why he would, but then, I don’t know why McCain and Romney did, either.
In fact, Romney got in big trouble because of his campaign manager’s “etch-a-sketch” remark, in which he was candid about Romney’s intention to pivot back to the center after the primaries.
What may make it seem that way is that in the primaries these people were being contrasted to other Republicans while in the general election they were being contrasted with Democrats. (Similarly, at this time Hillary Clinton is the more conservative candidate in her race, while she will be the more liberal in the general election.) But in actual fact both moved towards the center after the primaries were over, as do all candidates.
In a sane country, Obama would be hailed as the most conservative president since Eisenhower.
But because he’s a Democrat, he must be a Kenyan Marxist. Nevermind his actual policies, or his actual positions. Nope, he’s an extreme Saul Alinsky-style radical who secretly hates America.
As someone who used to vote Republican a lot of the time, Obama is exactly the sort of politician who should appeal to moderate conservatives. But that can’t happen, because conservatism isn’t about ideas anymore, it’s about identity politics, and since Obama isn’t part of the movement he’s destroying America.
Acceptance of the idea of a Republican presidency is nutty and dangerous, after all; hence, any Republican who seeks or accepts the nomination is, by definition, a dangerous nutjob.
In a 2013 poll, 13% of respondents thought Obama was “the antichrist”, while another 13% were “not sure”. That’s 26% who think Obama might be, or definitely is “the antichrist”.
You don’t negotiate with the antichrist. He is the literal embodiment of evil walking upon the earth. He wants nothing less than the entire destruction of the entire human race, for all eternity.
This is how polarized politics has become in the United States today. You can’t get more polarized than this.
Whoops, I lost sight of the fact that the question was directed at Republicans, of which I am not one. On that basis alone*, I invite you to disregard the above post.
*The factual validity of the content is not really subject to cavil.
As I noted in a previous thread which discussed the poll you reference, 5% of Obama-voters believed he is the anti-Christ . (8% of people who described themselves as “very liberal” believed this, as did 9% of African-Americans.)
So apparently the “Obama is the anti-Christ” belief is not that polarizing at all.
