RNC Chair admits the GOP is “cooked as a party” if they lose

[secretlyevil]

Back in good ole Abe Lincoln days, the Reps were the liberal ones. I think we are witnessing another metamorphosis of the party.

[2curlydogs]

You reap what you sow, asshole.

[heyjude]

Here's my tiny violin.

[jojoandleo]

Well, the Democratic party survived 8 years of Reagan followed by 4 years of Bush Sr. They lost three elections in a row and came back.

[ECB]

I feel like the GOP has just swung SO far to the right and are appeasing a vocal but SMALL group of people. These may be powerful people w/ $$$, but in the end, as we are a democratic country where it's ALL the people that vote, you can't control all of us.

DH read an article about how the GOP analyzed why they lost the last election and, in simple terms, a big part of it was that they lost the Hispanic and female vote. And the Hispanics are largely religious and conservative! But the GOP just mis-stepped so far that they lost them.

And what are they doing this time? It seems like the same bullshit and they are losing the same exact people.

[Deleted]

I read an article a while back which explained why Trump and Carson are doing so well in the polls but most likely won't win the primaries. He used a car analogy which made sense to me. You have a long list of cars. Only one of the cars is a pickup truck and the others are different brands of sedans. If someone said, out of this list of 10 vehicles, which would you choose, all of the people who like pickup trucks are going to go for Trump or maybe Carson. The people who like sedans (more moderate voters in this analogy) are going to be scattered among the various sedan options. But if you said, which do you like, this particular pickup truck or this particular sedan, there are going to be more people who like the sedan and they won't be dispersed among the various options anymore.

Anyway, all this to say that I don't think Trump or Carson are serious threats to the nomination anymore. You might not agree with Rubio or Bush's policies but they're not crazies who will shoot their idiot mouths off and destroy the party either. I hope they do lose the election though so it will force them to reconsider their priorities and stop pandering to the religious right. I'm mostly a democrat but a moderate one who would like to see more moderate politicians on both sides of the aisle. I hate the tendency towards extremism that has been happening lately.

[aurora]

How will they end as a party if they have control of the House for the foreseeable future (through gerrymandering)?

[ESF]

It's cute that he says "if," like he thinks they aren't yet "cooked as a party."

[FloFTW]

And those midterm "wins" are really helped quite dramatically by artificially gerrymandering districts to MAKE them win...

[jln]

I'm hoping this is what causes to R party to split. The sane, rational R's need to break away and disown the extremists. I don't see any other way of the party bouncing back.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2015 9:59:57 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Oct 16, 2015 9:28:54 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

I read an article a while back which explained why Trump and Carson are doing so well in the polls but most likely won't win the primaries. He used a car analogy which made sense to me. You have a long list of cars. Only one of the cars is a pickup truck and the others are different brands of sedans. If someone said, out of this list of 10 vehicles, which would you choose, all of the people who like pickup trucks are going to go for Trump or maybe Carson. The people who like sedans (more moderate voters in this analogy) are going to be scattered among the various sedan options. But if you said, which do you like, this particular pickup truck or this particular sedan, there are going to be more people who like the sedan and they won't be dispersed among the various options anymore.

Anyway, all this to say that I don't think Trump or Carson are serious threats to the nomination anymore. You might not agree with Rubio or Bush's policies but they're not crazies who will shoot their idiot mouths off and destroy the party either. I hope they do lose the election though so it will force them to reconsider their priorities and stop pandering to the religious right. I'm mostly a democrat but a moderate one who would like to see more moderate politicians on both sides of the aisle. I hate the tendency towards extremism that has been happening lately.

Barring Sanders, Dems have not been extreme. I feel like you're trying to be fair by laying blame on both sides, but that's not reality.

Why would you put Sanders aside? He's a very viable candidate. A lot of democrats love him. 

[CallingAllAngels]

Oct 16, 2015 9:31:30 GMT -5 aurora said:

How will they end as a party if they have control of the House for the foreseeable future (through gerrymandering)?

Do they have control of the House though?  It seems like it's totally out of control now.  I think what is going on there will have more of an impact on the GOP long term than the presidential election.  I feel like we have three parties in the house right now (Dems, GOP, Freedom Caucus), with no one having a majority.  It will be interesting to see where that goes.

[darnkatz]

[msmerymac]

I'm not saying they shouldn't change their trajectory, but this seems overly pessimistic. They won two elections in the beginning of this century and held the White House for 8 years. They lost in 2008, which makes sense, since people often want a change after 8 years. They lost in 2012, which makes sense because the incumbent usually has the advantage. It's kind of anyone's game, in theory, in 2016. Let's also remember that they won back the house in 2010 and the senate in 2014, which is no small deal, and I *believe* a majority of governors and state legislatures are Republicans. So crying about not having a Republican head of state for possibly 12 years is... not really something I care about. Remember, the Democrats were in power for 20 years during the FDR/Truman administrations.

[MrsAxilla]

Oct 16, 2015 10:04:57 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Oct 16, 2015 9:59:57 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Barring Sanders, Dems have not been extreme. I feel like you're trying to be fair by laying blame on both sides, but that's not reality.

Why would you put Sanders aside? He's a very viable candidate. A lot of democrats love him. 

Well, he's advocating that we radically reform our entire economic system and shift from capitalism to socialism.  That's pretty extreme.

[aurora]

Oct 16, 2015 10:11:40 GMT -5 CallingAllAngels said:

Oct 16, 2015 9:31:30 GMT -5 aurora said:

How will they end as a party if they have control of the House for the foreseeable future (through gerrymandering)?

Do they have control of the House though?  It seems like it's totally out of control now.  I think what is going on there will have more of an impact on the GOP long term than the presidential election.  I feel like we have three parties in the house right now (Dems, GOP, Freedom Caucus), with no one having a majority.  It will be interesting to see where that goes.

Good point. But they have more control than the D's do, so if we're finding the balance in the official 2-party system I'd point to the R's.

[jeaniebueller]

I solely blame Sarah Palin (and I guess McCain) for the direction this party has taken.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2015 10:14:32 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:04:57 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Why would you put Sanders aside? He's a very viable candidate. A lot of democrats love him. 

Well, he's advocating that we radically reform our entire economic system and shift from capitalism to socialism.  That's pretty extreme.

? That's my point? He's too extreme for me but I understand that many Deomcrats love him.

[MrsAxilla]

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:35 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:14:32 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Well, he's advocating that we radically reform our entire economic system and shift from capitalism to socialism.  That's pretty extreme.

? That's my point? He's too extreme for me but I understand that many Deomcrats love him.

I think you didn't understand your question.

[scout8]

Oct 16, 2015 9:56:16 GMT -5 FloFTW said:

And those midterm "wins" are really helped quite dramatically by artificially gerrymandering districts to MAKE them win...

I also wonder if the gerrymandered districts are hurting them too. It seems that their gerrymandering may have been too successful. It has allowed more extreme conservatives get elected which has caused a lot of disruption in the party. 

[sushi]

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:11 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I solely blame Sarah Palin (and I guess McCain) for the direction this party has taken.

It happened before that. McCain in 2000 was too moderate.

But I would agree that Palin was proof positive that they weren't afraid to let their crazy show.

[FloFTW]

In the logic of this article though, is Bernie Sanders actually a Democrat in the same way that Tea Partiers are Republicans?

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2015 10:18:32 GMT -5 MrsAxilla said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:35 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

? That's my point? He's too extreme for me but I understand that many Deomcrats love him.

I think you didn't understand your question.

Huh? Ok, lol.

LM said I wasn't being fair to the Dems because they are not that extreme, Sanders aside. So I said why would you discount Sanders, he's obv very radical like you pointed out and millions of people really love it. That is all.

[derp]

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:11 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I solely blame Sarah Palin (and I guess McCain) for the direction this party has taken.

That's kind of ridiculous. She's a symptom. You have to go back to Karl Rove, and then back to Reagan, and then back to Nixon, really.

[jeaniebueller]

Oct 16, 2015 10:31:31 GMT -5 derp said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:11 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I solely blame Sarah Palin (and I guess McCain) for the direction this party has taken.

That's kind of ridiculous. She's a symptom. You have to go back to Karl Rove, and then back to Reagan, and then back to Nixon, really.

I don't think its ridiculous at all. I think most people agree that the GOP of the last 8 years is vastly different from the GOP of the 90s or even 80s.  Look at the front runners for the Presidential nom. The old school establishment guys have virtually no support. Karl Rove does not support the tea party/extremist wing. Things really didn't go off the rails until the Sarah Palin/tea party wing took over and gave people like Ted Cruz an opening to shut down the government.

[derp]

Oct 16, 2015 10:36:12 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:31:31 GMT -5 derp said:

That's kind of ridiculous. She's a symptom. You have to go back to Karl Rove, and then back to Reagan, and then back to Nixon, really.

I don't think its ridiculous at all. I think most people agree that the GOP of the last 8 years is vastly different from the GOP of the 90s or even 80s.  Look at the front runners for the Presidential nom. The old school establishment guys have virtually no support. Karl Rove does not support the tea party/extremist wing. Things really didn't go off the rails until the Sarah Palin/tea party wing took over and gave people like Ted Cruz an opening to shut down the government.

I agree that the tenor of the party has vastly changed during recent years. But those people I mentioned set the trajectory. This was the inevitable result.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2015 10:36:12 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:31:31 GMT -5 derp said:

That's kind of ridiculous. She's a symptom. You have to go back to Karl Rove, and then back to Reagan, and then back to Nixon, really.

I don't think its ridiculous at all. I think most people agree that the GOP of the last 8 years is vastly different from the GOP of the 90s or even 80s.  Look at the front runners for the Presidential nom. The old school establishment guys have virtually no support. Karl Rove does not support the tea party/extremist wing. Things really didn't go off the rails until the Sarah Palin/tea party wing took over and gave people like Ted Cruz an opening to shut down the government.

I really agree with this. I think some people in the GOP saw how popular her uneducated, down home, "just folks" shtick was and decided to run with it. Trump and now Carson are trying to appeal to the same type of people. 

I don't get it because I think it hurts the Party overall more than it helps but then again maybe I live in a bubble. 

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2015 10:42:25 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:04:57 GMT -5 CheeringCharm said:

Why would you put Sanders aside? He's a very viable candidate. A lot of democrats love him. 

Because it's one guy who very few people even heard about until about four months ago. Compared to Fox News, the Tea Party winning seats in 2010, Ted Cruz's 2013 shut down, the party elders admitting fighting Obama just to stop him from doing anything and witchhunts against Hillary. Wasting time trying to repeal Obamacre, etc.

Vs one guy getting some momentum recently?

Not the same, not by a mile.

I agree, they have a lot of crazies. I don't know why. But what I meant more was the tenor in the country. People lining themselves up on either extreme. It seems to me that regular people have become/are becoming more extreme and more partisan over the last two decades. I feel like moderates like me who can basically go either way are becoming less and less common because there is less common ground between the two parties to agree with. I suppose overall the two extreme sides are still minorities but they are very vocal ones and the squeaky wheel gets the grease, etc.

[YeahSure]

Oct 16, 2015 10:31:31 GMT -5 derp said:

Oct 16, 2015 10:16:11 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

I solely blame Sarah Palin (and I guess McCain) for the direction this party has taken.

That's kind of ridiculous. She's a symptom. You have to go back to Karl Rove, and then back to Reagan, and then back to Nixon, really.

Reagan for sure. 

[NewOrleans]

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