Head Strong: Ignoring suburbs doomed the GOP To win Pa., it must appeal to moderates.

Philly.com ^ | November 9, 2008 | Michael Smerconish

[Gondring]

I find it interesting that Oklahoma and Tennessee voted Redder than ever in the midst of the loss. I'm thinking that those voters, Dem. and Rep., REALLY loved Sarah Palin.

Going from red to redder doesn't add a single vote; going indigo to violet adds a bunch.

[pnh102]

But, of course, anyone on FR who didn't insist that PA was in play was flamed by the Ostrich Brigade as a liberal troll.

I personally never got that reaction, however, as I lived in Penna. for 13 years up until 2006, and looking at the fact that Penna. has not voted for a GOP candidate since 1988, and looking at the fact that the GOP can win without Penna., I can confidently conclude that there is no point in wasting money campaigning there.

[nowheretohide]

You know. I’m start to think that we really over analyze everything. We need most personable/attractive candidate. This is the case for most of the presidential elections in the TV age. A conservative will win when they can clearly present their ideas with a smile.

[Gondring]

in being superficial, maybe he embodies the suburban voter that he speaks of, that the GOP has lost over the last 20 years. These people don’t know how badly the Democrat/ Socialists can hurt them.

EXACTLY!

The lesson is not that the GOP has to go more conservative (though that's part of it). The lesson is that fewer and fewer voters understand why conservatism is superior. The GOP must do a better job in campaigning for ideas, not just candidates. Running conservatives without that will just draw more votes in states that are already won.

[Gondring]

Obviously, FReepers do not choose the latter course.

...though they should.

[Gondring]

believe it or not also believes in legalizing prostitution. Shows a perverted stupidity with the absence of thought. Can you imagine a family struggling to keep a daughter on an academic track of any type having to debate the argument, “I can just become a sex worker?”

LOL!

You might be surprised that some people actually believe things like that, totally ignoring the fact that it's legal in places in the US and yet we now have far mmore female college students than male ones.

In fact, it's not like women are streaming to Nevada in place of college.

Besides, many prostitutes use their lucrative earnings to finance higher enduction endeavours, and, of course, educated escorts earn far more per hour, so that daughter would find little support in avoiding giving the higher education industry a lot of the hard-earned dough from the family and taxpayers! :-)

[gusopol3]

well, I’ll just be the naive prude on this one. Can’t be up to speed on everything I guess.

[Gondring]

But winning the electorate to your side is important in any model. That's what many seem to forget...they seem to believe that independent and moderates are just clamoring for a conservative candidate when that's just not true.

Ronald Reagan succeeded in enunciating conservative principles and getting people on board. Conservatives have a lot of work to do in educating the electorate and developing, not just blaming moderates. The Dems, especially under the Chicago thugs, are not going to stop polarization anytime soon.

[Gondring]

We've had a "moderate" (uh, liberal) Republican, calling himself "conservative," for 8 years. The elctorate doesn't know what conservatism is, thinking it's big nanny-state adventurism, rather than limited government and protection of rights. Of course more of the same failed.

[gusopol3]

http://www.feministing.com/archives/002374.html

an anomaly to the otherwise benign social impact of legalizing prostitution ?

[Gondring]

You evidently missed the debunking of that story.

[Gondring]

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/brothel.asp

[gusopol3]

evidently.

[beagleone]

I don’t know. Considering Obama’s propaganda onslaught, it was pretty close.

[Gondring]

We need most personable/attractive candidate. This is the case for most of the presidential elections in the TV age. A conservative will win when they can clearly present their ideas with a smile.

That's a BIG part of it, but not all.

Gov. Palin still rates unfavorably among independents, so some substance is needed, too.

But yes, "celebrity" is the main thing.

[Gondring]

The GOP is doing a ROTTEN job at getting out their message, as are conservatives.

[mombrown1]

No he didn’t. We had PA. What we didn’t know was Obama’s people were out across PA the weekend before the elections, targeting the four congressional districts, Murtha, Kanjorski, Murphy CD8, and English. Also, Allegheny County. They were everywhere. It took a phone call, email, or text message and they dropped whatever they were doing and out knocking on almost 1 million doors.

We don’t have that kind of Army and that is what we need. We could barely get people out to do cars at churches for the pro-life. When it comes to creating an army we can not allow issues to stop us from getting out the vote.

Murtha called the DNC and moveon.org and they showed up for him and the other areas. They didn’t care who or what they just hit the streets.

[gusopol3]

ok, then , poor strategy to spend the amount of money he did on ads without the army you speak of. No doubt having the union vote and college activists was a great advantage to Obama.

[mombrown1]

Ignored the suburbs???? They were in Bucks County and Delaware County. Every county around Allegheny County in the West went Red.

They were in counties for Bill Russell, Barletta, Manion, Williams, Hart, Carney, and English. Plus about ten other locations around the state.