I think you mean, “Republicans - the wilderness is this way (turn right) —>.”
Well, I guess I meant that they could head to the wilderness on the left to reflect and change, then come back. If they go to the wilderness further to the right, that will not happen.
Only in Foxworld. They tried their damnedest with that last fall and you know how well that worked. The reality-based polls all showed the public to blame the economy mostly on Bush, not Obama.
Yes, let’s hope they do exactly that. 
But he threatened to fire Hillary Clinton from SoS if he’s elected POTUS! Do we want someone with that sort of terrible power?
We’ve already had one low-wattage scion of a prominent political family in the White House during my lifetime, we really can’t afford another.
I think you do the Pauls too much credit; they don’t rate comparison with the Bushes as a “prominent political family.”
I support the GOP taking these positions not because of their popularity but because they are constructive policies, and also if one party were to strongly push on these issues, it would help galvanize and educate public opinion.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said abolishing farm subsidies but rather eliminating all but the most minimal ones. While numbers ares slightly different, solid Republican and Democratic majorities oppose it for large farms. Plus while this may lose the GOP large portions of the farm vote in the short term it would gain support from suburban swing voters and other moderates concerned about spending.
I know which is why this is an issue where Republicans can outflank the Democrats much as Nixon did regarding going to China. And opponents of marijuana legalization are less concerned about the issue than its proponents-very few in the GOP base is going to abandon the party over this while many marijuana proponents will back the GOP (especially young nonvoters).
Obama has not been pushing the public on the issue but practically doing it on the sly for fear of angering a large portion of the Democratic base.
I should have added cutting military spending too. And many of the proposed savings in Social Security and so forth are not cuts but rather measures like calculating for inflation in a different manner.
Ironically a lot of the paleocon types who defend it on States’ Right grounds-the most obvious example is Ron Paul.
See above.
Clandestine cuts and unnecessary to boot. Senator Sanders has railed against chained CPI for too long for the House to slip it through unnoticed. If the Republicans were concerned about preserving the future of Social Security (and the economy), they’d eliminate the payroll tax cap. They’re more concerned about minimising the tax burden on the richest Americans.
There’s plenty of speculation in this thread about what the Republicans will do next. Let’s sift it against what GOP chief Reince Priebus said to CNN yesterday:
This tells me the Republicans do not see their position on issues as a problem; rather, they need a better “communications plan” and they need to have the GOP equivalent of ACORN.
THis IMO seems to assume this “tone” was just a bad PR decision. There’s a reason why Romney pushed “self-deportation”–he was pandering to a GOP base who didn’t trust his purity.
Anyway, I wonder if the real reason for this "two-tiered strategy is to keep running the grift on their rich donors:
It will be funny to see–after an election that represents a complete waste of money on clowns like Karl Rove–if the billionaires fall for it again.
Do you really think that a real conservative (Santorum?) would have gotten more votes than Romney?
You mean the massive rise in interest rates and inflation that has been just around the corner for the past four years? Everyone remembers who turned the Clinton surplus into a deficit. The fact is, except for rabble rousing, the debt doesn’t affect many people at the moment.
I’ll echo everyone else to say, make my day, nominate Rand Paul. His father did so well, after all.
How is the party which opposes the inheritance tax on the bogus notion that it will hurt farmers get behind something which really will hurt farmers? This is an excellent example of why the Romney/Ryan cut the loopholes plan was such a lie. Those who get money for this really care - nearly no one else does. That is why we still have it.
The Libertarians will be all for it, but the major part of their base who are “values voters” won’t be. In any case if public opinion moves on this issue, the Dems can get behind it very quickly. SSM is something they should get behind much faster - but it won’t happen because of the values voters.
See post #10.
Because, of last year’s field of GOP primary candidates, Romney was the only one who ever would have had a whisper of a prayer of coming in within 5 digits of Obama.
Brady took a bullet for him. How crass would Reagan have to be to NOT support the bill?
I wouldn’t be at all surprised. “A fool and his money are soon parted” is a proverb for a reason; billionaires just have so much that they can keep losing it and still be rich.
He’d have to be a typical modern Republican.
I agree with this here. They can blame Romney and a whole host of things for losing the election, but the simple, unfettered and inconvenient issue is that their positions are not finding favor among the majority of voters nationwide these days. All their answers and proposals and solutions seem to require waiting to see what Obama is going to say or do next, and then taking the position opposite that, whatever it is, even if it makes no sense.
They need to come out with a narrative that pushes the whole fiscally conservative meme with proven results (it they exist) independent of what the White House is doing, show that it is an alternative strategy, and lay off the social issues, as they will get continue to get beaten by the Dem’s more moderate and tolerant message there. This will mean letting go of long-cherished belief systems on taxes, and easing back to the more widely held positions on SSM, women’s rights issues, global warming, etc. They can still offer an alternative view of economic issues that may resonate with a lot of people, without their positions on social issues dragging them down. They also need to find a good spokesperson who is states-person-like and intelligent and shows a smart willingness to compromise when needed, as well as repudiate those in their ranks who say and do stupid shit rather than defend them.
Will they do it? Not likely as long as they embrace factions that punish the moderates who may be smart and articulate enough to get that alternative message across.
And Bush Sr. famously, and publicly, renounced his NRA membership. This no compromise and guns thing is a very new thing to the Republican party.
The Right’s ace-in-the-hole is taxes. They will live and die on that.
“We” want you to keep your money, “They” want to take your money.
It sounds simplistic, but it’s quite effective.
(Until right leaning governor’s realize that they need federal assistance for the hurriane that just ravaged the state…)
But it will be supposed fiscal responsibility that Republicans will hawk, pun intended.
Upon review of some of the other threads on gerrymandering and vote suppression, it becomes clear that the GOP feels that it needs the equivalent of ACORN as perceived by GOP partisans (i.e. a ruthlessly amoral election-stealing machine).
If the GOP had developed enough of a spine a few election cycles ago to tell the Talibornagains “Forget this ‘stinging you along’ crap – we’re telling you flat out you aren’t going to get any of the stuff you want, but you’re gonna suck it up and vote for us anyway to keep the Democrats from shifting public policy even further left”, they’d be in a position to do so. In reality, they’re stuck – the tiger is charging headlong for a cliff, and the elephant can’t figure out how to dismount.