Things A Smart Republican Would Do Now

[DSYoungEsq]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Well, maybe its the Republican party’s turn to try and become Democrats after decades of the Democratic party trying to become Republicans.

This. The whole difference between 1988 and 1992 was this very thing.

[Kimmy_Gibbler]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Well, maybe its the Republican party’s turn to try and become Democrats after decades of the Democratic party trying to become Republicans.

Which is a nicer way of saying “The GOP, as it is today, is existentially fucked absent some serious, transformative changes.” Crow about the house and state legislatures all you like: a party that can’t ever win the Presidency is utterly fucked quite regardless of those successes.

This is something F-P wants to hear even less than “try to be more like Democrats.”

[Robot_Arm]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

As observed above, all candidates that have to run primaries have to zig in the primaries and then zag in the general election. There’s no way around this. Obama didn’t have this issue this time around because he didn’t have a primary.I don’t think he would have been helped by offering a more specific plan (besides for the fact that it would inevitably have been mostly BS, like all specific plans offered by all presidential candidates). He would not have had to answer to criticism about not having offered specifics, but the details would have been nit-picked and distorted and he would have been defending himself on a thousand fronts. I agree with the strategy.

If the plan was good, it would give him a thousand opportunities to campaign on his vision for moving the country forward. If a plan opens you up to a thousand criticisms, then it’s a bad plan.

[Voyager]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

What’s your point with all this? Do you disagree with anything I’ve said (& if so, what)?

I read you as saying that the Republican primary this year was just like the Democratic primary of 2008. It wasn’t.

As observed above, all candidates that have to run primaries have to zig in the primaries and then zag in the general election. There’s no way around this. Obama didn’t have this issue this time around because he didn’t have a primary.

Slight zigs and zags, yes. Major ones, no. Please give an example of Obama doing major changes between his primary and the first election. And for the most part when they move to the center they can because their base would excuse minor movement. Clearly Romney thought the far right would not support a major move to the center - and he is plenty smart to know one was necessary. Thus his confused set of positions.

I don’t think he would have been helped by offering a more specific plan (besides for the fact that it would inevitably have been mostly BS, like all specific plans offered by all presidential candidates). He would not have had to answer to criticism about not having offered specifics, but the details would have been nit-picked and distorted and he would have been defending himself on a thousand fronts. I agree with the strategy.

Nixon’s secret plan to end the war worked back then. Wouldn’t work as well today. Especially because we found out he didn’t have one. While no one expected a 300 page plan, mentioning a few loopholes would have been nice, rather than just offering the ones he wouldn’t touch. Ditto his non-plan for increasing jobs - though the tape revealed what that one was.

[Same dynamic applies to not releasing the tax forms, BTW. He took a hit over accusations that he had paid zero taxes, but had he released them he would have faced a death of a throusand cuts over the fact that one of his investment vehicles owned stock in a company that manufactured something at a sweatshop in Burundi etc. etc. etc.]

Depends on whether there was real dirt there or not - and your example is not real dirt, It would have about as much traction as the 20 year old redistribution tape of Obama. What it did do was contribute to the story of Romney as an out of touch rich guy who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. I’m surprised, actually, that it didn’t come up again, but perhaps the Obama camp knew they didn’t need it.

[BrainGlutton]

Let’s not get carried away here. The GOP just lost a bid for the presidency, that’s all. It still controls the HoR and the majority of state governorships. It is not about to go the way of the Whigs.

[zoid]

@Agent_Foxtrot

The schadenfreude I’m experiencing about the Republican Party’s implosion is great indeed. However, I don’t want to see them go away since the only thing worse than a two-party system is a one-party system.

Valid point. The only thing that scares me more at this point than the Republicans is an unrestrained party - any unrestrained party, Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, doesn’t matter. We need to have some balancing, opposing viewpoints IMHO.

[Hershele_Ostropoler]

@Pleonast

As a Republican who voted for Obama a second time and a straight-Democrat ticket (not counting propositions) for the first time ever (because the party has collectively jumped that deep into the batshit), here are my comments.

0. Remember that our priorities are advancing our policies, not stopping their policies.

1. Reform the U.S. Senate filibuster rules. Put a time limit on blocking a vote, or allow a simple majority to end it, etc. Something that makes the majority party in the Senate responsible. Make Harry Reid be the problem, not Mitch McConnell.

2. Stimulate the economy now by reducing taxes on those who spend nearly all their money (that is, the poor and lower middle classes). There’s a surplus of capital right now (note the record low costs for borrowing) so reducing taxes on the investment classes does little good. Our economy depends on consumer spending–let them spend.

3. Stimulate the economy later by starting infrastructure projects we’ve been putting off for decades. Capital costs are at an all time low–let’s invest in our own networks. Labor costs are also very low. Our economy depends on the efficient movement of people and goods. Let’s make it easier. Don’t forget the power grids.

4. Plan budgets that start reducing the debt within five years and pay off the debt in fifteen. We’re the party of fiscal responsibility, not anti-taxes. This will be painful for everyone, so take the lead by matching budget cuts with tax increases (dollar for dollar). This lets us choose the taxes to increase, instead of them choose. Quickly move the argument to what to cut instead of who to tax.

5. Get the federal government out of the social issues–gay marriage, abortion, drug enforcement, immigration, gun control. We’re the small government party; let’s prove it. Move those politics to the state level and open up the national party to more diverse positions.

6. Stop griping about Obamacare. It’s a market solution to the problem. Healthcare has always been regulated and always will be.

7. We’re going to permanently lose a large part of the electorate. The Democratic Party dumped them when they approved civil rights. It’s our turn. We couldn’t win with them this time and we won’t be able to win with them in the future (they’re going to be less in the future). We need to dump them now; the sooner we do, the sooner we can reclaim the center. When the social issues are no longer national issues, our fiscal responsibility position will appeal to a large swath of the center.

This would not get me to vote for Generic Republican. However, it would make me open to voting for specific Republican candidates (both in the sense that I would not hesitate to vote for someone I liked out of fear they would advance an agenda I don’t, and in the sense that a party doing that might be a comfortable place for a candidate I would approve of), and as for the ones I wouldn’t, at least I wouldn’t feel “this person winning would be actively bad for me and/or people I know.”

[LC_Strawhouse]

What the Republicans (or any party) should do:

If their candidate shows the slightest sign of acting erratic or unprofessional, give them the boot with extreme prejudice. This includes people who expound wacky theories that don’t pass intellectual argument.

They have allowed so many self-styled characters and comedians to infiltrate the party, that they look like a collection of crazy uncles and aunts and their psychotic autistic children. The Dems are so far ahead in being the party for grown-ups that it’s not even a contest.

[BrainGlutton]

@Agent_Foxtrot

The schadenfreude I’m experiencing about the Republican Party’s implosion is great indeed. However, I don’t want to see them go away since the only thing worse than a two-party system is a one-party system.

@zoid

Valid point. The only thing that scares me more at this point than the Republicans is an unrestrained party - any unrestrained party, Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, doesn’t matter. We need to have some balancing, opposing viewpoints IMHO.

No, no, let them go away. We can have a two-party system made up of the Democrats and a party to their left. It will provide the same advantages of competition, without running the risk of conservatives sometimes getting their way, the latter being generally an unmixed curse.

[BrainGlutton]

@LC_Strawhouse

What the Republicans (or any party) should do:

If their candidate shows the slightest sign of acting erratic or unprofessional, give them the boot with extreme prejudice.

There is no mechanism for that in the American party system. We don’t have party dues or party membership cards, you just self-ID with a given party. (And maybe register as a voter of that party, if you live in a state where voting in the primaries matters.) The Dems can’t expel Lyndon LaRouche if he wants to call himself a Democrat, the Pubs can’t expel David Duke.

Should that be changed, do you think?

[LC_Strawhouse]

@BrainGlutton

There is no mechanism for that in the American party system. We don’t have party dues or party membership cards, you just self-ID with a given party. (And maybe register as a voter of that party, if you live in a state where voting in the primaries matters.) The Dems can’t expel Lyndon LaRouche if he wants to call himself a Democrat, the Pubs can’t expel David Duke.

Should that be changed, do you think?

Probably not, but a party leadership has many methods for maintaining party discipline and they can definitely play a strong part in defining their culture (like refusing to support certain candidates when recruiting, fundraising, advertising, whatever…)

Maybe they’re stuck with the crazies they’ve already developed but they can set different expectations for incoming members.

To their credit, they tried to do that with one of the rape-comment guys this year but too late for them, he refused to drop out and lost.

[Derleth]

@BrainGlutton

There is no mechanism for that in the American party system. We don’t have party dues or party membership cards, you just self-ID with a given party. (And maybe register as a voter of that party, if you live in a state where voting in the primaries matters.) The Dems can’t expel Lyndon LaRouche if he wants to call himself a Democrat, the Pubs can’t expel David Duke.

The Republicans can deny the nutballs access to Republican Party resources and run Republicans with access to those resources to contest them in caucuses.

[BrainGlutton]

@Derleth

The Republicans can deny the nutballs access to Republican Party resources and run Republicans with access to those resources to contest them in caucuses.

They could, and then the Tea Party might do what it did in 2010.

[LC_Strawhouse]

@BrainGlutton

They could, and then the Tea Party might do what it did in 2010.

It wouldn’t happen overnight and there would be rebels & casualties along the way. But if they make a sustained, concerted effort to change their culture to make it more grown-up, I’m sure it would pay off big for themselves and for all voters in the long term.

[Derleth]

@BrainGlutton

They could, and then the Tea Party might do what it did in 2010.

Well, the way you beat a small tent party is to become a big tent party. Which is what most (all) of the suggestions listed are aiming at: Making the Republicans’ appeal big enough to fend off the latest iteration of the John Birch Movement. Remember what the GOP did to the Birchers?

[BrainGlutton]

@Derleth

Well, the way you beat a small tent party is to become a big tent party. Which is what most (all) of the suggestions listed are aiming at: Making the Republicans’ appeal big enough to fend off the latest iteration of the John Birch Movement. Remember what the GOP did to the Birchers?

Used them in 1964 and then cast them aside?

[Derleth]

@BrainGlutton

Used them in 1964 and then cast them aside?

Heh. More like, Fail to get enough value from them in 2012 and then cast them aside. Although they did have a certain utility in 2010 if you were willing to get in bed with them.

Point being, they can be cast aside, and the GOP has cast aside similar groups in the past.

[a35362]

Lots of great points being made here, but:

1. Again, these are conservatives. They don’t like change, and they don’t like to change.

2. You’re mistaken if you think the GOP is being led by its elected officials and not by its media stars. The Republican party today is directed by Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh, period. Maybe someday when Murdoch (and the Koch brothers) die and Limbaugh retires, the R’s can start to think about the kinds of changes mentioned in this thread.

3. Obama’s election revealed that there’s a whole lot more racism in this country than we thought. That’s not going to lessen very much very soon.

4. Quit nominating businessmen (or sexy librarians) to run for office! You need professional politicians with years of experience behind them, who have a voting record to run on. Don’t just pick the nearest good-looking white Christian male with a nice smile and a pretty wife as your candidate. Quit selling your candidates like laundry detergent!

So it’s not that these ideas aren’t good ideas, it’s just that the party has no way of putting any of these ideas into effect. Fox News isn’t going to start talking about the issues in an honest way. Might as well keep doing what we’ve been doing, only more so!

The only change they might implement is to try to get Joe and Jane Sixpack to donate more money to campaigns instead of relying on a handful of millionaires and billionaires to fund your guy’s campaign.

[John_Stamos_Left_Ear]

@a35362

4. Quit nominating businessmen (or sexy librarians) to run for office! You need professional politicians with years of experience behind them, who have a voting record to run on.

John McCain says, hey, remember me?

[Voyager]

@LC_Strawhouse

To their credit, they tried to do that with one of the rape-comment guys this year but too late for them, he refused to drop out and lost.

How much of this was due to him killing his chances of being elected, as opposed to true outrage at what he said? And he seemed to campaign on - are we sure he didn’t get some money under the table after it was clear he wasn’t dropping out?