So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? Or will they shift farther towards crazyland in some of their stances?
discuss
If anything, they're likely to become more right-wing.
They failed to engage with the Hispanic vote, single women, and swing voters. The BBC was saying that natural Republican strongholds in places like Virginia, have seen a demographic shift, with the once majority white population now a minority to the Hispanic population. The Republicans failed to engage this reality.
In fact, with the Hispanic population growing, any future candidates (of both sides) will have to get at least 45% of the Hispanic vote just to be competititve.
Now, with the Republican party drawing it's votes from traditional white working class groups which are dwindling, they'll have to go back to the drawing board big time.
Huffy wrote: So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? Or will they shift farther towards crazyland in some of their stances?
discuss
No. They will believe they failed because they didn't pick someone conservative enough, and will pick someone crazy next time.
Huffy wrote: So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? Or will they shift farther towards crazyland in some of their stances?
discuss
No. They will believe they failed because they didn't pick someone conservative enough, and will pick someone crazy next time.
They need to expand the voter base and really mean what they say coming up in the next election cycle for president.
Broaden the vote to include those who felt disenfranchised by Republicans politics and do not flip flop on issues when the election cycle goes from primaries to the presidential election.
Care less about who marries who because the electorate is only going to shrink on that particular demographic who wants that to stop happening.
Why should they? They still got 48% of the popular vote.
Edit : Romeny was a poor candidate. The guy is a flip-flopper and had holes in his tax plan big enough to drive a battlewagon through.
If the republicans can push a candidate like that all the way to 48% popular vote, imagine what they could do with Chris Christie.
ExNoctemNacimur wrote: Romney was good, but I don't think the Americans really saw it. It's a demographic shift that's affecting the party.
Unlike some other demographics the Latin vote should stabilize equally between the parties. Much like the Catholic vote niether party can really "count" on the political partisanship of the brown vote from election to election.
There was an interesting stat mentioned on NPR yesterday: the Democratic Party is just over 70% white and falling. The Republican Party is over 90% white and holding steady. You can't win with that kind of base, not at a national level.
Republicans need to dump most social issues overboard. They've won elections on them before, but that era's ending. Run smart, disciplined, fiscal policy-oriented campaigns.
labmouse42 wrote: Why should they? They still got 48% of the popular vote.
48% is not enough. The NE and California give Democrats almost half the votes alone to win the election. The population is swinging more towards the minorities that the Republican policies would negatively affect (or in their opinion, would even if they do not). Broaden the appeal or lose more ground.
Edit : Romeny was a poor candidate. The guy is a flip-flopper and had holes in his tax plan big enough to drive a battlewagon through. If the republicans can push a candidate like that all the way to 48% popular vote, imagine what they could do with Chris Christie.
Romney is beholden to talk more right wing talk in the primaries. He as a moderate who once governed a strongly left leaning state would of had no chance in the Republican primary if he wasn't forced to flop.
I wonder what a Rick Perry/Barack Obama presidential election would of looked liked....
Republicans need to dump most social issues overboard. They've won elections on them before, but that era's ending. Run smart, disciplined, fiscal policy-oriented campaigns.
Better yet? Let sequestration go into effect.
So much of this, one of the main reasons I tend to lean more towards democrats is the social issues. If Republicans were to drop some of their more crazy positions like their stances on abortion and gay marriage(to give some examples) I would definitely consider them more.
And Jeb Bush? could he even do well at the National level considering what a bad rap that last name carries?
So much of this, one of the main reasons I tend to lean more towards democrats is the social issues. If Republicans were to drop some of their more crazy positions like their stances on abortion and gay marriage(to give some examples) I would definitely consider them more.
Gay marriage yes....abortion well....
Some people who vehemently oppose abortion need to know the social and governmental costs of such a decision. If you don't want to kill that baby, do you think the parents would be thrilled to have something they don't love? Millions of children would flood the government system of care and it would be an injustice to them to have to live through a life where they were basically unloved by their birth parents.
On the other hand, people who seriously oppose abortion are often children who were considered for abortion in the first place. If abortion occurred, they wouldn't of existed.
I'm pro-life because of the latter but also understand the deep scars and ramifications of what not getting an abortion could do so I stay silent on that issue most of the time.
And Jeb Bush? could he even do well at the National level considering what a bad rap that last name carries?
Yes. He cited "Bush fatigue" as his reason for not running in the primary, and largely he was right. But in 2016 a Rockefeller Rebuplican like Jeb (and his father) is much more appealing to the electorate at large. Socially moderate, fiscally conservative. The Bush name is less of an obstacle than I think it's been made out to be. When it comes down to it by 2016 it seems likely that it will be even less of an issue.
Is the Hispanic community largely (devout) Catholic? If so, that would not go hand-in-hand with some of the traditional Democrat social issue direction.
I agree with Austin. We make fun of Bush junior plenty on Dakka, but the guy held 1/3 of the population's support all the way into his final years in office and that support is likely to carry to Jeb who gets 1/3 of the vote by his name alone.
AustonT wrote: When it comes down to it by 2016 it seems likely that it will be even less of an issue.
If the economy is still in sinking into the toilet mode, the Democrats had better find a candidate that did not support Obama's (at that future time) failed economic recovery program; eight years of blaming Bush are not going to work anymore at that point as AustonT has correctly stated. But if there is continued Democratic failure continues to get the economy going, the Republicans would be biting at the chomp for Election Day to come....
In some of the media circles over here there was talk that the Rep. party top men had already pretty much written this campaign off a long time ago, with an eye on Bush in 2016. His wife being seen especially as an asset.
There would be, of course, X amount of people who'd never vote for any Bush ever..... but one would suggest they would also never vote Rep. anyway.
The group of people running for the Republic nomination this past year were a fairly lackluster bunch. Romney failed to energize the electorate until after the first debate in October and that's way too late in the process for that. He left a let a lot of negative press go unchallenged for months. Tax returns? The 47 percent? It all adds up. The American people want a strong leader and Romney didn't come across as one.
Republicans also shot themselves in the foot regarding several Senate races that they could have won but instead put forth candidates that for one reason or another wound up embarassing themselves into a loss.
ExNoctemNacimur wrote: Romney was good, but I don't think the Americans really saw it. It's a demographic shift that's affecting the party.
I don't know by what definition Romney was "good". He was easily the weakest candidate of either party I've seen in my lifetime (admittedly, I'm not that old).
He's been running for president for 8 years and I still have no goddamn idea what he believes in since there isn't a single major issue he hasn't strenuously argued both sides of.
Daba wrote: Is the Hispanic community largely (devout) Catholic? If so, that would not go hand-in-hand with some of the traditional Democrat social issue direction.
Yes they are Catholic, but mostly in name only. Catholics in the US also tend to not march in lockstep with Rome with some exceptions
Short term, more of the same. Long term, the GOP evolves.
They can't win the Presidency until they can change the electoral math. At the end of the day, political parties are about winning elections, and so they'll change. Like I said in the other thread, they ran McCain and Romney back-to-back in the age of the Tea Party. They know what they're up against. The hard part for the GOP leadership is putting all the crazies back in their cages.
Huffy wrote: So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? Or will they shift farther towards crazyland in some of their stances?
discuss
Well as long as Republicans don't listen to any advice from liberal Democrats they may survive. The hare should trust not the fox.
As a guy who just wants to be left alone, I think they should push that. But they won't and neither will the Democrats.
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Seaward wrote: There was an interesting stat mentioned on NPR yesterday: the Democratic Party is just over 70% white and falling. The Republican Party is over 90% white and holding steady. You can't win with that kind of base, not at a national level.
Republicans need to dump most social issues overboard. They've won elections on them before, but that era's ending. Run smart, disciplined, fiscal policy-oriented campaigns.
Better yet? Let sequestration go into effect.
Yep. Also become the Bill of Rights Party. Defend people against government control and intrusion. It will be a unique concept.
In some of the media circles over here there was talk that the Rep. party top men had already pretty much written this campaign off a long time ago, with an eye on Bush in 2016. His wife being seen especially as an asset.
There would be, of course, X amount of people who'd never vote for any Bush ever..... but one would suggest they would also never vote Rep. anyway.
Well I never suggested George P was a consideration anytime soon. At a minimum he is 20 years away from even attempting a run.
But whoever told you we don't do dynasties isn't very observant. Off the top of my head there's the 2nd and 6th presidents and the naval dynasty of the McCains. Had JFK Jr survived his assasination terrible accident, you don't think he could have waltzed to the oval office on name alone? The entire Kennedy family is a political dynasty.
"The Bill of Rights" party thing is what ticks me off about the Tea Party folks. They campaign to be the "government shouldn't tell people what to do" party, but they are so pro-government telling other people what to do that it makes my head hurt.
"Government shouldn't tell us what to do! They should tell the Muslims to go away, tell everyone what language to speak, decide who can get married, tell them what to do with their body (abortion, drugs, sex, etc...). But less government is better, as long as it is less government for me!"
I think Chris Christie should run. That would probably make me vote Republican next time. My roommate and I were discussing it, if he ran against, say, Hillary Clinton, it would be a hard choice and we'd have to watch pretty much every debate to decide who to vote for.
Breotan wrote: The group of people running for the Republic nomination this past year were a fairly lackluster bunch. Romney failed to energize the electorate until after the first debate in October and that's way too late in the process for that. He left a let a lot of negative press go unchallenged for months. Tax returns? The 47 percent? It all adds up. The American people want a strong leader and Romney didn't come across as one.
Republicans also shot themselves in the foot regarding several Senate races that they could have won but instead put forth candidates that for one reason or another wound up embarassing themselves into a loss.
Yep.
Plus nonsense like kicking out 20mm illegal aliens. NO NO NO. You fix the border and then integrate these hard working people through legal means (kicking out the criminals and the cat lovers).
instead you have the nattering nabobs have taken over the party.
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d-usa wrote: "The Bill of Rights" party thing is what ticks me off about the Tea Party folks. They campaign to be the "government shouldn't tell people what to do" party, but they are so pro-government telling other people what to do that it makes my head hurt.
"Government shouldn't tell us what to do! They should tell the Muslims to go away, tell everyone what language to speak, decide who can get married, tell them what to do with their body (abortion, drugs, sex, etc...). But less government is better, as long as it is less government for me!"
I can't disagree with you and thats my point.
Plus at the local level its not about less government. Its government for my cronies vs. your cronies.
Leave religion out of it. Let the religious right go their own way and create their own party. If it's something that really matters to the average American they will vote for them. Perhaps it's time for you to have more than two parties? Given the whole whole right, left and centre views, no party can appeal to all.
It is the fact of modern politics. "Economics lead Politics". In France. N. Sarkozy lost to F. Hollande due to his debacle on economics. Romney might beliefs that most Americans want a powerful military that capable to rule the world. Obama might have done a pamphlet 'suggesting' American citizens that a very very large army drains national treasury fast. and it could ruin the USA pretty much the same matter that oversized military budget had leeched Soviet Union dry.
Flat Taxation is one thing though. still I'm wonder does Obama really capable to "overcome" corporate lobbyists? he doesn't seem to take serious action against corporate malpractrices. does he?
Huffy wrote: So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? Or will they shift farther towards crazyland in some of their stances?
discuss
Does Romney really affilates with the alleged fascist organization "The Tea Party" movement?
Daba wrote: Is the Hispanic community largely (devout) Catholic? If so, that would not go hand-in-hand with some of the traditional Democrat social issue direction.
Yes they are Catholic, but mostly in name only. Catholics in the US also tend to not march in lockstep with Rome with some exceptions
eh... the Hispanic actually mesh up well with moderate Republicans... but the current party has largely been ignoring this demographic to their peril.
Romney is a poor candidate...(I think I've said that before) and I think that really played into this election because so is Obama. No one really knew what you'll get from Romney... but, we do know what Obama stands on. This is a case where the electorate voted for the status quo. Plus, the Obama campaign absolutely kicked ass on the GOTV.
If the Republican candidate actually could provide a clear contrast to Obama, it might've gone the other way.
Here's an interesting thing... since the Ryan's VP nomination... I think he was largely muzzled. He was supposed to be the guy to rally the conservative, but you only really saw him on the campaign trail. I didn't see him engage the talk shows/news publication as I thought he would.
Okay, so I've thought about this and here's my recommendation. The crisis is long-term in nature, and so it requires a long-term solution.
Instead of trying to sweet-talk the Teabaggers, Christian Right, generic reactionaries, etc., the GOP leadership should go the other direction and flat-out tell them the train to moderation is leaving, and they can get on or off. Forget pandering to them the way McCain and Romney were forced to. They won't like that, of course, and it'll probably culminate in a very ugly primary season. They might even run a 3rd party candidate out on the right flank.
But that's okay if they do -- the presence on the right will make the GOP seem more moderate. The GOP will probably still lose in 2016, but maybe they put a few new states in play just because they back off on things like social issues, immigration, etc. You have to walk before you can run, right? That sets them up for 2020. Things could get interesting then, even against an incumbent. A GOP with several years of moderation under its belt -- combined with a humbled reactionary base that's utterly sick and tired of seeing Dems get elected POTUS -- might be able to shake up the electoral landscape and make things interesting. Think 1992.
The more I think about it, Chris Christie should be chairing the GOP instead of running for POTUS. They could use a strong-armed NJ Sopranos type at the top to tell the fringe elements exactly what they need to be told. He'd do it.
AustonT wrote: I also cant take you seriously with that grotesque Argentinean as your avatar. But at least Obama can manage and economy better than Che.
Spoiler:
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purplefood wrote: There's only One Direction for the Rebuplican party
The second one that sings looks like a genertic cross between Mick Jagger and Andrew Jackson..
.
Avatar is part of a wager with Seb... I lost, so he get's to pick what Avatar I need to have for the next month.
Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
gorgon wrote: Instead of trying to sweet-talk the Teabaggers, Christian Right, generic reactionaries, etc., the GOP leadership should go the other direction and flat-out tell them the train to moderation is leaving, and they can get on or off. Forget pandering to them the way McCain and Romney were forced to. They won't like that, of course, and it'll probably culminate in a very ugly primary season. They might even run a 3rd party candidate out on the right flank.
There is no path to elected office for a Republican without the "tea party" conservatives or the evangelical right. Being a clone of the Democrats didn't work for McCain and it didn't work for Romney so I don't know why you're suggesting it would work in the future.
Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
I disagree...
He'd be a great VP.
As for the top ticket? Who knows... maybe Jindel or Rubio?
gorgon wrote: Instead of trying to sweet-talk the Teabaggers, Christian Right, generic reactionaries, etc., the GOP leadership should go the other direction and flat-out tell them the train to moderation is leaving, and they can get on or off. Forget pandering to them the way McCain and Romney were forced to. They won't like that, of course, and it'll probably culminate in a very ugly primary season. They might even run a 3rd party candidate out on the right flank.
There is no path to elected office for a Republican without the "tea party" conservatives or the evangelical right. And being a clone of the Democrats didn't work for McCain and it didn't work for Romney so I don't know why you're suggesting it would work in the future.
No... the calibration is realizing that the voter demographic/tendencies of '08 and '12 are real, not aberation. If they accept that, then they'll know what to change.
I can see the Republican now engaging on Amnesty now in attempt to bring in the hispanic into the fold (first secure the damn border!).
Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
He should run and find out. The Republican "base" is not the Republican party, nor the majority of the US. He's anti Second Amendment, and even I like him.
Breotan wrote:Saying that Obama isn't as bad as Che doesn't exactly fill one with confidence.
But it are true enough ya?
whembly wrote:
Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
I disagree...
He'd be a great VP.
As for the top ticket? Who knows... maybe Jindel or Rubio?
I've given up on Bobby Jindal, and I don't think Marco Rubio has national appeal. Both are more supporting cast, and have been noticeably absent in this campaign.
Breotan wrote:Saying that Obama isn't as bad as Che doesn't exactly fill one with confidence.
But it are true enough ya?
whembly wrote:
Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
I disagree...
He'd be a great VP.
As for the top ticket? Who knows... maybe Jindel or Rubio?
I've given up on Bobby Jindal, and I don't think Marco Rubio has national appeal. Both are more supporting cast, and have been noticeably absent in this campaign.
Thats changed starting with ROmney's concession speech.
We'll see. And if not so be it. I vote for the best candidate regardless. If the Republicans don't field that candidate, I'll be happy to keep voting Libertarian or Democratic.
When there's not much difference between the major parties, it doesn't matter that much.
gorgon wrote: Instead of trying to sweet-talk the Teabaggers, Christian Right, generic reactionaries, etc., the GOP leadership should go the other direction and flat-out tell them the train to moderation is leaving, and they can get on or off. Forget pandering to them the way McCain and Romney were forced to. They won't like that, of course, and it'll probably culminate in a very ugly primary season. They might even run a 3rd party candidate out on the right flank.
There is no path to elected office for a Republican without the "tea party" conservatives or the evangelical right. Being a clone of the Democrats didn't work for McCain and it didn't work for Romney so I don't know why you're suggesting it would work in the future.
If you really think that, then you might simply be in that segment that I'm suggesting the GOP needs to bring to heel.
Romney and McCain ran as anything other than moderates. In fact, they reversed many of their stances and beliefs -- badly damaging their moderate brands in blue states -- and clearly attempted to pander to the more conservative elements of the party (if nothing else, see Palin, Sarah and Ryan, Paul). The GOP can seek ideological purity all they want, but it's become a mathematical thing at this point. Demographics are against them, and on this course the Electoral College will be stacked against them too. A "true" conservative would have won not one single EV that Romney lost.
Obama was as vulnerable as an incumbent can be, and he won fairly comfortably, with the Dems holding serve in the House and Senate. That's a failure for the entire GOP brand.
Huffy wrote: So considering their defeat in the Presidential election, do you see the Republican Party changing their strategy away from the Tea Party? discuss
I really hope so. The party big-wigs need to lay down the law to the Far Right. "Get in line, or join the Tea Party." Withhold party funding from their campaigns. These "Legitimate Rape" and other insert-foot-in-mouth guys are NOT representative of the Republican party. They don't speak for me or any moderate Republicans.
I think the Republicans in 2012 are facing the same problem the Democrats did in 2004. The extreme side of their party had forced the party's entire position further away from center, which resulted in a very disappointing loss to a largely unpopular incumbent.
The Democrats responded by shifting much more centrist and have had success doing so (and pulling the country slowly to the left).
The Republicans can (and should) do the same by giving less and less focus on the Tea Party. Doing this will enable them to actually stand a chance in 2016, even with the ever-shifting demographics. Of course, they'd risk the Tea Party itself splitting off and running their own candidate, which would be devastating for the right. But, I think even the Tea Party is smart enough to realize that would be completely self-destructive.
Their other option is to follow what a lot (not all, or even a majority, but certainly the loudest) of Republicans are suggesting by going even further to the right. This would result in the Republicans becoming a regional party without much influence on the national level at all. That would either result in the Democrats establishing a dynasty that would last for decades, or possibly the Republican party withering away and the Democrats splitting into two parties.
Frazzled wrote: Well as long as Republicans don't listen to any advice from liberal Democrats they may survive. The hare should trust not the fox.
I am a liberal democrat.
I suggested that the Repuclican's don't need to change their platform as they won 48% of the major vote with a weak candidate.
Ergo, according to your logic the Republicans better change things up!
Frazzled wrote: Well as long as Republicans don't listen to any advice from liberal Democrats they may survive. The hare should trust not the fox.
I am a liberal democrat.
I suggested that the Repuclican's don't need to change their platform as they won 48% of the major vote with a weak candidate.
Ergo, according to your logic the Republicans better change things up!
A lot of his beliefs do speak to the idealistic libertarian (at least, at the big picture level). But, the details of his plans would pretty clearly destroy America.
Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
He should run and find out. The Republican "base" is not the Republican party, nor the majority of the US. He's anti Second Amendment, and even I like him.
He's going to get destroyed by Booker, so it's going to be a moot point.
Cory Booker, Democratic mayor of Newark. A guy who literally chases down criminals in the street, fights fires by himself, and shows up in snow plows to rescue stranded constituents. I believe he may be Batman. He's going to run for governor, and he's going to knock the stuffing out of Christie.
So what we are looking at here is a Bush/Christie ticket in 2016? I need to make sure that we have a consensus before I use any of the DakkaOT Roundtable Official Recommendation Forms and Priority Mail it out to the RNCC.
I'd put money on Bush/Chirstie unless the primaries are bitter. Then the bottom of the ticket is open but I still think Jeb is THE canidate for 2016.
It almost doesn't matter. I looked in my crystal ball and no matter who runs in 2016 on either side the Dems are going to be crushed.
I do not think this was just happenstance that Romney lost. I believe they did this so they could put someone better in the ring next time around.
The democrats did this in 2004 with Bush Vs. Kerry. They put up, to use wrestling terms, a jobber against Bush because they knew they couldn't compete. They instead allowed the republicans have another four years and allowed them to wear out their welcome. So when 2008 came around the once reigning champs that were the republicans were too weak to hold up against the onslaught that was the democratic ticket. I sincerely believe McCain wanted the presidency but his party was too weak hold on to the spot. We now see the same game but with the roles reversed.
The republicans have a plan and just because they lost doesn't mean it wasn't a part of their plan like the democrats.
AustonT wrote: I'd put money on Bush/Chirstie unless the primaries are bitter. Then the bottom of the ticket is open but I still think Jeb is THE canidate for 2016.
It almost doesn't matter. I looked in my crystal ball and no matter who runs in 2016 on either side the Dems are going to be crushed.
No on Bush...
That name is poison for several decades...
Fraz gets my vote... or someone from the GW-fanboi party!
I don't think Bush is poisoned as much as some people think. Especially if the economy doesn't pick up under Obama's second term it's going to be hard to say that other Bush broke the economy so don't vote for this one (discounting the fact he's suppose to be the smarter one).
Though my brother made a fun point. I don't know where he got it but there hasn't been an election won by a Republican since the 1928 election that didn't have Nixon or a Bush on the ballot. I had to double check and it was oddly true....
gorgon wrote: Which blue states will Jeb flip to red that get the GOP from 206 to 270?
Any state within 5% this election. Any state with a significant Latino population. Any state with unemployment above 7% in 2015. I'd expect a Jeb ticket to bust the solidarity of New England to. The Commonwealth easily, maybe Maine, NH, and Vermont.
I'm no Nate Silver though.
AustonT wrote: I looked in my crystal ball and no matter who runs in 2016 on either side the Dems are going to be crushed.
Just like in 2012!
I'm pretty sure I never said anything like that. As soon as the primaries started I pretty much figured Barry was fine. Hoping otherwise doesn't make my crystal ball any less accurate.
ProtoClone wrote: I do not think this was just happenstance that Romney lost. I believe they did this so they could put someone better in the ring next time around.
The democrats did this in 2004 with Bush Vs. Kerry. They put up, to use wrestling terms, a jobber against Bush because they knew they couldn't compete. They instead allowed the republicans have another four years and allowed them to wear out their welcome. So when 2008 came around the once reigning champs that were the republicans were too weak to hold up against the onslaught that was the democratic ticket. I sincerely believe McCain wanted the presidency but his party was too weak hold on to the spot. We now see the same game but with the roles reversed.
The republicans have a plan and just because they lost doesn't mean it wasn't a part of their plan like the democrats.
i think you give them far too much intellectual credit...
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
They's be smart to start grooming some more moderate republican candidates that actually understand the importance of the latino vote moving forward...
Though my brother made a fun point. I don't know where he got it but there hasn't been an election won by a Republican since the 1928 election that didn't have Nixon or a Bush on the ballot. I had to double check and it was oddly true....
Okay, that just seems weird. I need to confirm.
1932: Democrat (FDR)
1936: Democrat (FDR)
1940: Democrat (FDR)
1944: Democrat (FDR)
1948: Democrat (Truman)
1952: Republican (Eisenhower), Nixon as VP 1956: Republican (Eisenhower), Nixon as VP 1960: Democrat (JFK)
1964: Democrat (Johnson)
1968: Republican (Nixon)
1972: Republican (Nixon)
1976: Democrat (Carter)
1980: Republican (Reagan), Bush Sr as VP 1984: Republican (Reagan), Bush Sr as VP 1988: Republican (Bush Sr)
1992: Democrat (Clinton)
1996: Democrat (Clinton)
2000: Republican (Bush Jr)
2004: Republican (Bush Jr)
2008: Democrat (Obama)
2012: Democrat (Obama)
That is weird. Looks like it's gonna be a Tricia Nixon Cox/Barbara Pierce Bush ticket for 2016!
ProtoClone wrote: I do not think this was just happenstance that Romney lost. I believe they did this so they could put someone better in the ring next time around.
The democrats did this in 2004 with Bush Vs. Kerry. They put up, to use wrestling terms, a jobber against Bush because they knew they couldn't compete. They instead allowed the republicans have another four years and allowed them to wear out their welcome. So when 2008 came around the once reigning champs that were the republicans were too weak to hold up against the onslaught that was the democratic ticket. I sincerely believe McCain wanted the presidency but his party was too weak hold on to the spot. We now see the same game but with the roles reversed.
The republicans have a plan and just because they lost doesn't mean it wasn't a part of their plan like the democrats.
i think you give them far too much intellectual credit...
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
They's be smart to start grooming some more moderate republican candidates that actually understand the importance of the latino vote moving forward...
No... they'd be smart to foster moderation in the party and mitigate the extremist first.
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
When you grow up you'll look back on this and realize how funny it is.
Only if you believe that saying you'll do something to win a primary election means you'll genuinely do it once in office. That's often not the case, including with the current president.
McCain and Romney are moderates. Have been their entire political careers. Like all Republicans, they veered to the right to get through the primaries, just as Democrats are obliged to veer to the left.
No... they'd be smart to foster moderation in the party and mitigate the extremist first.
McCain and Romney were moderates before having to move further to the right to get through the primaries. The party isn't.
Fix'd that for ya
sigh... so you think they're being brain washed now? They had to shift to the right in order to get past the primary... true, but that doesn't mean they'll govern as such.
Only if you believe that saying you'll do something to win a primary election means you'll genuinely do it once in office. That's often not the case, including with the current president.
McCain and Romney are moderates. Have been their entire political careers. Like all Republicans, they veered to the right to get through the primaries, just as Democrats are obliged to veer to the left.
There is a really terrific piece you guys may be interested in, if you participated in this thread. It addresses some structural issues with conservative media.
gorgon wrote: Which blue states will Jeb flip to red that get the GOP from 206 to 270?
Any state within 5% this election. Any state with a significant Latino population. Any state with unemployment above 7% in 2015. I'd expect a Jeb ticket to bust the solidarity of New England to. The Commonwealth easily, maybe Maine, NH, and Vermont.
I'm no Nate Silver though.
His brother is widely disliked in and couldn't win most of the 2012 blue states in 2000 or 2004. Other than Florida, I don't get what you're seeing there.
Interesting fact I just heard -- if you divide up the voters by gender and racial background, and give Romney the same percentages in those categories that George received in 2004 in his victory, Romney still loses. Like I've been saying for a while, demographics are really killing the GOP right now, and it's only going to get worse. I'm not sure how Jeb -- just by being Jeb -- solves that.
gorgon wrote: Which blue states will Jeb flip to red that get the GOP from 206 to 270?
Any state within 5% this election. Any state with a significant Latino population. Any state with unemployment above 7% in 2015. I'd expect a Jeb ticket to bust the solidarity of New England to. The Commonwealth easily, maybe Maine, NH, and Vermont.
I'm no Nate Silver though.
His brother is widely disliked in and couldn't win most of the 2012 blue states in 2000 or 2004. Other than Florida, I don't get what you're seeing there.
Interesting fact I just heard -- if you divide up the voters by gender and racial background, and give Romney the same percentages in those categories that George received in 2004 in his victory, Romney still loses. Like I've been saying for a while, demographics are really killing the GOP right now, and it's only going to get worse. I'm not sure how Jeb -- just by being Jeb -- solves that.
If, as it seems apparent you do, all you see in Jeb is George in a fat suit I'm afriad I can't help you.
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
When you grow up you'll look back on this and realize how funny it is.
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
When you grow up you'll look back on this and realize how funny it is.
whembly wrote: sigh... so you think they're being brain washed now? They had to shift to the right in order to get past the primary... true, but that doesn't mean they'll govern as such.
Well, they still have to get re-elected, and they still have to make at least a token effort to keep the extremists voting. I could very easily imagine Romney, for example, signing anti-abortion bills he doesn't personally care about to ensure that the religious right keeps pressing the "R" button and lets him keep giving tax cuts to his wealthy friends.
a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
I'm no math wizard but 1% of 118M voters doesn't make Obama any less the winner. Unless you meant that those 1.18M where in very specific locations.
MeanGreenStompa wrote: I quite liked Huntsman. If the right wants to come in from the cold, he seemed like he would be a decent candidate again.
You mean Mitt's cousin Jon?
I don't know a huge amount about him but I liked what I read and heard, especially in comparison to freaks like Bachman and Perry and the frankly terrifying Santorum.
wiki:
Huntsman rejects the notion that faith and evolution are mutually exclusive. In 2011, in response to a statement by Rick Perry that global warming was unproven and that evolution remains only a theory, Huntsman tweeted, "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy." He said, "The minute that the Republican Party becomes the party – the anti-science party, we have a huge problem. We lose a whole lot of people who would otherwise allow us to win the election in 2012."
I liked that he had worked with the democratic administration and was, to me, the most willing to offer to work bipartisan across the floor.
MeanGreenStompa wrote: I quite liked Huntsman. If the right wants to come in from the cold, he seemed like he would be a decent candidate again.
You mean Mitt's cousin Jon?
I don't know a huge amount about him but I liked what I read and heard, especially in comparison to freaks like Bachman and Perry and the frankly terrifying Santorum.
He and Mitt aren't exactly close, in fact I'm pretty sure I read an article where he was quoted as saying they were less than fond of each other. It's just funny because they ARE cousins. TBH I can't remember anything else about Huntsman, I'll easily agree that he's a better option than Bachman or Santorum: so is my niece but I wouldn't vote for her either. Mostly because she's a tiny liberal who expects me to redistribute my oreos.
labmouse42 wrote: Why should they? They still got 48% of the popular vote.
Edit : Romeny was a poor candidate. The guy is a flip-flopper and had holes in his tax plan big enough to drive a battlewagon through.
If the republicans can push a candidate like that all the way to 48% popular vote, imagine what they could do with Chris Christie.
Continue to get out 60 million voters, which is enough to win when Democrats can't excite enough of their base, but a loss the rest of the time.
I don't think the republicans really want to look into the future and say 'when Democrats run rubbish campaigns like Gore and Kerry we're a shot at the Whitehouse'.
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Seaward wrote: There was an interesting stat mentioned on NPR yesterday: the Democratic Party is just over 70% white and falling. The Republican Party is over 90% white and holding steady. You can't win with that kind of base, not at a national level.
Republicans need to dump most social issues overboard. They've won elections on them before, but that era's ending. Run smart, disciplined, fiscal policy-oriented campaigns.
Better yet? Let sequestration go into effect.
Yeah, definitely this.
I mean, I think they can actually continue with a family values platform, but check the language with an eye towards the social justice values of many Hispanic voters (note I didn't say to directly appeal to these values, but just don't campaign so heavily on the feth the poor idea) and drop some other stuff (the heavy anti-immigration stuff)... then there's likely a large Hispanic audience ready to get picked up.
Look to what Texas is doing, basically.
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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The BBC were saying that in the last 50 years, an incumbent who runs with that level of unemployment, has always lost - Carter, Ford, Bush Snr etc
Now, regardless or not about who's to blame for the economic mess in America, Romney had an open goal chance to really hurt Obama. He blew it.
One of the more interesting points made during the election is that those comparisons were probably a little simplistic. Look closer at the numbers and it isn't the unemployment rate itself, but the direction it is heading in at the time of the election that matters.
So Carter's problem was not a high unemployment rate, but that the rate was getting higher every month.
Obama had stabilised the rate at around 8%. Not a good number, but nowhere near as bad as if it were 8% and getting worse every month.
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Frazzled wrote: Well as long as Republicans don't listen to any advice from liberal Democrats they may survive. The hare should trust not the fox.
I think that's pretty decent advice, up to a point. But there's no point turning inwards, and having Republicans ask other Republicans what they should do - the guys that are turning out and voting right now don't matter
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whembly wrote: Here's an interesting thing... since the Ryan's VP nomination... I think he was largely muzzled. He was supposed to be the guy to rally the conservative, but you only really saw him on the campaign trail. I didn't see him engage the talk shows/news publication as I thought he would.
I think that's the right approach for a guy like Ryan, who appeals to the base but could potentially also get left leaning voters out to vote against the guy. So if you put him on TV then both sides see him, and stuff he says is likely to get played and replayed enough and he could end up doing more to inspire people to vote against him as for him.
But get him out at campaign rallies, get the base excited, and telling their friends to vote, and you get all gains and no negatives.
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Seaward wrote: Christie's not the answer. There's already a healthy chunk of the Republican base saying that Christie is dead to them due to his "endorsement" of Obama. He'd never make it through a primary.
Is that the problem? Candidates who'd be a shot at expanding the Republican base above 60 million voters never get through the primary?
Would Reagan win the primary these days?
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gorgon wrote: Which blue states will Jeb flip to red that get the GOP from 206 to 270?
Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
And a candidate only needs to pick up another 50,000 votes in Florida, and 100,000 votes in the other two states to flip them. Those results could happen without even running a better Republican candidate, just by having a slighter poorer Democratic turnout.
Seriously, the Republican loss in this election was not unrecoverable. And after 2006/2008 it shows how quick a party can turn its fortunes around.
In terms of next election Republicans can keep doing what they're doing, run someone like Jeb, and be a 50% chance of winning. The issue with the Republican party is more long term - that they can't be the white men party anymore because the demographic trends are starting to hurt, and are soon going to get a lot worse.
It seems like the Republicans aren't going to be working towards bipartisanship. Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate minority leader just said that he won't be working with Obama unless Obama "moves to the center". Considering Obama is already at the center, and most of his big ideas were originally Republican ideas 20 years ago, I think McConnell just thinks that Bipartisanship means "do what the Republicans say". It does not bode well for a new sort of cooperation.
Maddermax wrote: It seems like the Republicans aren't going to be working towards bipartisanship. Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate minority leader just said that he won't be working with Obama unless Obama "moves to the center". Considering Obama is already at the center, and most of his big ideas were originally Republican ideas 20 years ago, I think McConnell just thinks that Bipartisanship means "do what the Republicans say". It does not bode well for a new sort of cooperation.
psst... here's the funny thing... Obama is Centerish (towards the right) to you guys.
But, he aint at the Center now in America.
However, this is standard negotiation... compromise tactic here... nothing new.
Republicans do not want to backtrack from their mantra that Obama is a socialist communist looking to redistribute wealth. If they were to accept him now, it would alienate the more Conservative base they pander to.
gorgon wrote: Which blue states will Jeb flip to red that get the GOP from 206 to 270?
Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
And a candidate only needs to pick up another 50,000 votes in Florida, and 100,000 votes in the other two states to flip them. Those results could happen without even running a better Republican candidate, just by having a slighter poorer Democratic turnout.
Seriously, the Republican loss in this election was not unrecoverable. And after 2006/2008 it shows how quick a party can turn its fortunes around.
In terms of next election Republicans can keep doing what they're doing, run someone like Jeb, and be a 50% chance of winning. The issue with the Republican party is more long term - that they can't be the white men party anymore because the demographic trends are starting to hurt, and are soon going to get a lot worse.
Jeb doesn't have the same political poison that Bush Sr./Jr. have. His only really big black stain was the 2000 election results from Florida. Aside from that, he's not a terrible candidate to field...if he wanted to run and everyone in the Republican party backed him.
Jeb doesn't have the same political poison that Bush Sr./Jr. have. His only really big black stain was the 2000 election results from Florida. Aside from that, he's not a terrible candidate to field...if he wanted to run and everyone in the Republican party backed him.
I get that... but, you don't think his opponent won't try to "paint" him like his dad or brother?
whembly wrote: sigh... so you think they're being brain washed now? They had to shift to the right in order to get past the primary... true, but that doesn't mean they'll govern as such.
No, but the issue is winning the election.
Having to move out the right, then move back in for the election makes it easy for the opposition to paint the candidate as a flip flopper.
Though this is hardly a unique thing, and is always worse when the other candidate is the incumbent and didn't have to go through a primary of their own - Kerry suffered the same problem as Romney as a result.
The issue is that while the voters who turn up for primaries tend to be more extreme in general, the Republican ones are even more so, especially with the impact of the Tea Party.
whembly wrote: sigh... so you think they're being brain washed now? They had to shift to the right in order to get past the primary... true, but that doesn't mean they'll govern as such.
No, but the issue is winning the election.
Having to move out the right, then move back in for the election makes it easy for the opposition to paint the candidate as a flip flopper.
Though this is hardly a unique thing, and is always worse when the other candidate is the incumbent and didn't have to go through a primary of their own - Kerry suffered the same problem as Romney as a result.
The issue is that while the voters who turn up for primaries tend to be more extreme in general, the Republican ones are even more so, especially with the impact of the Tea Party.
That's why they're politicians!
As any political junkie knows, that basically true for everyone. The issue is the low-information voters as it impacts their perception more...
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush isn’t running for something. That might have allowed him a degree of candor that current officials and candidates don’t enjoy. But in a breakfast this morning in Tampa with journalists from The Post and Bloomberg News, he also showed that, in many ways, he stands head and shoulders — and quite apart — from fellow Republicans.
Bush is known, as his brother was, for his devotion to resolving the illegal immigration problem and making the GOP a more inclusive party. Asked about the party’s gap with the Democrats among Hispanic voters, he said, “I think the gap can narrow, and I think it will narrow, as people get to know Mitt Romney. I’m always amazed at how, for normal people, how little they know about our candidates until like a night like tonight or the debates.”
In part, the GOP’s path to Hispanic voters runs through issues unrelated to immigration. As Bush said, Immigration “is down the list [of issues Hispanic voters care about] — about the same place it is for everybody else, maybe a little bit higher, but significantly lower than the economy, jobs, education, deficit, debt, health care. Those are the issues that American voters say are the most important ones. But it’s a gateway issue, because it’s an issue that allows you — if you have shown some sensitivity — it allows you to be heard.”.
For Bush, the equation is simple. He was candid that his view is not the mainstream position within the Republican Party. Asked about his support for the Dream Act, Bush answered: “I think to use the power of the presidency effectively, you don’t have to use it for cynical reasons, and you don’t have to use it beyond what your power — what the Constitution allows. But having a solution to the fact that we have all of these young people, many of whom are making great contributions, don’t have a connection to their parents’ former country — yeah, of course I’m for it. You know, but then again, I’m — you know, I’m not running for anything and I can speak my mind.”
I asked Bush about what a Republican education policy should look like, given the party’s aversion to federal control. On higher education, he plunged right in, urging that we look anew at the entire student-loan system: “[W]hat we’ve done is, we’ve raised tuition. It’s been financed, by and large, by the federal government. Local government, state governments, as well, but mostly federal. And then we just put this load on unemployed graduates and those that don’t graduate. Those are the ones that Paul Ryan talked about — that are in their pajamas in their parents’ guest room looking at the faded Obama posters. So we’re financing this off the backs of people that aren’t getting a bang for their buck. And this is a place I know that Governor Romney believes there has to be change. And where the federal government can play a useful role of providing education opportunities, but not at the expense of an unreformed higher education system.”
His idea is to use student loan monies to force reform upon higher education: He would say that “your university is not qualified to receive student loans, the benefit of student loans, if they don’t have performance criteria attached to it, that your graduation rate goes up . . . [So] require productivity gains. Require professors to teach. Require completion rates. Require that there’s counseling for students so they don’t change their degrees four times. Require the process to work more productively.”
On K-12 education, he had some praise for President Obama’s education secretary. He urged more of the same: “[T]he president can be a partner. Here — this is a place where, of all the policy areas, I think President Obama deserves some recognition for having a different approach than at least what I expected. He appointed a good education secretary, who’s worked across the aisle politically, and I think that could be expanded with stronger partnerships, more waivers that allow for meaningful reform.”
Bush is nevertheless an enthusiastic partisan, hopeful that Obama will be tossed out. He had an interesting take on Romney’s so-called likability problem: “[I]t’s not a bad thing to be reserved and humble and charitable and disciplined and hardworking. It’s being strangely viewed kind of as a defect in politics today, because we all have to be more Clinton-esque, I guess, and show our frailties in ways that people can relate to, because we’re all imperfect under God’s watchful eye.”
And he forcefully argued that Obama has failed to lead and bring in the opposition to solve our biggest issues. He told the journalists: “He didn’t win the election saying, ‘I’m a doctrinaire, hard-core ideologue. Vote for me.’ He won the election because he said that we can do things differently and we can find common ground. The old way’s bad, and we need to find a new way of doing things, and he — he violated his own mandate by moving in a completely different direction.”
Bush also painted Obama as a weak leader — who “outsourced” the stimulus and health care to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) — lacking the skill himself to forge deals. The need to bring party leaders together can’t be accomplished by Obama, Bush says: “I’m convinced it’s not going to happen with Barack Obama as president.”
Bush is a successful two-term governor, with a record of reform and a inclusive attitude when it comes to courting voters and governing. If in the future he decides to return to the political arena, the country and the GOP would be well served.
Kilkrazy wrote: It has often struck me how many blatant misrepresentations have been made by conservative media and bloggers, etc.
Ultimately it is self-defeating because it makes any informed person feel that the commentators do not have any real arguments to make.
It is a preaching to the choir that turns into a kind of group think.
But perhaps I am fooling myself. Perhaps liberal commentators are the same.
The same tendency exists among the left wing, but right now in the rightwing is far worse.
I think it comes from one key issue - there is a lack of an intellectual core to the rightwing in the US right now. This is basically because the two core economic ideas they've centred themselves around - trickle down economics and the Laffer Curve, are simply and utterly wrong. Once you basically have to turn off your intellect to buy in to your core economic principles, everything else flows from there.
Ouze wrote: There is a really terrific piece you guys may be interested in, if you participated in this thread. It addresses some structural issues with conservative media.
It's a good article, and does raise a point that I'd kind of half forgotten - there were a lot of really, really stupid Republican efforts to tarnish Obama in this campaign. Loads of misquotes, quotes taken out of context, and some just plain nutty weirdness (of which birtherism is the most famous, but far from the only one).
Exactly what kind of culture do we have in the rightwing in the US right now, that produces such silliness?
Exactly what kind of culture do we have in the rightwing in the US right now, that produces such silliness?
The same that would have Sean Hannity label half the voters in this country as highly irresponsible people who want the government to take care of all their needs, redistribute their wealth and made America a liberal hippy haven.
Ouze wrote: There is a really terrific piece you guys may be interested in, if you participated in this thread. It addresses some structural issues with conservative media.
It's a good article, and does raise a point that I'd kind of half forgotten - there were a lot of really, really stupid Republican efforts to tarnish Obama in this campaign. Loads of misquotes, quotes taken out of context, and some just plain nutty weirdness (of which birtherism is the most famous, but far from the only one).
Exactly what kind of culture do we have in the rightwing in the US right now, that produces such silliness?
Honesty... they go apeshit 'cuz the wrong team won. Then, the looney just comes out...
Honesty... they go apeshit 'cuz the wrong team won. Then, the looney just comes out...
A part of the looney issue is that the media and the populace love to eat up the outlandish, foolish, and the absurd like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. People like Glenn Beck have a platform to launch their lunatic ideals across a broad spectrum because they are both entertaining and convincing. It does not help that the liberal media laughs along with them, but they are also helping the problem grow because it galvanizes those who listen to the likes of Beck (I actually kinda like Hannity when he's not off on a far right mantra) and now we're back to square one as Limbaugh basically said no movement to the center; so no immigration reform advances for the Republicans for some time to come.
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
I think a lot of people aren't seeing the difference between the GOP in the short term and GOP in the long term.
Short term the Republican party can be pretty confident of turning up to the next election with a decent shot. They can be pretty confident of getting out 60 million voters, including potentially winning numbers in each of the swing states. But the demographic problem keeps growing each election after that, a lot of those 60 million voters are older, and the core demographic, white people, isn't growing like other demographics.
I agree that leftwing pundits are crowing, and overstating how much this win means for future elections (I'm reminded of Rove's permanent majority in 2000...), but there is still a problem the GOP has to address long term.
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whembly wrote: Doesn't anyone thing the "Bush" name is poison?
I'd rather it'd be Rubio than Jeb...
I think 'Bush' is a hindrance, but not necessarily a lethal one.
From what I've seen of the guy he seems a pretty strong candidate, though I don't see so much in him that pushing past that name will be an automatic thing.
No the Bush name isn't poison. Sr was really well respected amongst the Rockefellers. You know before the Liars for Jesus got ahold of the party. He was never particularly fond of the religious right and the feeling was mutual. Jr spent both his terms tearing down his fathers legacy, often using the same people. It was a little sickening to watch for those of us who liked Bush Sr.
Jeb is a true big tent Republican of the stripe not found on the national stage anymore. He's made no attempt to pander to the far right and while he's a party man I think he's a lot stronger than his brother, and I don't think he's willing to prostrate himself at the Kochs or the RRs feet to win the primary. With his name, family, and let's be honest money; he doesn't need to.
Jeb is really everything the current establishment fears and the old guard is secretly cheering for.
As a fun aside, did you know that there's a pretty easy conspiracy connection from George Sr to JFK?
As any political junkie knows, that basically true for everyone. The issue is the low-information voters as it impacts their perception more...
Yeah, but there's no denying it costs the Republicans more. I mean, even if you just look at the opposition, who have a bigger base, but one that's less inclined to turn out to vote. One of the most effective tools Democrats have for getting their base out is anything they say, but in scaring their voters about how bad the other guy is.
So that's why we saw the attacks on Bain Capital, why we saw Obama run heavily on the 20% tax cut thing. Now, imagine if a Republican could get through the primary without having to say anything potentially scary to the left? How much less ammunition would the Democratic candidate have?
As any political junkie knows, that basically true for everyone. The issue is the low-information voters as it impacts their perception more...
Yeah, but there's no denying it costs the Republicans more. I mean, even if you just look at the opposition, who have a bigger base, but one that's less inclined to turn out to vote. One of the most effective tools Democrats have for getting their base out is anything they say, but in scaring their voters about how bad the other guy is.
So that's why we saw the attacks on Bain Capital, why we saw Obama run heavily on the 20% tax cut thing. Now, imagine if a Republican could get through the primary without having to say anything potentially scary to the left? How much less ammunition would the Democratic candidate have?
Yeah... good point.
Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
AustonT wrote: No the Bush name isn't poison. Sr was really well respected amongst the Rockefellers. You know before the Liars for Jesus got ahold of the party. He was never particularly fond of the religious right and the feeling was mutual. Jr spent both his terms tearing down his fathers legacy, often using the same people. It was a little sickening to watch for those of us who liked Bush Sr.
Yeah, Bush Sr's inability to appeal to the religious vote is considered a primary reason for his defeat. Alongside 'no new taxes' and running against Clinton.
Yeah McCain was the only one I remember because I preferred him over Bush. I still maintain that in 2000 McCain would have beaten Gore badly and the only reason Bush won the primary was the Karl Rove machine.
whembly wrote: Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.
You don't.
The problem with the extreme religious right is that they're really bad for appealing to moderates, but they're very consistent with high turnout and always voting for the guy with an "R" next to his name. If you marginalize them they certainly aren't voting democrat, but they can stay home on election day. So if you lose that block of consistent votes you're going to have to work very hard to make up for it with new moderate voters, and that probably means reinventing the party. The end result is an awkward situation: they can't afford to lose the "liars for Jesus" crowd, but they can't afford to keep them either.
Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
Bloody good question
I mean, right now the party simply needs that voting bloc to win. There isn't that many but their participation rate is miles above any other group. So they can't alienate them, but at the same time they have to modify that message so it doesn't alienate other groups, and find new messages that appeal elsewhere.
I think it's about modifying the message. A classic example is abortion - you can maintain a strong abortion position, but just don't have anyone out there saying stuff about rape means you can't get pregnant. Which is really just message discipline - something that's hard while there's Tea Party style nuts winning primaries.
Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money.
Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes.
Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
I get your point.
There are two things about it.
1. Romney was the best candidate the Republican Party could find. That's a problem that the Party needs to fix, not Romney.
2. The demographics are constantly changing against the Republicans, so they will not be as close as 1% in 2016.
It is quite the shame. the origins of "Grand Old" Republican is intrinsictly LEFT. initiating emancipation. abolishing slavery. a considerable progress to american society. well it is another discussion entirely because it involves with American Civil War.
so is it G.W. Bush policy that trademarks the Republicans as Rightwing Party?
AustonT wrote: In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money.
Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes.
Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.
Marriage equality, yes. That's a lost fight and has been for some time.
Abortion's not something the GOP needs to give up on, though. Polling has actually moved very slightly in the pro-life position's favor over the years, and, more importantly, it is a third rail with a huge chunk of the Republican base. The country's in the middle on the issue - most don't want to ban abortion, most don't want it to be completely unrestricted.
The press knows full well than no President can overturn the Supreme Court ruling on abortion but they toss out the question looking for a drama bomb to explode. You'd think that most people would hear Admiral Akbar's voice in their head shouting, "It's a trap!" but then shure as sh#@ some f-tard like Todd Akin will decide that it is a wonderful opportunity to open his screaming howler and show the world what an absolute deluded tool he is. Once that's done, the reporters all cry out in unison, "To the interwebs!"
Seriously, people. Reporters are not therapists. Stop sharing your innermost feelings with them - especially if your beliefs make Scientologists look sane.
sebster wrote: I mean, even if you just look at the opposition, who have a bigger base, but one that's less inclined to turn out to vote. One of the most effective tools Democrats have for getting their base out is anything they say, but in scaring their voters about how bad the other guy is.
That right there, is the core of the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans are the party of exclusion and they insist on purity of thought. The Democrats are the party of inclusion. They don't usually care what you believe as long as you don't try to force them to abide by those beliefs. With the diversity in the Democratic party, it is hard to get them pointed in one direction for what they believe in, but rather it's easier to get them pointed in the direction opposing someone that tries to impose the rules of their belief system on them. Your average Democrat doesn't care if you are against gay marriage. However, it's when you try to stop other people from trying to get married that they have an issue.
Both parties get the most riled up by an enemy. The difference is that Republicans create the enemy by nature due to the purity of thought principle. Granted, the easiest way throughout history to get people together is to find a common enemy.
It's all kind of like the argumented between the 'hobbiests' and the 'power gamers'...Or the 'Role players' and the 'Roll players'.
Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money.
Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes.
Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.
You are right, but you just have to be prepared to be out int he wilderness while you "rebuild" your base. Rebuilding a base could take a generation, and I don't think the current R big-wigs really want to do that kind of work if they don't absolutely have to.
ProtoClone wrote: I do not think this was just happenstance that Romney lost. I believe they did this so they could put someone better in the ring next time around.
The democrats did this in 2004 with Bush Vs. Kerry. They put up, to use wrestling terms, a jobber against Bush because they knew they couldn't compete. They instead allowed the republicans have another four years and allowed them to wear out their welcome. So when 2008 came around the once reigning champs that were the republicans were too weak to hold up against the onslaught that was the democratic ticket. I sincerely believe McCain wanted the presidency but his party was too weak hold on to the spot. We now see the same game but with the roles reversed.
The republicans have a plan and just because they lost doesn't mean it wasn't a part of their plan like the democrats.
i think you give them far too much intellectual credit...
They lost because they refuse to adapt (or even pretend to adapt) to social/demographic changes in the U.S. and instead pandered to a shrinking aspect of their base (the nutjob/racist/sexist/homophobe brigade).
They insist on pretending it is still the 1950's and and they shot themselves in the foot as a result...
They's be smart to start grooming some more moderate republican candidates that actually understand the importance of the latino vote moving forward...
Honestly, I don't think I give them too much credit, their politicians and they play those kinds of games.
Both parties, all political parties, play these kinds of games. They are OK with taking one to the face if it means it gives them a better shot later on.
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
I get your point.
There are two things about it.
1. Romney was the best candidate the Republican Party could find. That's a problem that the Party needs to fix, not Romney.
2. The demographics are constantly changing against the Republicans, so they will not be as close as 1% in 2016.
A 1% swing isn't enough even now.
If 1% of voters changed from Democrat to Republican (assume equally among every state), that still gives Obama the popular vote by over a million. And, Obama still wins Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virgina, New Hampshire and Ohio. The only state that flips is Florida.
This election really wasn't all that close (despite the hype).
Testify wrote: a 1% swing could have given Romney the presidancy. A better candidate (Romney, at his very best, is wishy-washy) could have won with the republican's policies.
Some people in this thread seem to be regurgitating things they've seen pundits say on tv, which is disapointing.
I get your point.
There are two things about it.
1. Romney was the best candidate the Republican Party could find. That's a problem that the Party needs to fix, not Romney.
2. The demographics are constantly changing against the Republicans, so they will not be as close as 1% in 2016.
A 1% swing isn't enough even now.
If 1% of voters changed from Democrat to Republican (assume equally among every state), that still gives Obama the popular vote by over a million. And, Obama still wins Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virgina, New Hampshire and Ohio. The only state that flips is Florida.
This election really wasn't all that close (despite the hype).
Yeah, I think the run Jeb => win White House crowd in this thread has missed the message somehow. There are fundamental, structural reasons why the Dems are set up well for 2016 and beyond without some meaningful shifts by the GOP AS A PARTY.
I think they'll eventually happen, but those shifts will be painful. It's easy to change candidates, but hard to convince people that the GOP platform and possibly its values are at fault. It's hard to muzzle the Teabaggers and "legitimate rape" mongers -- who clearly did put the fear of God into some voters through no fault of Romney's.
Note how conservative talk radio reacted to the Romney loss (I've been doing a little of this the past few days). Those guys are hard at work creating "blame doughnuts," hanging the loss on everyone and everything around them while they sit inside a perfect center of blamelessness. Them sure are some tasty doughnuts.
Grakmar wrote: Note how conservative talk radio reacted to the Romney loss (I've been doing a little of this the past few days). Those guys are hard at work creating "blame doughnuts," hanging the loss on everyone and everything around them while they sit inside a perfect center of blamelessness. Them sure are some tasty doughnuts.
Remember, you are forgetting the cardinal rule of Conservatism....
"Conservative principles never fail. They can only BE failed."
I am being a good friend by not being mean to my buddy. And I hope that Obama doesn't turn crazy-liberal this term. But the amount of hope and/or delution the week before the election on his part was just nuts. Each night at work he would watch Karl Rove predict all the states and chart the ways he could win, calling blue states for Romney left and right. And I would talk to him abou how those projections are bogus just by looking at all the data. But he was sucked into the "the polls are faking it" argument. When Fox News called it for Obama he was truly in shock.
I think the pundits are partly to blame. I don't know if they are living inside their own lies, or if Fox News knew that they were predicting crap but want to give their viewers what they want to hear to boost ratings.
But if your cheerleaders are lying to you instead of telling you the truth so you can change, then it will be a long decade for you.
whembly wrote: .
Now, how do we marginalize the "Liars for Jesus" crowd? (the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money.
Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes.
Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.
So how do you make up for those lost votes?
For example, consider NC. In 2008 we voted narrowly for Obama, in 2012 we voted narrowly for Romney. However, part of that Romney support was from the poor, but very religious western parts of the state (our gay marriage ban passed with 70% support or more in some of those counties). If you publicly remove the "Liars for Jesus" element you're going to lose a lot of support there. They might vote democrat for economic reasons, or they might just stay home on election day, but you're not going to have that consistent support unless you keep {censored}ing the religious right. Fail to do it and you might just turn NC blue, and that's 15 electoral votes you have to make up somewhere else.
And of course changing the party platform to make up for the lost social conservative vote and building new support is going to take time. 2014 is a lost cause, and 2016 probably is too. So imagine the worst-case scenario for the new republicans: the economy recovers, 10+ years of democrats in power don't destroy the country, and all of those democrats are now incumbents. At that point, is it even possible anymore for the republican party to become anything more than a permanent minority?
Conclusion: the Liars for Jesus will continue to cost the republicans elections, but they can't afford to just tell them to off and stop talking.
Seaward wrote: Abortion's not something the GOP needs to give up on, though. Polling has actually moved very slightly in the pro-life position's favor over the years, and, more importantly, it is a third rail with a huge chunk of the Republican base. The country's in the middle on the issue - most don't want to ban abortion, most don't want it to be completely unrestricted.
Poll numbers aside, the problem with abortion is that the scientific facts are against the pro-life position. The pro-life argument is inherently a religious one, and if you get religion involved you're inevitably going to have to deal with the extremists saying stupid things and making you look bad. And can you really blame them? Certain candidates need a lesson in biology, but their basic argument against rape exceptions is absolutely consistent with, and in fact a mandatory consequence of, a belief that life begins at conception. As morally repulsive as these people are, they are the ones who are consistent in their beliefs, and the people who want to allow abortion in the case of rape are spineless hypocrites who are too afraid of public opinion to accept the consequences of their beliefs. Likewise for the extremists who want to kill abortion doctors. If you genuinely believe that life begins at conception it is your duty to kill anyone who tries to offer an abortion, and you have blood on your hands every time you decide that you're too afraid of prison to do it.
End result: the "mainstream" pro-life position is a hypocritical mess, and it only "works" if you don't think about it in any detail. That's fine if you're an "undecided moderate" (IOW, uninformed) voter who never thinks about it, but campaigning on a pro-life position inevitably associates you with the people who don't have to balance appealing to the party faithful with keeping their opinion poll numbers up.
I was reading an article on Yahoo last week and one of the comments was an ~1000 word essay deconstructing Obama's name into ancient Hebrew and it showed that he might indeed be the Anti-Christ.
The scary part about this was the roughly 150 thumbs up, and 20 or so thumbs down.
It's going to be hard for the Republican party to change when for the last 30 years its been pandering to people that honestly think the world is 6000 years old. The only way I see a long term survival is dumping all this "family values" bs and going for fiscally conservative stance.
The beauty of extremism is exclusionsim. The liars for Jebus don't have anywhere else to go. If the Republicans stop pushing thier social agenda the Religious Right doesn't become democrat overnight. They have nowhere else to go. Because even if the Republicans don't push FOR thier adgenda, the Democrats still push AGAINST it. Unlike some "former natzis" most people don't sell thier core beliefs cheaply or often.
So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are. In other words the Republicans stand to lose nothing and gain everything, but the Democrats don't stand to gain anything unless they decide to sell thier core beliefs. You know like they did in the middle of the 20th Century.
Peregrine wrote: Poll numbers aside, the problem with abortion is that the scientific facts are against the pro-life position. The pro-life argument is inherently a religious one, and if you get religion involved you're inevitably going to have to deal with the extremists saying stupid things and making you look bad. And can you really blame them? Certain candidates need a lesson in biology, but their basic argument against rape exceptions is absolutely consistent with, and in fact a mandatory consequence of, a belief that life begins at conception. As morally repulsive as these people are, they are the ones who are consistent in their beliefs
Actually they are only consistant in their beliefs if they are labeled a more correct pro-birth movement. Once a child is born, they don't care about keeping it alive and healthy, so if the kid makes the huge mistake of being born to the wrong parents, he will suffer for that.
I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion
AustonT wrote: He has to run in the primary. Sometimes he loses, it takes a pretty strong canidate to beat the incumbent VP though.
Sort of. I mean, sure, if you've got a guy like Gore who's been groomed for the role and given a healthy dose of the spotlight during the previous presidency, then he's gonna take a beating.
But not that many VPs even run in the primary. I'd be surprised if Biden did. I mean I like the guy but I think this is probably as far as good as its going to get for him - he's a good number two. Cheney was never going to run.
You have to go back to 1988, 24 years and six elections, to get a VP running and winning. Before that you have to go back to who, like Hubert Humphrey to find a VP that even had a presidential run.
I know, I get this feeling these guys are talking about this stuff like its history on a text book page, and I'm reading it thinking 'no, it isn't history, it actually happened I was there'
Yeah, Bush was against a few folks, McCain among them. Bush played extremely, extremely dirty with McCain, particularly in South Carolina.
Oh yeah, "Would you change your vote if you knew McCain had fathered a black baby?" is perhaps the classic example of dirty campaigning.
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AustonT wrote: In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money. Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes. Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.
And then you lose, and you lose bad.
In fact, you don't even get far enough to lose, because you set off the social conservatives, who turn out hard in the primary, and you get talked about for a month or two as 'whatever happened to that guy in the primary, man he tanked' and then you get forgotten about hard.
You need to keep the religious right on-side, without saying anything that sets off the rest of the country, and at the same time adapting the message so that you can draw in voters from groups that aren't white.
AustonT wrote: So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are.
The problem is that the Liars for Jesus wing of the party is obsessed with ideological purity, and a frightening percentage of them have insane beliefs about the "end times" and how they will be alone in fighting to the end against "oppression" by everyone else. If the republican party abandons their agenda, especially with the kind of public break that would convince moderates that the republicans have genuinely dropped the social conservative agenda and aren't just being quiet about it to win opinion polls, they have a high risk of one of two bad scenarios:
1) Like the Ayn Rand faithful, the LFJ run a third-party candidate focused on ideological purity over any practical chance of winning the election. On election day large numbers of religious conservatives vote for the third party, confident that this is a sign that the end times are here and biblical prophecy has promised that they will be alone in their vote and have no hope of winning, but they will fight the spiritual war and be raptured up to heaven. While their candidate has zero appeal outside of the religous right it's enough to cut into the republican majority in otherwise close states, and turn them blue with a 43/42/15 split.
or
2) Convinced that both parties have abandoned them and the end times are here, the LFJ decide that a vote for either candidate means eternity in hell and stay home on election day. Or, at most, some of them reluctantly press the "R" as the lesser of the two evils, but don't invest any effort in campaigning/fundraising/etc. Without high (and universally republican) turnout from the LFJ several states (like NC) go from a 50/49 win to a 50/49 loss.
In either case the republican party has to pick up a lot of votes among moderates to make up for losing the guaranteed LFJ vote, and they have to do it fast, before the democrats have too much of an incumbent advantage and demographic shift for the republican party to overcome.
youbedead wrote: I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion
There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.
skyth wrote: That right there, is the core of the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans are the party of exclusion and they insist on purity of thought. The Democrats are the party of inclusion. They don't usually care what you believe as long as you don't try to force them to abide by those beliefs.
True, though it's worth pointing out this hasn't always been the case, and isn't destined to always be the case. Afterall, Reagan famously said "if we agree on seven out of ten things then we're on the same side" or something to that effect.
With the diversity in the Democratic party, it is hard to get them pointed in one direction for what they believe in, but rather it's easier to get them pointed in the direction opposing someone that tries to impose the rules of their belief system on them. Your average Democrat doesn't care if you are against gay marriage. However, it's when you try to stop other people from trying to get married that they have an issue.
Definitely true. It's why the Democrats often look like a fairly coherent whole when they're opposition, and not at all like a party when they win government.
It's like when people point out that Obama had the house and a filibuster proof majority in the senate... but ignore that the party he was relying on are the Democrats.
Breotan wrote: For people that mostly seem happy the way the election turned out, some of you sure are putting out a lot of bile.
er... who?
It's pretty civil here... on other sites? Whoa... lot's of gloating.
I'm not worried about gloating. I expected that regardless of the outcome. Still, I guess you are right that it is pretty civil here overall, especially compared to other places.
Lone Cat wrote: It is quite the shame. the origins of "Grand Old" Republican is intrinsictly LEFT. initiating emancipation. abolishing slavery. a considerable progress to american society. well it is another discussion entirely because it involves with American Civil War.
so is it G.W. Bush policy that trademarks the Republicans as Rightwing Party?
Basically the move of the Republicans to the right wing has its origins in the Great Depression. Hoover and the Republicans were focused on letting the depression run its course, Roosevelt took a view that government involvement would bring a quicker end. Battle lines were drawn, Roosevelt brought in his New Deal and Republicans set about dismantling it. The Republicans had evolved from a broadly conservative party to one with a clear opposition to government intervention in the economy.
The second major shift comes with the rise of young liberals within the Democratic party, and their focus on civil liberties. Under Lyndon Johnson you had the Civil Liberties Act passed and then enforced in the South, previously a Democratic stronghold. This left a huge number of voters in the South disaffected and feeling betrayed by the Democrats. Nixon picked up on this, instigating the Southern Strategy - a set of campaign policies that aimed to win those formerly Democratic voters in the South over to the Republican party - calling for State's Rights and other similar things.
I mean, that's a really simple look at it. Like everything there's lots of complicating factors, but in broad strokes pretty much sums up how you get from the party of Lincoln to the modern Republican party.
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Grakmar wrote: This election really wasn't all that close (despite the hype).
No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and we'd all be talking about how the Democrats recover from the hole they're in.
The point is that in an economy like this the Republicans the outside party should be winning, and that, whether they won this election or not the Republicans have a long term demographic problem.
sebster wrote: No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and Obama still wins, but the democrats worry about how they're going to win again in 2016.
Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.
AustonT wrote: He has to run in the primary. Sometimes he loses, it takes a pretty strong canidate to beat the incumbent VP though.
Sort of. I mean, sure, if you've got a guy like Gore who's been groomed for the role and given a healthy dose of the spotlight during the previous presidency, then he's gonna take a beating.
But not that many VPs even run in the primary. I'd be surprised if Biden did. I mean I like the guy but I think this is probably as far as good as its going to get for him - he's a good number two. Cheney was never going to run.
You have to go back to 1988, 24 years and six elections, to get a VP running and winning. Before that you have to go back to who, like Hubert Humphrey to find a VP that even had a presidential run.
You must have missed the part where we were talking about primaries.
sebster wrote: No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and Obama still wins, but the democrats worry about how they're going to win again in 2016.
Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.
Seb... where are you getting the 100K and 50k figures?
d-usa wrote: I think the pundits are partly to blame. I don't know if they are living inside their own lies, or if Fox News knew that they were predicting crap but want to give their viewers what they want to hear to boost ratings.
The pundits exist in a totally insular world. They talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other and come up with little theories that work perfectly inside their own little fact free world. They honestly think if they can shout 'bias' at people giving them facts often enough, and are imaginitive enough they can explain away reality and then reality will actually stop being a problem.
I think this explains why so many political attacks against Obama in this campaign weren't just dishonest, but were so god damn stupid. They lost perspective, and thought if they could convince themselves it was a real issue, then it was an people would be swayed by it.
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AustonT wrote: The beauty of extremism is exclusionsim. The liars for Jebus don't have anywhere else to go. If the Republicans stop pushing thier social agenda the Religious Right doesn't become democrat overnight. They have nowhere else to go. Because even if the Republicans don't push FOR thier adgenda, the Democrats still push AGAINST it. Unlike some "former natzis" most people don't sell thier core beliefs cheaply or often.
But that means they won't go vote for Democrats, but it doesn't mean they keep voting Republican. Instead, it means they go back to what they were doing before the 1970s - simply not voting at all. And right now, if they're not voting Republican, then the Republicans are facing eradication.
So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are. In other words the Republicans stand to lose nothing and gain everything, but the Democrats don't stand to gain anything unless they decide to sell thier core beliefs. You know like they did in the middle of the 20th Century.
The big problem there is your assumption that the Republicans can just claim the ground for fiscal conservatism. The party of the Laffer Curve doesn't get to claim its fiscally prudent.
A Republican party that actually delivered disciplined, forward minded budgets? That'd be a hell of a thing. But you don't just get to claim that's who you are without delivering, and with the US political structure as it is, its near impossible to deliver even if you desperately want to.
youbedead wrote: I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion
There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.
It's easy, the reason that an unexpected death, especially of someone who is young, is viewed as worse then the natural death of an old person is that the young person still has potential left in them, as there is nothing with more potential then a human. By that logic abortion should be avoided as it removes the entire potential of a person. It's not killing a person as there is no person to kill yet, but it is removing the potential of a future human. But as I said earlier it's not a good enough argument to remove the woman choice.
There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.
I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.
Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.
d-usa wrote: I think the pundits are partly to blame. I don't know if they are living inside their own lies, or if Fox News knew that they were predicting crap but want to give their viewers what they want to hear to boost ratings.
The pundits exist in a totally insular world. They talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other and come up with little theories that work perfectly inside their own little fact free world. They honestly think if they can shout 'bias' at people giving them facts often enough, and are imaginitive enough they can explain away reality and then reality will actually stop being a problem.
I think this explains why so many political attacks against Obama in this campaign weren't just dishonest, but were so god damn stupid. They lost perspective, and thought if they could convince themselves it was a real issue, then it was an people would be swayed by it.
I think Megyn Kelly asked Karl Rove the best question of the night:
"so is this math you as a republican do to make yourself feel better or is it real?"
Kovnik Obama wrote: I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.
Except any "human dignity" that can apply to a fetus with no functioning nervous system, capacity to feel pain, etc, can apply equally well to cancer cells and nobody would ever argue that you shouldn't treat cancer by removing the problem cells. The only way to oppose abortion is to bring in some kind of characteristic that the fetus has that other blobs of meat don't have, and that requires religion.
So, while there may be "arguments" in the sense that people compose grammatically correct sentences expressing their disagreement, those arguments are laughably bad and we should not pay any attention to them.
Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.
Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.
Kovnik Obama wrote: I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.
Except any "human dignity" that can apply to a fetus with no functioning nervous system, capacity to feel pain, etc, can apply equally well to cancer cells and nobody would ever argue that you shouldn't treat cancer by removing the problem cells. The only way to oppose abortion is to bring in some kind of characteristic that the fetus has that other blobs of meat don't have, and that requires religion.
So, while there may be "arguments" in the sense that people compose grammatically correct sentences expressing their disagreement, those arguments are laughably bad and we should not pay any attention to them.
Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.
Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.
And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living
youbedead wrote: And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living
Then what point do you have? The fetus has no soul, no dignity, no life, so what exactly does it have that deserves protection?
And no, the "potential" argument doesn't count, because every single egg* cell a woman produces has the potential to become another human and we don't throw women in prison for life for "ending" that potential by declining to get pregnant at every possible opportunity for their entire life. Nor do we immediately put the entire resources of society into doing everything we can to solve the "problem" that many fetuses end in miscarriage for completely natural reasons, a "death" toll far worse than any other loss of life in the world right now. And because we don't do those things we reveal the "potential" argument to be nothing more than a flimsy excuse.
*We'll ignore the male side since there's no way to avoid that mass murder of "potential".
My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:
If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.
d-usa wrote: My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:
If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.
Or try this... and it's true, I've experienced this...
If a woman wants to abort... that's her choice.
If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.
youbedead wrote: And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living
Then what point do you have? The fetus has no soul, no dignity, no life, so what exactly does it have that deserves protection?
And no, the "potential" argument doesn't count, because every single egg* cell a woman produces has the potential to become another human and we don't throw women in prison for life for "ending" that potential by declining to get pregnant at every possible opportunity for their entire life. Nor do we immediately put the entire resources of society into doing everything we can to solve the "problem" that many fetuses end in miscarriage for completely natural reasons, a "death" toll far worse than any other loss of life in the world right now. And because we don't do those things we reveal the "potential" argument to be nothing more than a flimsy excuse.
*We'll ignore the male side since there's no way to avoid that mass murder of "potential".
Alright then a question to you, do you believe that it it is completely ethical for a woman to drink and smoke while pregnant. Also your argument was that there is no argument against abortion that is non-religious not that you have to agree with that argument
Peregrine wrote: Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.
Fair point, you have to add in Colorado as well. Point still remains, though, that not that much has to change for the Republicans to turn things around.
People were calling the death of the Republicans in 2000, afterall. Remember the permanent majority?
d-usa wrote: My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:
If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.
It's a crime for the man to do it (I'm not sure if it's actually murder) because it's an unwanted end. Whether or not it's precisely murder it should be an additional crime to represent the fact that, in addition to the usual effects of violence (like getting punched in the face or whatever), the woman now has to suffer the loss of a child. It might not be a technically accurate representation of the loss, but if the only way to add that punishment under the existing legal system is to call it "murder", call it murder and increase the sentence.
whembly wrote: If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.
Err, what? Do you have a source for that?
youbedead wrote: Alright then a question to you, do you believe that it it is completely ethical for a woman to drink and smoke while pregnant.
No, because doing those things increases the chance of harming a person, not just a lump of meat. The fetus as it exists at the time of the drinking/smoking might not have a right to avoid that harm, but if the woman keeps it then eventually it will become a child that suffers the consequences of the drinking/smoking. The ban isn't to protect the current lump of meat, it's to protect the possible future child.
(And of course it would be just fine for the woman to drink and smoke on her way to get an abortion, since there would be no harm done.)
Also your argument was that there is no argument against abortion that is non-religious not that you have to agree with that argument
Ok, there's no legitimate argument that is based on anything more than "because I said so". You can form grammatically correct sentences opposing abortion, but if they're laughably wrong then I don't really see how that's any different than there being no argument at all.
The abortion argument is probably pretty off-topic by now. So if we want the 28th abortion argument of 2012 we should probably start a new thread and keep this one focused on the GOP.
But you just said that arguing based on potential or basing the argument on the future of the fetus is fallicios. Therefor you have to accept that it is also not unethical for the mother to drink during pregnancy.
youbedead wrote: But you just said that arguing based on potential or basing the argument on the future of the fetus is fallicios. Therefor you have to accept that it is also not unethical for the mother to drink during pregnancy.
Except that's not true at all.
In the case of abortion the question is whether the fetus right now has rights based on its potential.
In the case of drinking or smoking the question is whether the entity that will suffer harm from the action has rights. It has nothing to do with potential, it's just a case of delayed harm, like how it would be wrong for me to poison you with a really slow acting poison that won't harm you until years from now.
The two ethical questions are entirely different, and the answer to one has nothing at all to do with the answer to the other.
Peregrine wrote: Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.
No, dude, just no.
There is no point at which we can say with any degree of objective satisfaction that something was not a human, and now is. Instead we have a series of different concepts, all of which are arbitrary to some extent or another. I mean, a new born baby can't focus on the world around it, can't form independant thoughts, and so doesn't really qualify for most intelligence measures of what makes a human, and yet people who'd claim it was okay for a mother to kill her three month old child are pretty thin on the ground.
People just have to take a step back, and admit the complexity of this issue, instead of just hammering away and declaring everyone else wrong.
That includes the 'life begins at conception' people, who have a religious belief that's entirely an invention of the late 70s/early 80s, by the way.
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whembly wrote: Or try this... and it's true, I've experienced this...
If a woman wants to abort... that's her choice.
If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.
Strange world eh?
EDIT - wow that's some crazy bs.
Still, that shows how objectionable it is to have medical procedures dependant on the approval of anyone other than the person being operated on, more than anything else.
Its like the old Dakka legend of the man in the backyard shaking a stick at invisible monsters. Why does he do it? Maybe he is trying to save make believe souls.
whembly wrote: If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.
Err, what? Do you have a source for that?
First of all... that happened to me. I needed my wife's (now ex) permission... this is even after I sired 2 boyz.
Secondly... it's all over the 'net. And it has to do with men secretly doing this and the wife sued the Dr...
That's just bizarre. Was this actually a law requiring permission, or was it a case of a doctor who imposed their personal beliefs on you?
(And men suing the doctor doesn't necessarily mean anything. You can sue over anything you want. For example, I could sue you for a billion dollars for having an annoying avatar, but that doesn't mean that having the avatar is illegal.)
sebster wrote: There is no point at which we can say with any degree of objective satisfaction that something was not a human, and now is. Instead we have a series of different concepts, all of which are arbitrary to some extent or another. I mean, a new born baby can't focus on the world around it, can't form independant thoughts, and so doesn't really qualify for most intelligence measures of what makes a human, and yet people who'd claim it was okay for a mother to kill her three month old child are pretty thin on the ground.
Sure, I admit that there's a gray area, however that gray area isn't relevant to the abortion debate. Virtually all abortions are done before the fetus develops to a point where there's any ambiguity, and almost all of the ones done later are done because of medical reasons like "the fetus is going to die as soon as it is born, and might kill the mother in the process".
The only way to push that gray area back far enough to cover the vast majority of abortions is to invoke a religious concept of a soul that appears before the physical development of the brain happens.
Peregrine wrote: Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.
No, dude, just no.
There is no point at which we can say with any degree of objective satisfaction that something was not a human, and now is. Instead we have a series of different concepts, all of which are arbitrary to some extent or another. I mean, a new born baby can't focus on the world around it, can't form independant thoughts, and so doesn't really qualify for most intelligence measures of what makes a human, and yet people who'd claim it was okay for a mother to kill her three month old child are pretty thin on the ground.
People just have to take a step back, and admit the complexity of this issue, instead of just hammering away and declaring everyone else wrong.
That includes the 'life begins at conception' people, who have a religious belief that's entirely an invention of the late 70s/early 80s, by the way.
You sir... are awesome! Gotta be one of the best explanation of that issue. :clapping:
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whembly wrote: Or try this... and it's true, I've experienced this...
If a woman wants to abort... that's her choice.
If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.
Strange world eh?
What? Where in the world does a man need spousal approval for a medical procedure?
Yup... happened to me and numerous guys. Urologist are afraid of being sued by an angry wife. My ex-wife had to sign a waiver saying it's okay for a doc to clip some tubings.
That's just bizarre. Was this actually a law requiring permission, or was it a case of a doctor who imposed their personal beliefs on you?
Nope... not a law...
Just a doctor covering his ass to prevent a possible enraged wife from sueing him.
(And men suing the doctor doesn't necessarily mean anything. You can sue over anything you want. For example, I could sue you for a billion dollars for having an annoying avatar, but that doesn't mean that having the avatar is illegal.)
No... there were cases that women were suing the Urologist for snipping her husband w/o her knowlege (so that the Hubby could fool around w/o spawning).
whembly wrote: Yup... happened to me and numerous guys. Urologist are afraid of being sued by an angry wife. My ex-wife had to sign a waiver saying it's okay for a doc to clip some tubings.
So that's not a law then, just the personal opinion of the doctor. That's entirely different from the debate over abortion, which is about legal bans.
whembly wrote: Yup... happened to me and numerous guys. Urologist are afraid of being sued by an angry wife. My ex-wife had to sign a waiver saying it's okay for a doc to clip some tubings.
So that's not a law then, just the personal opinion of the doctor. That's entirely different from the debate over abortion, which is about legal bans.
No... it's not about legal ban...
It's about the age old question "Do I have the right to my own body?".
That falls into:
-abortion
-drug use (weed)
-tattoo
-and yes, vasectomy
sebster wrote: There is no point at which we can say with any degree of objective satisfaction that something was not a human, and now is. Instead we have a series of different concepts, all of which are arbitrary to some extent or another. I mean, a new born baby can't focus on the world around it, can't form independant thoughts, and so doesn't really qualify for most intelligence measures of what makes a human, and yet people who'd claim it was okay for a mother to kill her three month old child are pretty thin on the ground.
Sure, I admit that there's a gray area, however that gray area isn't relevant to the abortion debate. Virtually all abortions are done before the fetus develops to a point where there's any ambiguity, and almost all of the ones done later are done because of medical reasons like "the fetus is going to die as soon as it is born, and might kill the mother in the process".
The only way to push that gray area back far enough to cover the vast majority of abortions is to invoke a religious concept of a soul that appears before the physical development of the brain happens.
whembly wrote: It's about the age old question "Do I have the right to my own body?".
No it isn't. The law has clearly answered that yes, you have the right to your own body in this case. That's entirely separate from a particular doctor deciding to be a and refuse to give you something you are legally permitted to have. You're free to find another doctor, do it yourself, etc.
sebster wrote: There is no point at which we can say with any degree of objective satisfaction that something was not a human, and now is. Instead we have a series of different concepts, all of which are arbitrary to some extent or another. I mean, a new born baby can't focus on the world around it, can't form independant thoughts, and so doesn't really qualify for most intelligence measures of what makes a human, and yet people who'd claim it was okay for a mother to kill her three month old child are pretty thin on the ground.
Sure, I admit that there's a gray area, however that gray area isn't relevant to the abortion debate. Virtually all abortions are done before the fetus develops to a point where there's any ambiguity, and almost all of the ones done later are done because of medical reasons like "the fetus is going to die as soon as it is born, and might kill the mother in the process".
The only way to push that gray area back far enough to cover the vast majority of abortions is to invoke a religious concept of a soul that appears before the physical development of the brain happens.
whembly wrote: It's about the age old question "Do I have the right to my own body?".
No it isn't. The law has clearly answered that yes, you have the right to your own body in this case. That's entirely separate from a particular doctor deciding to be a and refuse to give you something you are legally permitted to have. You're free to find another doctor, do it yourself, etc.
You missing my point...
Lemme try again...
If the doctor needs a waiver from a spouse in order for a hubby to get snipped, so that it protects the Doc from future litigation...
Why couldn't a hubby, sue the doctor who aborted his baby w/o his knowledge?
whembly wrote: Okay... my head is starting to hurt... but what?
It's a ridiculous attempt to try to argue that my justification for abortion also justifies killing the newborn, so therefore abortion should be banned. Fortunately it's a stupid argument.
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whembly wrote: If the doctor needs a waiver from a spouse in order for a hubby to get snipped, so that it protects the Doc from future litigation...
The doctor doesn't need a waiver, the individual doctor wants a waiver. Seriously, it's not that hard to understand the difference between what the law requires and what an individual person demands in addition to what the law requires.
Why couldn't a hubby, sue the doctor who aborted his baby w/o his knowledge?
They can, just like I can sue you for using the word "sue" in a forum post. However they shouldn't have any luck with that lawsuit, just like no sensible court would ever do anything but laugh at me and throw out my lawsuit.
whembly wrote: Okay... my head is starting to hurt... but what?
It's a ridiculous attempt to try to argue that my justification for abortion also justifies killing the newborn, so therefore abortion should be banned. Fortunately it's a stupid argument.
Do you not know how to read. No were have I said I believe abortion should be banned. My question is what makes a human life more valuable then an animal life, as what separates us from the animals often doesn't fully develop until many months after birth. If murder is defined as killing a human then we must determine what makes a human
Well, as Peregrine rightly corrected me, that still wouldn't have won the election. Romney still needed the next state in the pecking order to fall his way - Colorado, and that went 1,238,490 to 1,125,391, which was a safer margin of victory.
whembly wrote: Okay... my head is starting to hurt... but what?
It's a ridiculous attempt to try to argue that my justification for abortion also justifies killing the newborn, so therefore abortion should be banned. Fortunately it's a stupid argument.
I thought we were somehow talking about what does the GOP need to do regarding the abortion stance...
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whembly wrote: If the doctor needs a waiver from a spouse in order for a hubby to get snipped, so that it protects the Doc from future litigation...
The doctor doesn't need a waiver, the individual doctor wants a waiver. Seriously, it's not that hard to understand the difference between what the law requires and what an individual person demands in addition to what the law requires.
Next time, go ask your PCP or Urologist... while there's no laws on the books, if you're a young married man, then the doctor in his view would require it. I wouldn't be surprised the Doctor's Malpractice insurance would compel this requirement....
Why couldn't a hubby, sue the doctor who aborted his baby w/o his knowledge?
They can, just like I can sue you for using the word "sue" in a forum post. However they shouldn't have any luck with that lawsuit, just like no sensible court would ever do anything but laugh at me and throw out my lawsuit.
I see you're point... I was just pointing out how strange it is....
youbedead wrote: Do you not know how to read. No were have I said I believe abortion should be banned. My question is what makes a human life more valuable then an animal life, as what separates us from the animals often doesn't fully develop until many months after birth. If murder is defined as killing a human then we must determine what makes a human
Except, once again, the gray area doesn't matter. Abortion is so far on the side of "not a human being with human rights" that any remotely plausible definition of "human" will allow it.
Here's an analogy for you: killing is a subject with massive gray areas. Is killing in self defense justified, and under what circumstances? What relative degrees of punishment should go to killing deliberately vs. killing through negligence vs. killing by complete accident? Is there such a thing as a "just war", or is all killing in war wrong? If some killing in war is wrong but not other killing, does the responsibility for the killing fall on the individual soldier who did it, or the chain of command that ordered it? Etc.
However, none of these things matter if the question is whether it's wrong to pick a random stranger and shoot them in the head just for the fun of killing someone. That act of murder is so far from any of the gray areas that no matter what answers you give to the difficult questions you're still going to say it's wrong. Abortion is exactly the same.
whembly wrote: Okay... my head is starting to hurt... but what?
It's a ridiculous attempt to try to argue that my justification for abortion also justifies killing the newborn, so therefore abortion should be banned. Fortunately it's a stupid argument.
Do you not know how to read. No were have I said I believe abortion should be banned. My question is what makes a human life more valuable then an animal life, as what separates us from the animals often doesn't fully develop until many months after birth. If murder is defined as killing a human then we must determine what makes a human
Okay... can we please not get drag into this discussion right now... we're never going to change people's mind on this.
If you want to, lets discuss should the GOP change it's abortion plank to something more moderate? Like what D-USA said earlier? Being Pro-life in a Pro-Choice society... how could the GOP articulate that?
I think this is potentially thread derailement, even tho it might illustrate how a pro-life party might create itself a new platform while ditching the religious roots. So I'll limit myself to this post. If you really want to argue this, and I'd love to as long as it remains polite, maybe we could move this to another thread?
Except any "human dignity" that can apply to a fetus with no functioning nervous system, capacity to feel pain, etc, can apply equally well to cancer cells and nobody would ever argue that you shouldn't treat cancer by removing the problem cells.
Not at all, you could very well argue that having a future capacity to choose the shape of your life is part of this dignity. Freedom is a fundamental right, after all.
The only way to oppose abortion is to bring in some kind of characteristic that the fetus has that other blobs of meat don't have, and that requires religion.
A conscious future. A future ability to experiment. You argue as if morality ended at the immediate state of things, which it does not. Almost all moral systems will evaluate consequences according to what's foreseable from a point of view, either that of the evaluator or that of the agent. It would be a rather (extremely) conceited point of view that didn't see that killing a fetus steals something of a future being.
So, while there may be "arguments" in the sense that people compose grammatically correct sentences expressing their disagreement, those arguments are laughably bad and we should not pay any attention to them.
I disagree and would appreciate that you didn't ridiculize the moral position I take. There's enough derp over this subject (from both sides) that I think everyone should take care of not going in absolute statement regarding the value of those positions. It will only make the debate more healthy.
Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.
Your argument can be broken up in this way :
1) Human life is defined by x, y, z (either a legal, moral or semantical premise, your choice)
2) Fetus doesn't have x, y, z (scientific premise)
3) Human life is the only type of life we recognize has having value (moral value judgement)
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4) Fetus life doesn't have any moral value (moral conclusion)
You can arrange your argument in a few other ways, but there always will be a moral value judgement in it if you want to arrive to a moral conclusion. Such a moral value judgement doesn't have a scientific basis in itself. Therefore, while your scientific premise might be correct (I would posit that there are essential differences between cancer cells and human cells, regarding the actions of dna and the lack of actions on dna on an already used genetic material), one can simply reject your moral value judgement and replace it by another, for example, in my case, 3) the process of development of a potential human life is the only type of life we recognize has having an absolute value.
whembly wrote: I thought we were somehow talking about what does the GOP need to do regarding the abortion stance...
That was what started it, I pointed out that there's no viable secular argument against abortion, so any anti-abortion platform must include the religious element and carries the risk that another extremist idiot will say something stupid about "legitimate rape" or whatever and cost the republicans a seat in congress. Therefore any successful attempt to purge the republican party of the liability of those idiots is going to require removing the entire anti-abortion position from the republican party platform.
The rest is a couple people trying to come up with a secular argument against abortion and failing hilariously.
Peregrine wrote: Sure, I admit that there's a gray area, however that gray area isn't relevant to the abortion debate. Virtually all abortions are done before the fetus develops to a point where there's any ambiguity, and almost all of the ones done later are done because of medical reasons like "the fetus is going to die as soon as it is born, and might kill the mother in the process".
The only way to push that gray area back far enough to cover the vast majority of abortions is to invoke a religious concept of a soul that appears before the physical development of the brain happens.
No, the whole thing is a grey area, because human life is something that develops over an extended period of time, and any point you pick is arbitrary. It is true to say at any stage that more development, more advancement in complexity and thought patterns is more special, more deserving of life... but it is impossible to draw a line in the sand at any point and say 'this is now clearly life while what was there before clearly wasn't'.
Now, personally I don't agree with life beginning at conception, and more than anything else think it is a particularly weak religious argument, but it remains an arbitrary point just like any other. A person believing that is the point that life begins at isn't wrong. They are very simplistic, but no more simplistic than the person who says life doesn't begin there.
whembly wrote: If you want to, lets discuss should the GOP change it's abortion plank to something more moderate? Like what D-USA said earlier? Being Pro-life in a Pro-Choice society... how could the GOP articulate that?
It can't, not without removing the Liars for Jesus element of the party and throwing away those automatic votes. The only way to be "pro-life in a pro-choice society" is to say "I support allowing abortion, but will never choose it for myself", which is exactly what the pro-choice side wants. The hypothetical republican platform would be exactly identical to the democrats, and to all but the absolute most extreme (and irrelevant) zealots of the pro-choice movement.
sebster wrote: No, the whole thing is a grey area, because human life is something that develops over an extended period of time, and any point you pick is arbitrary. It is true to say at any stage that more development, more advancement in complexity and thought patterns is more special, more deserving of life... but it is impossible to draw a line in the sand at any point and say 'this is now clearly life while what was there before clearly wasn't'.
See previous post with the analogy to murder. It doesn't matter if you can't draw a non-arbitrary line as long as you can be absolutely certain that, wherever the line is eventually drawn, it falls outside the period where the vast majority of abortion occurs. And that's exactly the situation we're in: we can't be sure exactly when a "person" begins to exist, but we know with absolute certainty that the point (or period of time) can not happen before the brain develops and begins to operate.
Unless of course you want to invoke some kind of religious element, like a soul, in which case we're right back to what I said originally: the entire anti-abortion argument is a religious one, and the republican party can't maintain an anti-abortion position without suffering from the effects of the anti-abortion extremists of the religious right.
whembly wrote: I thought we were somehow talking about what does the GOP need to do regarding the abortion stance...
I think the answer there is simple - it doesn't have to do much. It's a vote winner.
It only becomes a costly issue when nutters on the fringes start saying stuff the DNC can use to motivate their base. But fortunately you can keep a strong line on no abortions ever and not give them DNC much to use just by sticking to a clear, simple message - we believe life begins at conception and while it is regrettable that a woman may be forced to carry a child to conception we do not believe in murdering the child to avoid that.
The trick is in stopping people who believe in magical anti-rape hormones from rising to leadership positions within the party.
sebster wrote: I think the answer there is simple - it doesn't have to do much. It's a vote winner.
It's a vote winner among certain elements of the party. It remains to be seen whether that's a valid long-term strategy, or whether it costs them more votes than it gains. My guess is that it's a net loss, but the question is whether the republican party can rebuild without the Liars for Jesus element fast enough to avoid becoming a permanent minority and losing any relevance in US politics at the national level.
It only becomes a costly issue when nutters on the fringes start saying stuff the DNC can use to motivate their base. But fortunately you can keep a strong line on no abortions ever and not give them DNC much to use just by sticking to a clear, simple message - we believe life begins at conception and while it is regrettable that a woman may be forced to carry a child to conception we do not believe in murdering the child to avoid that.
Except that's a losing argument. Most people do not agree with it and at least support allowing abortion in the case of rape, and by taking a no-exceptions policy (which is even farther to the right than the republican platform) the republican party is almost guaranteed to lose a lot of votes over it. The moment they make that argument the democrats are going to run ad after ad after ad attacking them with horrible stories of "she was raped and now you want to force her to have the rapist's child" and the republican party ceases to be a relevant part of US politics outside of a few ultra-conservative regions.
Peregrine wrote: but the question is whether the republican party can rebuild without the Liars for Jesus element fast enough to avoid becoming a permanent minority and losing any relevance in US politics at the national level.
I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
Peregrine wrote: but the question is whether the republican party can rebuild without the Liars for Jesus element fast enough to avoid becoming a permanent minority and losing any relevance in US politics at the national level.
I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
I agree with you 100% brother! 'specially that last part.
azazel the cat wrote: I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
Well, that depends on how you define "fiscally conservative". If it means "tax cuts for the rich, cut social services for anyone who isn't rich, more tax cuts for the rich, remove all banking laws that might get in the way of making the rich even richer, and did I mention tax cuts for the rich" with candidates like Romney who have no credible claim to understanding the life of the average person, then no, they're not going to pick up many votes. If it means "responsible spending and balanced budgets" without just being empty promises they probably will, but that attitude seems to be a minority in the republican party compared to the Ayn Rand worshipers.
And of course even if they pick up new voters it's very important to ask how fast can they pick them up. It's not very helpful to pick up new voters after 15 years of slowly changing attitudes towards your party, because by then you'll be a permanent minority party fighting desperately against the incumbent advantage (unless the democrats completely screw things up and trash their own popularity for you). If the republican party cuts out the Liars for Jesus then it needs to make up those votes immediately. The fact that it hasn't done so yet suggests that the party leadership is not confident that they can do it.
Peregrine wrote: but the question is whether the republican party can rebuild without the Liars for Jesus element fast enough to avoid becoming a permanent minority and losing any relevance in US politics at the national level.
I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
I agree with your 100% brother! 'specially that last part.
This man speak the truth brothers and sisters... praise the lawd, praise jeeaeassus.
Peregrine wrote: but the question is whether the republican party can rebuild without the Liars for Jesus element fast enough to avoid becoming a permanent minority and losing any relevance in US politics at the national level.
I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
I agree with your 100% brother! 'specially that last part.
This man speak the truth brothers and sisters... praise the lawd, praise jeeaeassus.
Peregrine wrote: See previous post with the analogy to murder. It doesn't matter if you can't draw a non-arbitrary line as long as you can be absolutely certain that, wherever the line is eventually drawn, it falls outside the period where the vast majority of abortion occurs. And that's exactly the situation we're in: we can't be sure exactly when a "person" begins to exist, but we know with absolute certainty that the point (or period of time) can not happen before the brain develops and begins to operate.
No, you're still missing the key issue. It isn't that we can't be sure when life begins - this isn't about uncertainty.
It is that there isn't a point where human life begins. At the point of conception there is clearly more of a human there than there was before. A month later there is more of a human there than before. Two years after that and you see a personality developing, and you can have little conversations with them (albeit simple and generally more than a little strange conversations...). Twenty years after that and you can have arguments about abortion with them over the internet.
The point is that life develops over a period of time. Any point we pick, any point, is arbitrary, because there is simply no measure for what human life, and exactly what it is that makes it something worth protecting.
As such, it is very simplistic to say 'conception is when life begins and at that point it is equal to any other life'... but it isn't wrong.
azazel the cat wrote: I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
I used to think that as well. I'm becoming less certain.
It wasn't just theocratic Republicans who went down faster than a blonde on prom night this cycle. Moderate Republicans like Scott Brown also got their cans kicked. I don't know that becoming stingy Democrats is really going to do anything for Republicans.
Because it's not just several million national votes that disappear when hardcore pro-lifers abandon the party - which they will. It's gakloads of money, organizational support, GOTV drives...the list goes on. Getting rid of the pro-life stance means Republicans aren't winning a national election for decades.
The way forward, as I see it, is to get the theocratic side of the base to realize that they can't have it all. You can be anti-abortion, but you cannot be anti-abortion AND anti-sex education AND ludicrously anti-contraception AND anti-gay adoption. To defend everything is to defend nothing, as Frederick the Great once said.
Peregrine wrote: It's a vote winner among certain elements of the party. It remains to be seen whether that's a valid long-term strategy, or whether it costs them more votes than it gains.
Of course it's a net vote winner. Look at the Republican Party in 1980. They hadn't controlled either the house or senate since 1948.
But after a brief and failed coalition with Billy Graham, the Republicans played hard for the votes of social conservatives. Steady gains resulted in winning the senate in 1980 and holding it for 6 six years, and eventually claiming the house in 1994.
By 2000 they controlled both houses and the presidency. From the wilderness to dominance, and on the back of social conservatives, because those folk get out and vote in every single election.
And look at the party now. On the back of economic policies that are both broadly unpopular (reduce taxes on the rich) and utterly failed in practice (Reaganomics, Laffer Curve) they still hold the House, and are not that far from the Presidency. They can have such ridiculous policies and still get almost half the vote, because they have a block of voters that goes out votes for them, election after election.
My guess is that it's a net loss
Your guess is just wrong. Seriously, this isn't debatable thing.
There's plenty of scope to talk about whether such a strategy is moral, or whether it can be tempered to maintain those voters while bringing other groups into the fold, but pretending that as many people get out and vote against Republican social policies as vote for them is just not a thing that can be debated.
Except that's a losing argument. Most people do not agree with it and at least support allowing abortion in the case of rape, and by taking a no-exceptions policy (which is even farther to the right than the republican platform) the republican party is almost guaranteed to lose a lot of votes over it.
You're confusing support with what actually determines a voter's decision. About 75% of Americans agree with abortion in some circumstances, but how many of them vote, and how many of them vote based on who opposes abortion in cases of rape is a whole other issue. Whereas about 25% of Americans believe in no abortion, ever, even in cases of rape. And you better believe a large number of them vote every election, and will vote based largely on abortion.
And then there's the issue of how you package that 'even in cases of rape'. Ultimately, if one opposes abortion then they're doing it because they believe life begins at conception, and it doesn't matter how that happened. Paul Ryan said during the campaign that he didn't believe in abortion even in cases of rape. It's fundamentally the same position that Akins and Mourdoch gave, but Ryan's quote emphasised 'I believe it is a life' and got a hell of a lot less coverage, even though he was a far more important figure in the election. Message control can actually reduce a lot of that negative impact, without changing the message or hurting the evangelical turn out.
sebster wrote: The point is that life develops over a period of time. Any point we pick, any point, is arbitrary, because there is simply no measure for what human life, and exactly what it is that makes it something worth protecting.
And, again, it doesn't matter here.
Look, in some cases it simply doesn't matter what standard you pick. Whether you pick a point, or a process, or a range of time, or whatever, in some cases it just doesn't matter. Unless you're including the philosophical equivalent of the crazy homeless guy standing on the corner yelling about mind control rays all of the possibilities come to the same conclusion, so no matter which one turns out to be right it has no effect on the question you're asking. For example:
Everyone agrees that a healthy 30 year old is a "person" and has all the ethical value/rights/etc of one. No matter which definition of "personhood" you pick you still get the same answer.
Everyone also agrees that before conception the cells that will eventually become a person are not yet a "person". Even the "life begins at conception" people agree on this.
Abortion is just another case like that. No matter what secular definition of how and when you get "personhood" you pick, you still come to the same conclusion that a fetus that has not yet developed a brain is not a person. It's just so far outside any possible gray area that your choice of answer can not possibly have any effect on it, just like the hypothetical murder example is so far outside any gray area that your choice between competing ethical theories about killing can not possibly have any effect on it.
The ONLY way to bring the brainless fetus far enough into the gray area to question the rightness of abortion is to invoke a religious element and give it a "soul" that exists even before the brain does.
azazel the cat wrote: I think it'd be very easy to pick up a lot of moderate votes if you stayed fiscally conservative, and socially shut-the-Hell-up.
Don't you think, if it was that simple, the Republicans would have just done that? Whenever you have a theory that assumes paid professionals who do something for a living are missing some really simple strategy... odds are your simple strategy doesn't actually work.
The plain and simple reality is they need to make noise on social issues because they are dependant on a large, motivated bloc called the social conservatives, and a failure to say the right things for those people means the Republican candidate is not going to win.
At the same time, it's a massive mistake to assume the Republicans are fiscally conservative. There's a big difference between saying 'balanced budget' and actually doing it.
Peregrine wrote: The ONLY way to bring the brainless fetus far enough into the gray area to question the rightness of abortion is to invoke a religious element and give it a "soul" that exists even before the brain does.
I disagree.
It's not a person yet, and I don't believe in souls. It is, nevertheless, human life.
Yes, look at the party now, where idiotic social conservatives cost them multiple seats in congress that would have been effortless republican victories if the idiots hadn't won the primaries. Look at the failure to win this election, and the changing society that is making social conservatives weaker, not stronger. The world of 1980 is not the same as the world of 2012, and it looks very much like the power of the religious right has reached its peak and continuing to rely on them is not a winning strategy in the long run.
There's plenty of scope to talk about whether such a strategy is moral, or whether it can be tempered to maintain those voters while bringing other groups into the fold, but pretending that as many people get out and vote against Republican social policies as vote for them is just not a thing that can be debated.
They don't have to get out and vote against republicans, they just have to stay home on election day. And before election day, when they don't donate money, don't campaign for republican candidates, etc. The religious right is only valuable because it has high and universally republican turnout, if you turn them into yet another group of apathetic "I guess he's not as bad as the other guy" they're worthless.
You're confusing support with what actually determines a voter's decision. About 75% of Americans agree with abortion in some circumstances, but how many of them vote, and how many of them vote based on who opposes abortion in cases of rape is a whole other issue. Whereas about 25% of Americans believe in no abortion, ever, even in cases of rape. And you better believe a large number of them vote every election, and will vote based largely on abortion.
Except that we just saw perfectly clearly that "no abortion, ever" is a suicide strategy. The candidates who were most vulnerable to that attack all lost in safe republican districts, and the national leadership would have to be insane to make themselves vulnerable to attacks on that point.
And then there's the issue of how you package that 'even in cases of rape'. Ultimately, if one opposes abortion then they're doing it because they believe life begins at conception, and it doesn't matter how that happened. Paul Ryan said during the campaign that he didn't believe in abortion even in cases of rape. It's fundamentally the same position that Akins and Mourdoch gave, but Ryan's quote emphasised 'I believe it is a life' and got a hell of a lot less coverage, even though he was a far more important figure in the election. Message control can actually reduce a lot of that negative impact, without changing the message or hurting the evangelical turn out.
And last time I checked Romney did pretty badly with women. Can you imagine why?
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Seaward wrote: It's not a person yet, and I don't believe in souls. It is, nevertheless, human life.
On what grounds do you call a blob of meat that doesn't have a brain yet "human life", but (I assume) allow the squishing of cockroaches (with far greater brain development and capacity for suffering) or removal of cancer cells (which are also blobs of human meat with no brain)?
And, to be clear, do you give it "human life" status to the point that you support laws to protect it, or just to the point that you personally would not want an abortion?
Peregrine wrote: Abortion is just another case like that. No matter what secular definition of how and when you get "personhood" you pick, you still come to the same conclusion that a fetus that has not yet developed a brain is not a person.
Except that isn't true. Because it isn't 'don't got brain' and 'got brain'. 'Brain' is a developing thing, and isn't fully there twenty fething years after birth. And yet... a fifteen year old isn't any less protected by the laws than a forty year old.
So, like every other standard people invent, we have to realise that 'got brain' is simplistic, and not the whole story of what makes us human.
At which point, we have to let go of our arrogance that we can entirely answer this question. We have to understand that what is human is complex, and varies from person to person. You have to accept that 'genetic uniqueness' is for many people a human. That for some people the idea that, absent interuption, there is a process in place that will produce a person is an answer to what a human is.
You don't have to agree with them. But it is a nonsense to call them wrong.
(the extremes one... not picking on all religious folks.)
off and stop talking.
