Posted on 11/27/2012 6:45:22 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
The Republican Party has won a majority of the popular vote just once in the last six elections. That dismal track record followed a party revival in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan led the GOP to three straight popular vote majorities.
To understand what went wrong, it's important to remember Reagan was an insurgent candidate who defeated the Republican establishment of his era. When Reagan left office, however, the old establishment reasserted control. They consistently nominated candidates for president who opposed Reagan in 1980 and consistently lost elections.
The difference is that Ronald Reagan believed in the American people and was skeptical of government. Today's Republican establishment believes in government and is skeptical of the American people. That's why most Republican voters today believe the party is out of touch with the base.
Consider Mitt Romney's infamous comments about the 47 percent who are allegedly dependent upon government. After the election, Romney even said that President Obama won by giving "gifts" to these dependent Americans. The Republican establishment grumbles about makers versus takers.
Reagan had a different view. He asked, "How can we love our country and not love our countrymen?"...
(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...
Reagan should be the model, not Ayn Rand or Thurston Howell.
Sarah is the only one who seems to fit.
11/13/2012 9:13:00 AM
What now, conservatives? Relax, we’re winning the war
Richard Moore
Investigative Reporter
Not too long ago I wrote a column about how dynamic and vigorous the conservative movement in this country was and how quickly it was morphing into the most potent American political force of the young century.
The conservative wave of the future, I called it.
At first blush, looking at last Tuesday’s election results, it looks as if my prognosis was just a hair off, having missed the mark by about a century. On Wednesday, the conservative movement lay seemingly battered on the shore, looking less like a tidal wave than a wrecked ship run aground by a tsunami.
That’s exactly what the mainstream media called it in the wake of President Obama’s re-election. The president’s expansive electoral army of 2008, they intoned, was not a one-time deal after all but a durable coalition capable of dominating American politics for a generation or more.
To hear the tale, the Republican Party has lost everyone in the country except old, white men. Minorities, women, the young, environmentalists, urban liberals – this is the alliance of victory and of the future.
I beg to differ. The election results notwithstanding, this analysis is deeply blinkered. Indeed, a close look at the returns indicates big trouble looming for the Democratic Party, not for the GOP.
No, I am not out in Colorado smoking newly legal weed. Consider this: Mr. Obama’s durable coalition was considerably weaker this time around. As of Nov. 8, for example, the president had received about nine-million fewer votes than he did in 2008. Not all the ballots had been counted, and that number will shrink, but he clearly will receive substantially fewer votes than his remarkable 2008 total.
On the other side of the coin, the Democrats have their own growing racial problem – their inability to attract white voters. Winning only 39 percent of 72 percent of the electorate gives the opposition 42 percent of the total vote from the get-go. That should give Democratic Party leaders pause because, given population trend lines, the proportion of white voters is likely to remain above 60 percent for at least the next 20 years.
None of this is to say the GOP doesn’t have a minority conundrum. Any time you get less than 25 percent of the nonwhite vote, it’s a problem, and a growing one if the GOP can’t make inroads into those constituencies.
So both parties have voting-bloc impediments beyond their respective foundations, but this begs the question, which is more likely to hold and enlarge its base?
That quite clearly would be the Republican Party. Let’s take a look at why the mainstream media consensus is biased.
First, the voting blocs are mischaracterized. The Republican base is defined as a mass of old, white voters, while the Democratic Party is depicted as a broad and sweeping coalition. On Election night, for example, after exit polls were reviewed, ABC News blared out: “Obama’s winning coalition of women and nonwhites.”
Look again, though, and there is no ‘and’ in the mix. Mr. Obama’s base is nonwhite voters and, as a practical matter, nonwhite voters only. Sure, radical white feminists, white urban liberals, young white college students and white environmentalists are there, but those activist pods represent a miniscule share of the voting population.
http://lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=10&SubSectionID=68&ArticleID=16315&TM=35274.06
Agree. Real or perceived attacks on the public is a sure fire loser. For instance, Reagan treated people on welfare as victims of democrat policy rather than criminals who needed to be punished.
Only the democrats can get away with attacking the public.
Barry just steam rolled the GOP in the rust belt with class warfare. Populism works with the dim bulb demo. Had the GOP hammered the dims for crony capitalism and favors for donors they might have won the election.
If the kenyan didn’t have the 47% comment to run on they just would have found something else since the GOP refuses to push back on the issue. Newt was spewing this same claptrap yesterday on Hannity. Stop making the GOP the problem. It’s the marxists who all fire should be trained on.
First of all, times are a lot differnt than 1980.
Second, how many black votes did Reagan get?
‘Always Chose to Lose’ RINO File.
Time to infiltrate the GOP with folks from the Libertarians and Constitutional party and run the establishment out in the cold. The country club establishment is out of touch. Similar to how socialists and communists infiltrated the democrat party.
Doesn’t matter, Reagan still wasn’t an obnoxious asshole and wouldn’t have won if he had been.
Yes, he is right. The insanity of continually nominating these milquetoast moderate establishment Republicans when it has been proven a losing strategy time and time again boggles the mind.
While I agree with much of Rasmussen's analysis, he would do well to avoid half-truths like the above statement with its implication that the Democrats have achieved majorities in the other five elections . . . when in truth Obama is the only Democrat in the past six elections to achieve a majority.
The problem is the Republican party is turning into a shadow of the Democrats,nobody is going to vote for a lite version of the Dems.
There is enormous popular support for a party that would replace the Democrats,support that cuts across class and race.As pointed out,if it can’t be tapped,it doesn’t matter how much better moderate policies would be over leftist policies.
The ideology that the Democrats represent is killing Europe,the Middle East regimes who tried to run a secular but authoritarian way of life are failing.Clearly there is a need for God and liberty.
Part of the reason Reagan got elected,was that Iran went down in flames due to the ruling party of that country’s belief in social revolutions that didn’t adhere to the religion followed by most of their people.
This doesn’t prove that what replaced it was better but it proves that regimes where the ruling party experiments irregardless of what the people want tend to fall apart rapidly.Iran’s progressive agenda prior to 1979 wasn’t entirely wrong but the top handed way it was implemented ensured its destruction.
For the Republicans to agree that the Democrats are right,for the political Establishment of the GOP to pick and choose over the wishes of the party will just ensure this party and this country’s decline.
It is a Republic,not a Democracy,but people have to have a say in what they want.
“Stop making the GOP the problem. It’s the marxists who all fire should be trained on.”
What about the marxists in the GOP? We should pretend they don’t exist?
The reasoning is actually very simple to understand, but it doesn’t occur to many of us conservatives. The RINOs simply fear conservatives more than they fear liberals. They are more comfortable with losing and having to deal with liberals than winning and having to deal with conservatives.
Makes sense. What doesn’t make sense to me is why CINOs are tolerated and/or even encouraged here on Free Republic.
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