The latest lines were drawn after the 2010 census, and many state legislatures were in Republican hands at that time, therefore US Congressional districts were drawn to favor Republicans in those states.
The best bet that Democrats have to form a lasting majority would be to run a strong presidential candidate in 2020 and hope that it translates into downballot strength at the state level. Then the 2020 census will be used by Democratic-controlled states to draw the district lines to favor them.
Sorry, John. The outcome was completely predictable long before the primaries, let alone the campaign. The demographics beat the Republicans and therefore would have no matter who they ran.
The demographics will be even more in favor of the Democrats in 2016. The party has any number of candidates who appear to be electable. Counting on them to run a loser candidate with a losing campaign is fantasy. Since they would probably win even with a bad campaign, only an imaginarily wonderful Republican could overcome that. Read politicians won’t.
Yes, but it took a combination of effects. First, Reagan really did awful things to the economy. In 1988 I was saying that the Democrats should almost hope to lose, because if they won they would be blamed for the inevitable breakdown of the economy and not win the Presidency again for 20 years. Bush won as Reagan III, the economy did collapse, and Bush was blamed, leading to Clinton’s win. The economy is going to improve for the next four years, from all current signs, so the Republicans won’t have that advantage. And Clinton famously swung the party to embrace many in the center-right. I do expect that the party establishment, the ones I predicted would back Romney, will push for a candidate who does espouse an equivalent shift. Maybe all the way to center-right. But I don’t expect it to work the first time. It will require a generation for those attitudes to percolate through to the base. In 1992, the base had 24 years to want to win*; in 2016 the base will have only had 8. That’s not enough, so it won’t happen.
*Carter won solely because of Watergate, not because the country’s attitudes had shifted.
They need not have a major reform in the party. Which party ever has???
They will not try to become a. more politically correct, nor b. an imitation of the democratic party.
That is, in as much as politics allow. Both sides seek to appeal to the mainstream of voters, irrespective of what their party platform is composed of. If they have an unpopular position on a controversial subject, they (any party) usually doesn’t change it for a long, long time. The party will seek out some other issue to press.
In truth, I suspect nobody knows why the Republicans lost, nor ever will, except that the voters that they were counting on did not a. vote, nor b. vote the Republican way.
True enough. I’m just saying the Republican victories in 2010 were magnified and made longer lasting by the fact that it carried downballot in the state houses and the lines were drawn to favor Republicans. Consider Pennsylvania- state controlled by Republicans but is a fairly reliable blue state. However, they have 13 of 18 House members from the GOP. This is why Republicans want to split the state’s electors by district, they know they’ll win a plurality every time.
If you’re going to have a big electoral victory, do it in a year ending in 0.
For me it was the “hey, at least we let them serve us drinks”
Apparently, this woman doesn’t even understand the difference between “minorities” and “aboriginal populations” and has never been near a Native American community (except, perhaps, to go to the casino).
Truth time. I didn’t understand what argument she was making there. An australian nun criticizes the inner-city racism in America and her unspoken rebuttal is that the only australian aboriginals she saw were drunk but in America they’d be waiters?
Doesn’t the generic Republican/Democrat always poll a little better than the real thing? Obama wasn’t running against a generic Republican, he was running against Romney. [Insert joke here.]
They are unlikely to change anything before 2014, when they will likely make gains. Which means they are screwed in 2016. Maybe after that you’ll see serious efforts at demographic changes. You can’t stay a viable party when your voters are dying off and the opposition is crushing with the new voters.
Yes - “at least we let our minorities clean our toilets and serve us drinks.”
Which kind of ignores the huge issue we have with our own Native American population - where poverty is rampant (unless you have a casino), drug and alcohol abuse are epidemic, and homelessness in urban areas is non-proportional to the general population.
However, we DO let sober black people, Hispanics and Native Americans serve us drinks :rolleyes:
Well…there has been some interesting comments but as is obvious no one has a clue as to the real reason the Republicans lost and thus no plan to regain the Presidency.
I will wait a little while and see if anyone can come up with the solution and then I will spell it out…no I do not claim I am all that much more intelligent than anyone on here…I am simply someone with some analytical capability and someone who has studied the facts aka…who voted for Romney and who did not and why.
The biggest myth going now is that Romney lost because of the mexican vote…the stats prove that not to be the case
Now with that knowledge someone on here should be able to figure out the mystery of why Romney lost and most importantly the path the Republicans must take if they ever want to regain the White House.
The Republicans’ inability to get Hispanic (not Mexican) voters was a major problem. It wasn’t their only problem, but you don’t lose an election because of one group of people. It’s true that they did very badly with most minority groups, though. If you have your own theory about why they lost, you should post it instead of making people guess what you’re thinking.
The Mexican vote? Not alone, no. There’s the single women vote, the gay vote, the black vote, the young vote, the first time voter vote, the urban vote. Romney lost because the Republican Party only appeals to white rich and white ignorant voters.
In fact, I predicted here in this forum as early as July 2011 that the election would be between Obama and Romney, and that it would be close with Obama the winner. I never wavered for a second. I also said that Romney would have to win 6-9 states that Obama had won in 2008 and that he would win 2-5. This was completely predictable and I don’t claim any special applause for seeing the blindingly obvious.
It’s true that the national media, as well as the pundits on both sides, disgraced themselves by insisting it was too close to call, both so that they could write about a horse race and so they could pontificate of the tremendous meaning of whatever took place during the last 24-hour news cycle. Something had to keep eyeballs glued to sites during a supremely boring election whose outcome was known. But I kept telling people over and over that nothing had changed and not to pay attention to the noise. The demographics mattered, not the candidate.
SmilinJack, if you read the article linked to in post #5, you’ll see that the Republican Establishment already understands just what the problem is: they way-too-successfully branded themselves the party of intolerance. You’ll also see that their constituents don’t want to believe this yet. Nor will they have changed their minds by 2016.
But I don’t expect it to work the first time. It will require a generation for those attitudes to percolate through to the base. In 1992, the base had 24 years to want to win*; in 2016 the base will have only had 8. That’s not enough, so it won’t happen.