# 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:** 12
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/221 "2012-12-28T15:36:30Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Please go on. I don’t recall any more quotes from that episode. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/222 "2012-12-28T15:40:28Z")
So is he banned or not? He was fun! ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/223 "2012-12-28T15:48:30Z")
He’ll be back…after he downloads more ellipses. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/224 "2012-12-28T15:58:53Z")
[Political cartoon](http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/550422_366942283401286_939359321_n.jpg) I think this illustrates a problem with the Republican Party. (Well, the problem with getting a Republican elected; from my POV their problem is that they are the Right Wing. 😛 ) They have moved so far to the right that even St. Ronnie seems a Socialist to them. Republican philosophy should not be dismissed out of hand. Some of their ideas _might_ work, and some of them have worked in the past. But times change. Millions of years ago, an organism mutated such that it could detect light. This gave those organisms with the mutation a survival and reproductive advantage, and the non-mutated organisms were supplanted. ‘Progress or die’, as it were. The Republican Party has had trouble adapting to new conditions. The way I see it, the rank-and-file Republicans tend to be blue-collar types who live paycheck to paycheck. They complain about the government ‘stealing’ their hard-earned money in the form of taxes, and giving it away to slackers who don’t work as hard as they do. They fail to consider all of the myriad benefits they receive from the taxes they pay, and only see that The Undeserving (read: minorities) are getting ‘free money’. There is a disconnection. ‘Keep your government hands off of my Medicare!’ I don’t see this improving. The Big Issue for Republicans is fiscal responsibility. But fiscal responsibility means being responsible fiscally. If it is pointed out that benefits received have to be paid for, their voters say that they should get everything free. A person who never flies commercially or doesn’t drive on freeways does not see the benefit they receive by other people using government-sibsidised systems. So the Republican Party emphasises lowering taxes. But they (the lawmakers) know that things still need to be paid for. Who pays? Many Republicans are wealthy. They are are loathe to pass budgets that adversely affect themselves. So they write budgets that put the burden on people less able to afford it, and then send the message that it’s the fault of the other side. The _idea_ that giving welfare to the rich creates jobs and prosperity has validity in theory. In practice, 30 years of supply-side – ‘trickle-down’ – economics has been shown to be a failure. The rich are getting richer, and they’re not creating jobs. They’re not creating jobs because consumers aren’t consuming, and there’s no need to hire people to make products that people aren’t going to buy. It seems obvious to me, a Liberal, that in order for the economy to grow, more money has to be put into the wallets of consumers. When people have money, they spend it. When they spend it, demand goes up and more people need to be hired to meet production demands. It gets back to ‘progress or die’. In the past, the wealthy invested more of their money and people were employed. Nowadays, ISTM that more investments are designed to move money around instead of producing products. Times have changed, and the old ways don’t work anymore. If private industry executives want to sit on their dragon’s hoard, then the government has to step in. Infrastructure construction programs, for example, provide thousands of jobs – and also value for the money spent. The Republican Party needs to figure out that they need to put the People and the country first. They need to remember that our government was set up to ‘promote the general welfare’. They need to understand that Freedom does not mean ‘no responsibility’. They need to understand that it takes money to make money, and that things received have to be paid for. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/225 "2012-12-28T16:35:44Z")
The real problem today is that the public is badly undereducated about history and economics. The fact that liberals can run on issues like ‘war on women’, ‘rape’, ‘big bird’, and ‘binders of women’ speaks less about the GOP and more about the American people who are stupid enough to fall for it. The fact that Barack Obama can routinely say in his campaign speeches that “we’ve seen what real change looks like”, “we’ve seen what lower deficits look like”, and “we’ve seen what economic growth looks like” and not outrage every person in America says more about the state of the elecorate than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/226 "2012-12-28T16:37:30Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > The real problem today is that the public is badly undereducated about history and economics. This attitude worked out great for the Democrats in the 2000s. ---
**Author:** ![SmilinJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@SmilinJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmilinJack)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/227 "2012-12-28T16:41:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Not nearly, but, this Board has its roots in the [_Straight Dope_](http://www.straightdope.com/) column by Cecil Adams, which runs mostly in free alternative weekly tabloids in urban areas. Do the math. I have been informed this board bans people for no reason other than some whim the administrator has against conservatives. Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/228 "2012-12-28T16:43:56Z")
> [@SmilinJack](#): > > I have been informed this board bans people for no reason other than some whim the administrator has against conservatives. No. But we’re strongly biased against posters who insult others and act like jerks, so if you want to stick around for any length of time, you need to stop doing that. We’re not big on overt bigotry either, and you’re coming pretty close to that. If you can make a logical defense of your position on the election, whatever it is, you should start doing that now. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/229 "2012-12-28T16:45:20Z")
> [@SmilinJack](#): > > I have been informed this board bans people for no reason other than some whim the administrator has against conservatives. > > Is this true? Nope. There are a number of quite conservative posters who have been here for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![SmilinJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@SmilinJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmilinJack)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/230 "2012-12-28T16:53:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No. But we’re strongly biased against posters who insult others and act like jerks, so if you want to stick around for any length of time, you need to stop doing that. We’re not big on overt bigotry either, and you’re coming pretty close to that. If you can make a logical defense of your position on the election, whatever it is, you should start doing that now. Thanks for the info…I might be back sometime when I have something non-controversial to talk about. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/231 "2012-12-28T16:54:59Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > The real problem today is that the public is badly undereducated about history and economics. The fact that liberals can run on issues like ‘war on women’, ‘rape’, ‘big bird’, and ‘binders of women’ speaks less about the GOP and more about the American people who are stupid enough to fall for it. The fact that Barack Obama can routinely say in his campaign speeches that “we’ve seen what real change looks like”, “we’ve seen what lower deficits look like”, and “we’ve seen what economic growth looks like” and not outrage every person in America says more about the state of the elecorate than anything else. Sounds like you’re well on your way to another successful election! ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/232 "2012-12-28T16:58:12Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > The real problem today is that the public is badly undereducated about history and economics. I agree to some extent- large segments of the public still believe that trickle-down economics was not a complete failure. > [@](#): > > The fact that liberals can run on issues like ‘war on women’, ‘rape’, ‘big bird’, and ‘binders of women’ speaks less about the GOP and more about the American people who are stupid enough to fall for it. Those damn American people… always hearing the words of Republicans and not liking them! Damn them! > [@](#): > > The fact that Barack Obama can routinely say in his campaign speeches that “we’ve seen what real change looks like”, “we’ve seen what lower deficits look like”, and “we’ve seen what economic growth looks like” and not outrage every person in America says more about the state of the elecorate than anything else. Hopefully the Republican party sticks with every policy, and continues their excellence in educating the American public. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/233 "2012-12-28T17:01:51Z")
> [@SmilinJack](#): > > Thanks for the info…I might be back sometime when I have something non-controversial to talk about. Based on your world view I think you might not have a lot of non-controversial opinions. I will say your thesis far surpassed my expectations. I didn’t expect anything even remotely this wacky. > [@SmilinJack](#): > > A electoral landslide… Not a popular landslide much less of a percentage than what he had in 2008 win with 1.5%… a slim win. This is far from the most significant error you’ve made, but it’s wrong all the same. Obama won the popular vote in 2012 by about 3.8% and he won in 2008 by 7.2%. So you’re either misremembering or calculating the stat in some “unique” way. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/234 "2012-12-28T17:21:36Z")
I think that the Dem’s in this thread need to stop thinking about “the” Republican Party because there are really two and that is the key point you and the social conservatives miss. There are many Republicans like me that are fiscal conservatives and social progressives. We believe that the Constitution should run this country and not the Bible. We felt vindicated when McCain won the nomination and then betrayed when he went all TeaParty on us. Ditto Romney to a lesser extent. This year I voted Libertarian because there is no way in hell I would ever vote for Obama and I just couldn’t pull the trigger for Romney. If the Dems had run someone that was halfway decent (in my opinion) like Rodham-Clinton, I probably would have even voted Democrat. I could point out that the election was lost when unemployment got below 8% or the numerous gaffes that Romney made but the fact remains that the real reason Romney lost was that the right-wingers are continually alienating the centrists in the party and we will punch that Republican chad out of habit for only so long. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/235 "2012-12-28T17:23:08Z")
> [@SmilinJack](#): > > Thanks for the info…I might be back sometime when I have something non-controversial to talk about. Please take care that you are cautious regarding spring-driven screen doors, and the potential for brain damage. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/236 "2012-12-28T17:31:01Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I think that the Dem’s in this thread need to stop thinking about “the” Republican Party because there are really two and that is the key point you and the social conservatives miss. Yes and no: I don’t totally disagree with what you’re saying here, but the fiscal conservatives do not appear to have the power to run the show on their own. They yoked themselves to the social conservatives a long time ago and I don’t see the evidence that they’re about to discard them. I know that’s what many of them want to do, but they’d have to find a way to win elections without them. > [@](#): > > I could point out that the election was lost when unemployment got below 8% It wasn’t. In fact the unemployment rate didn’t go under 8% until September - and that data was released in early October, which is when Obama was at his low point (because of the first debate). The election was lost because the economy had been slowly and steadily recovering for years, not because unemployment crossed a particular barrier late in the campaign. > [@](#): > > the fact remains that the real reason Romney lost was that the right-wingers are continually alienating the centrists in the party and we will punch that Republican chad out of habit for only so long. Well, yes. Some of us (including me) have been making this argument for a while: the way I usually put it was to say that Romney had to pretend to be a “sever” social conservative and had to move so far to the right during the primaries that he had little chance of appealing to moderates in the general election. But the Republican Party has been moving away from you and toward them for quite a while, and there’s reason to think you’ll be cast out before they are. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/237 "2012-12-28T17:46:36Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Please take care that you are cautious regarding spring-driven screen doors, and the potential for brain damage. So, what are you saying, smart guy? That SmilinJack’s brain is on springs? \* 😃 \*I see what you did there. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/238 "2012-12-28T17:47:14Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > If the Dems had run someone that was halfway decent (in my opinion) like Rodham-Clinton, I probably would have even voted Democrat. What does Hilary offer that Obama doesn’t? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/239 "2012-12-28T17:50:26Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Please take care that you are cautious regarding spring-driven screen doors, and the potential for brain damage. Take it easy on him, we don’t want to lose him. He’s been a fun read. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224/240 "2012-12-28T17:51:56Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I think that the Dem’s in this thread need to stop thinking about “the” Republican Party because there are really two and that is the key point you and the social conservatives miss. There are many Republicans like me that are fiscal conservatives and social progressives. We believe that the Constitution should run this country and not the Bible. We felt vindicated when McCain won the nomination and then betrayed when he went all TeaParty on us. Ditto Romney to a lesser extent. This year I voted Libertarian because there is no way in hell I would ever vote for Obama and I just couldn’t pull the trigger for Romney. If the Dems had run someone that was halfway decent (in my opinion) like Rodham-Clinton, I probably would have even voted Democrat. > > I could point out that the election was lost when unemployment got below 8% or the numerous gaffes that Romney made but the fact remains that the real reason Romney lost was that the right-wingers are continually alienating the centrists in the party and we will punch that Republican chad out of habit for only so long. I agree with your basic premise but i don’t see how the Republicans can hope to win without BOTH sides. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-republicans-ever-figure-out-why-they-lost/645224.md?page=13)