# Will The Republicans ever figure out why they lost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 26, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224 "2012-12-26T21:33:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 114
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2261 "2013-08-23T03:54:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And worse, [those young Republicans who exist can’t make any headway with the old guard](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/can-the-republicans-be-saved-from-obsolescence.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0). Because the Democrats are just brimming with elevated young talent. The GOP is the one with the young stars, the Democrats have become the party of aging Boomers. If the Democrats truly want to keep young voters, they are going to have to start elevating them into the limelight, rather than the old guard hogging it all for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2262 "2013-08-23T04:20:21Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Yet they still win or stay close, so they don’t have to solve all of even most of them to win in 2014 or 2016. You are really lousy with statistics uh? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2263 "2013-08-23T04:34:15Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Because the Democrats are just brimming with elevated young talent. The GOP is the one with the young stars, the Democrats have become the party of aging Boomers. As I have seen happen with scientists and Hispanic Republican operatives, they become independent or democrat after seeing the intransigence of the current leadership. > [@adaher](#): > > If the Democrats truly want to keep young voters, they are going to have to start elevating them into the limelight, rather than the old guard hogging it all for themselves. Yeah that Obama guy was so senile against that paragon of youth, McCain… The reality is that that has been many times pointed out the young republicans you are pointing out are more often than not deniers of science and women rights. And no, most young Americans that are involved in science and technology are looking at the current republican crop and they say “no thanks” as pointed before, they may not like Obama as before. But that does not mean they are jumping to the Republicans, like you pointed before, they should stop making so many mistakes and governing bad. Not seeing them going for that any moment soon, they are doubling down on the stupid. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2264 "2013-08-23T05:32:10Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And no, most young Americans that are involved in science and technology are looking at the current republican crop and they say “no thanks” as pointed before, they may not like Obama as before. But that does not mean they are jumping to the Republicans, like you pointed before, they should stop making so many mistakes and governing bad. Not seeing them going for that any moment soon, they are doubling down on the stupid. What could be dumber than the wave of bankruptcies and fiscal crises afflicting the blue model? Democrats are furiously and desperately trying to avoid blame for what their model leads to. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2265 "2013-08-23T05:40:25Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > You are really lousy with statistics uh? 🙂 Oh c’mon, be fair. He’s better with statistics than he is with facts. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2266 "2013-08-23T05:57:03Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What could be dumber than the wave of bankruptcies and fiscal crises afflicting the blue model? Democrats are furiously and desperately trying to avoid blame for what their model leads to. I pointed before at a study that showed that while it is true that the worst 5 cities for small business, that are what creates a lot of jobs and shows the health of a city, are managed by Democrats. The 5 best cities were also manages by Democrats. The only dumb point is the one you just made there. Clearly, many other factors are at play rather than just blaming an specific party for what is going on in a big recession. And it is also notable that you only made that lousy point to continue avoiding what the young people with smarts are seeing. [http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/22/2513461/coffman-grants-climate-change/](http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/22/2513461/coffman-grants-climate-change/) > [@](#): > > Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) believes that you can only get a grant to do science research if you “submit to the… orthodoxy of climate change by the radical environmentalists,” he told local Colorado radio station KOA on Wednesday. > > Coffman has been the target of the League Of Conservation Voters — a group the host referred to as “an out of state operation” with ties to Ralph Nader — for his climate change denialism. Recently, the group bought $2 million worth of ads in his congressional race and others. In the interview, Coffman first asserted that 97 percent of scientists were wrong and that climate change is “naturally occurring” and “man-made activity influences out at the margins and I think it’s debatable how much that is.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2267 "2013-08-23T06:07:22Z")
Young people with smarts, LOL. The Democrats have been playing that card since 1952. If only the smart people voted, Democrats would win. Except the opposite is true. Democrats rely on the uneducated, not the educated. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2268 "2013-08-23T06:09:34Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Young people with smarts, LOL. The Democrats have been playing that card since 1952. If only the smart people voted, Democrats would win. Except the opposite is true. Democrats rely on the uneducated, not the educated. No debunking whatsoever of what scientists and other tech oriented people are seeing. Your replies are the ones that are laughable as you do not deal with the evidence I showed here and before. So, as I pointed far early in the thread, you are even denying that what the Republican leadership is offering now is just blind leadership. And you can not help insulting the very people that you are supposedly making an effort here to convince, as I pointed early also, it is not my problem that you reach for those maneuvers. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2269 "2013-08-23T06:24:30Z")
And before you wonder what I’m talking about, I will have to post this item again, as it shows what deep hole the Republicans are getting into regarding the youth vote thanks to their denial ways: > **[Voters think Republican climate dissenters 'crazy', bipartisan poll finds](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/25/us-politics-climate-change-scepticism)** > > Results show risks that deniers in Congress pose to GOP as majority of younger constituents back Obama's carbon plans > [@](#): > > Republicans in Congress who reject the science behind climate change could soon be reduced to political fossils, with new polling on Wednesday suggesting three-quarters of young voters find such views “ignorant, out of touch or crazy”. > > The bipartisan poll conducted for the League of Conservation Voters found solid 80% support among under-35 voters for Barack Obama’s climate change plan – and majority support even among those who oppose the president. > > On the flip side the poll found three-quarters of voters, or 73%, would oppose members of Congress who stood in the way of Obama’s climate action plan. > > The findings could prove awkward for Republicans in Congress who have adopted climate contrarianism as a defining feature. So, no. Your “Except the opposite is true. Democrats rely on the uneducated” is not only tone deaf and wrong, it is also insulting. But thanks once again for showing all the “amazing rhetoric” that many Republicans think will get them to convince all the “uneducated” to vote for the willfully blind. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2270 "2013-08-23T13:37:26Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Yet they still win or stay close, so they don’t have to solve all of even most of them to win in 2014 or 2016. They’re in an easy position, there, because they’re not even **campaigning** to solve problems, but only to block the Dems from solving them, which, N.B., is not solving them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2271 "2013-08-23T13:38:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The GOP is the one with the young stars . . . What, like Jindal and Ryan and Rand Paul? 😛 Those are white dwarfs. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2272 "2013-08-23T13:39:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Young people with smarts, LOL. The Democrats have been playing that card since 1952. If only the smart people voted, Democrats would win. Except the opposite is true. Democrats rely on the uneducated, not the educated. Depends on how you mean that. Pubs are on average more likely than Dems to have bachelors’ degrees, but Dems are more likely than Pubs to have graduate degrees. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2273 "2013-08-23T13:41:31Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > What could be dumber than the wave of bankruptcies and fiscal crises afflicting the blue model? **Not** spending our way out of the problem, that’s what is dumber. N.B.: Keynesian economics never has been discredited, though for some reason a lot of conservatives seem to assume it has been. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2274 "2013-08-23T14:58:07Z")
No, it has not been. But there’s two sides to Keynesian fiscal policy: surpluses in good times, deficits in bad times. If you do one, but not the other, it doesn’t work. You just end up with fiscal problems. If the Republicans can go back to Eisenhower and Coolidge on fiscal policy, they can undo a lot of the damage done by Reaganomics and the Bush years. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2275 "2013-08-23T15:06:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, it has not been. But there’s two sides to Keynesian fiscal policy: surpluses in good times, deficits in bad times. If you do one, but not the other, it doesn’t work. You just end up with fiscal problems. > > If the Republicans can go back to Eisenhower and Coolidge on fiscal policy, they can undo a lot of the damage done by Reaganomics and the Bush years. Well, they won’t, will they? Too many gored oxen. Remember Ross Perot? His notion was: 1) the deficit is Problem Number One and 2) to pay it down we need to raise taxes and cut spending **at the same time.** Didn’t get far, did he? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2276 "2013-08-23T16:11:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, it has not been. But there’s two sides to Keynesian fiscal policy: surpluses in good times, deficits in bad times. If you do one, but not the other, it doesn’t work. You just end up with fiscal problems. > > If the Republicans can go back to Eisenhower and Coolidge on fiscal policy, they can undo a lot of the damage done by Reaganomics and the Bush years. The Republicans would not be my first choice to fix the problems caused by other Republicans. But if they think they can do it, great; now let’s hear them realistically talk about it on the campaign trail. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, they won’t, will they? Too many gored oxen. > > Remember Ross Perot? His notion was: 1) the deficit is Problem Number One and 2) to pay it down we need to raise taxes and cut spending **at the same time.** > > Didn’t get far, did he? To be fair, Perot got farther than just about any other independent candidate during my lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2277 "2013-08-23T16:28:59Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The gender gap is growing in Virginia, because Cuccinelli does the typically stupid shooting of their own foot as Republicans are so prone to do this days. > > … > > Of course a single issue will not do, but Cuccinelli is still shooting himself in the \*\*other \*\*foot with his climate science denialism. And, speaking anecdotally as a liberal Democrat in Virginia, _nobody likes Terry McAuliffe_, not even liberal Democrats, and he’s still leading. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2278 "2013-08-29T02:32:17Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Then how come most of Clinton’s biggest initiatives got through Congress with Republican and Blue Dog support, and were opposed by liberal Democrats? Welfare reform, NAFTA, spending cuts, all passed over the objections of liberal Democrats. Do you even remember what a big deal gays in the military was in 1993? Do you remember the Clinton health care reform plan? Obama passed what the _Republicans_ were advocating in response to Clinton. Clinton was denounced as so un-American and so liberal that some Republican members of Congress warned him that if he visited their states, he was liable to be assassinated. I mean, fuck, Adaher, I think you and your ilk have gotten so used to lying that you might not even know the difference between lie and truth any more. > [@](#): > > It’s not clever, he actually was a moderate, with a distinct conservative bent on fiscal issues. What’s clever is the faction of the party that had no use for him claiming him once he became successful. I mean it’s clever of _you_ to try to revise history into making Clinton a conservative Republican rather than the slightly-left-of-center president that he was, one that was considered so leftist by the Republicans of the time that they could barely bring themselves to be civil. Obama is to the _right_ of Clinton. He’s pretty much exactly where Bob Dole was in 1992. And if you gave a fuck about the truth, you’d realize that. But I don’t think you do care. All you care about is propagating your big lie talking points and constantly working the refs. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2279 "2013-08-29T03:43:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What, like Jindal and Ryan and Rand Paul? 😛 Those are white dwarfs. From Texas: [A tan dwarf](http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/14000/george-p-bush-supports-cruzs-government-shutdown-threat) speaks up! > [@](#): > > Ted Cruz’s effort to defund the Affordable Care Act by threatening a government shutdown has gained a new Texas supporter: George P. Bush, Republican candidate for Land Commissioner. Bush, apparently exercising the intellect of his uncle George W., told the Metrocrest Chamber of Commerce this last Wednesday about Cruz’s threat: > > “It’s a monstrosity of a law. In terms of defunding it, that would be one way to reduce and mitigate the impact it’s going to have on practicing physicians and hospitals here in Texas…I agree with this effort to defund it, or keep Texas out of the program unless we can modify it to a Texas-specific solution.” Why such a radical stance? The article mentions he has no Republican challenger in need of out-nutcasing. Perhaps he’s atoning for being less hateful than Ted Cruz on immigration reform. (Not that the office he’s seeking has a thing to do with health care or immigration.) Then, there’s: > [@](#): > > Oh, to glimpse inside the mind of a Bush. ---
**Author:** ![georgewk10](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@georgewk10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/georgewk10)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/2280 "2013-08-29T13:00:29Z")
all you have to do is choose the lesser of two evils. What is needed is a 3 party or more system not orchestrated by the “Men behind the Curtain” Now , you know McCain and Romney were chosen. They couldn’t win. So, the question remains who decided Obama is the man. “The Man” ? The Men, maybe old white men? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=113) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=115)