anybody in the US freaked the fuck out right now?

[Jind]

The reason they did so is he was maleable and electable. Ron Paul and Gary Johnson won't tow the party line and libertarianism, while gaining momentum, can not win a national election in the current climate. In addition to this, isolationism, the draw down of our military and the end of the drug war are completely incongruent with the Reagan vision the GOP has been re-selling America.

I typed up a response with similar observations about Ron Paul and Gary Johnson last night - thought I hit reply before I logged off for the night but it seems to have been lost to the internet gods.

The GOP has so many split factions right now - each with different directions they want to see the country go in. While they all may have the idea of smaller government as a common interest, once you get past that it just goes all over the place.

Tea-Party goes for the fiscal side of things and originally seemed not to worry about the social side at least at the federal level (leave it up to the states mentality), before they were corrupted by big money influences and they got thrown in the bucket with the entire extreme right wing message where the government (they supposedly wanted out of their lives could tell people how to live their lives on social issues).

Religious right is just schizophrenic - their Pro-Life (every life is sacred) yet also Pro-Death Penalty, stay out of my religion as long as the country remains a "Christian" country. Let teachers deny science and teach children that the earth may be only several thousand years old and man once rode dinosaurs. More and more people are either becoming accepting of other religious beliefs or giving up on religion completely - evolution is progressing you might say.

I'll let egan's comments on the Libertarian candidates stand as I agree with the idea that the odds of winning enough electoral votes to win a presidency is just not in the cards any time soon.

As for the Reagan vision they keep re-selling - it may be what traditional GOP voters are hoping for, but to retain party viability, they have had to carry along all of the fringe parts now calling themselves part of the GOP tent which don't see DC as the "a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere". The GOP's baggage groups would no longer choose a Reagan conservative as their candidate - they would lose in the primary to the clown circus now put forth "how can I get to the right of my most extreme opponent?" unfortunately is common place as a question a moderate candidate must asks themselves (forever damaging them in the centrist leaning general population.

The common fallacy I keep seeing in this post election "why did we lose?" review Republicans seem to be going through is too many voices claiming if we just "change the messaging, keeping our crazier thoughts quite, we can appeal to a broader audience" all the while believing it's just the public persona/messaging and not the actual ideology of the fringe driving voters away.

As always, individual mileage may vary.

 

[JeffTD]

No viable reupublicans running? John Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul?

None of them were viable Republican candidates; John Huntsman is rational and science-minded which wouldn't have gotten him Republican support. Same thing for Gary Johnson's social views. Ron Paul doesn't stand a chance on the national stage.

 

[colonel kurtz]

John Huntsman is rational and science-minded which wouldn't have gotten him Republican support

which, like we were saying, is the exact reason they lost this election. the guy is still devoutly religious, and was the governor of one of the most conservative states in the country, and has actual foreign policy experience...yet those dipshits tossed him aside like a dirty diaper. i've never considered a vote for anyone with an "R" next to their name on the ballot...but there's a good chance that i would have voted for him for president, and many of the independents, minorities, and women who were sickened by romney and the GOP as a whole would likely have as well. the fact that they can't understand this is why they're gonna be stuck crying about that damned muslim for another 4 years.

 

[Jind]

Just read David Frum's write up on the election loss for conservatives (from a conservative) and I think he has an appropriate view of the real problems the GOP faces going forward.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/11/11/how-the-republicans-got-stuck-in-the-past.html

Some insight from the article (it's a good read):

We Republicans may console ourselves that we did win two big victories in the recent past, 1994 and 2010. But those were off-year elections, when 60 percent of America stays home, and those who do turn out are the wealthier, the older, and the whiter. Exit polls indicate that 34 percent of the 2010 electorate was over age 60; in 2012, only 15 percent of voters were older than 65. The Republican success in those elections only underscores the bigger problem: the GOP is rapidly becoming the party of yesterday’s America.

Some combative conservatives may wish that Mitt Romney had talked more about the various plots and conspiracies they believed Obama to have launched upon the land: Fast & Furious, ACORN, Pigford, U.N. bike lanes, Obama’s imagined plan to abolish the suburbs. But while this kind of angry talk may gain eyeballs on Hannity, it’s not the stuff that swings undecided voters in Colorado and *Virginia—*especially not the women voters who formed 53 percent of the electorate on Tuesday; or the moderates, men and women, who formed 41 percent of it; or the nonreligiously observant, who formed three quarters of it. Only 34 percent of the vote Tuesday was made up of white men. The share of the vote that was made up of older, conservative white men must have been much smaller still. Fox Nation never was more than a very tiny slice of the American nation, and it was only sad self-delusion that ever led anyone to think otherwise.

And deep down, we all know it.

For example: it’s certainly possible for Republicans to choose to be a white person’s party. If we do so choose, however, we are also choosing to be an old person’s party. Since the elderly receive by far the largest portion of government’s benefits, an old person’s party will be drawn by almost inescapable necessity to become a big-government party. Indeed, that is just what happened in the George W. Bush years: Medicare Part D and all that.

Another example: the GOP’s social conservatism has increasingly repelled college-educated voters. In 1988, college-educated whites voted for George H.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis by a margin of more than 20 points. In 2008, John McCain bested Barack Obama among college-educated whites by only 2 points. As the GOP relies more heavily on less-educated voters, it finds itself relying on a class of people who have lost ground economically. Those voters understandably tend to mistrust business. It’s an odd predicament for the party of free enterprise to base itself on the most business-skeptical voters—a predicament that cost Romney dearly in the industrial Midwest.

For a Bush era speech writer he seems to at least have a grip on reality.

I would not call myself a conservative, but I may just need to read his new ebook as I at least agree with his assessment of the loss. [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Why-Romney-Lost-ebook/dp/B00A3EOVKS[/ame]

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Given how awful the GOP candidates were, you would think they were trying to throw the election.

...Wait, what?

It's either that or the GOP campaign leaders are complete idiots. And maybe they are idiots. But think about this: if you were going to throw an election, you would not want the public to know about it. And you would want to make the election look closer than it is.

 

[egan.]

They aren't idiots but they have spent 30 years locking down the evangelical vote and the most vibrant movement in the party in years are the tea partiers. It's easy to point out the issues pragmatically but the parties operate quasi democratically themselves (though obvious not truly democratically as demonstrated with the alienation of the Paul supporters). When your entire existing network of middle/lower class donors and volunteers demand an evangelical moral agenda you'll probably end up with one even if it's ultimately to your detriment.