Boehner is not increasingly needing to run to Democrats for votes. He has broken the Hastert Rule 8 times, most of them having to do with budget issues. The majority of the House Reps voted for the Ryan-Murray budget deal--only 94 Reps voted against it. You are overstating the "conservative core" numbers. And the GOP leadership in both houses is not conservative despite their claims to the contrary.
Virginia is not the rest of the country, and if we have a conservative majority that will stand up to beltway politics, I'm sure there are GOP members in the House who will lead if they know the membership is willing to follow new leadership.
VA is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to what is happening in this country. We are seeing electoral shifts in states like NV, Colorado, NM, and AZ, which are becoming purple and then blue. CA is the prime example of how a state can turn from reliable Rep to solid Dem. How many states are turning red versus those changing to blue? Demography is destiny. The electorate is changing and our immigration policies are a major reason why.
If we start winning some primaries, we will have conservative legislators. Why do you conveniently gloss over that fact? It's because it doesn't fit your narrative.
Easier said than done. And winning primaries doesn't equate necessarily to winning elections as we found out in Del, NV, Ind., and Missouri. I have no problem with challenging the RINOs in the primaries, but it is a mixed bag as we found out in the VA governor's race. The RINOs control the party in most states and have most of the money. The power of incumbency cannot be underestimated.
If Obama wants to do nothing at all, then we wait him out for two short year as a lame duck. Or, he can move our way if we control Congress, if he wants any kind of legacy. We can also still defund his executive shenanigans without his consent, and block his nominees.
We are fighting a rearguard action. Obama will rule by executive order if he has to and he won't be challenged by the Congress. Waiting him out is not a winning strategy. He can and will do tremendous damage over the next three years. And Obamacare will develop deep, deep roots that will be impossible to remove. Much of the money to implement the program has already been appropriated. The Ryan-Murray deal ensures that it will be fully funded for the next two years.
And if you are hoping for a GOP victory in 2016, again, take a look at the electoral map and see how many votes the Dem candidate starts with.
You act as if it's a forgone conclusion. I don't accept your electoral map or your tipping point theory. Romney, piss poor candidate he was, lost the 5 states he needed to win the electorals by only 165K votes, a less than 5 vote flip per precinct. That blows your argument out of the water. Hillary is damaged and old, she is not a shoe-in [sic].
Romney received a million more votes than McCain. He won the non-Hispanic white vote (total 59%-39%) across all age groups, gender, and marital status. In former times, he would have won easily. But the demographics of the electorate have changed rapidly. What five states are you talking about? The 165K number seems incorrect if you include states like Ohio and FL.
Hillary has a D after her name. She is more popular among Hispanics than Obama. And the women's vote will go even more her way as we have another historic election, i.e., the first woman President. It will be a coronation rather than an election. Hillary has the money and organization to win along with the MSM and Hollywood. In fact, any generic Dem has the edge over a Rep.
We have the governorship, the house, and 2 seats from the state senate. We have most of the state offices going into a governor year with a strong team
So why has Iowa gone Dem seven out of the last 8 Presidential elections? Do you think the Reps will capture Harkin's seat?
Across the nation the GOP outright controls what, 25 or so states? The Dems what, a dozen, and of the rest I think most are GOP dominated. We are doing great things in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Texas and many other states to undermine the Dem agenda. What color is the sky in your world?
WI and MI went Dem in 2008 and 2012 as well as most of the recent prior elections. Yes, the GOP is doing better at the state level than the Dems, but this has not translated nationally into winning the WH. You can believe there is a pony in there somewhere, but I see a decline in the GOP as the demographic changes make the Dems the permanent majority party.
Your demographic numbers are again a forgone conclusion. Just like many other immigrant groups where the 1st generation votes solid Democrat, the 2nd and 3rd not so much after they see the light. History backs that up.
You are living in a fantasy world if you are comparing the unprecedented number of immigrants who are entering this country over the past 50 years to prior immigration. The Immigration Act if 1965 changed the demographics of this country forever. Immigrants and minorities vote Democrat two to one or more. Obama received 95% of the black vote, 73% of the Asian vote, and 71% of the Hispanic vote. The non-Hispanic white vote is becoming less important for the Dems as they decline in numbers.
I linked an article for you on Professor Gimpel's study on the impact of immigration on GOP electoral chances. He looks at the 50 largest counties in America. And he notes, "Even in Texas and Florida, often thought to be an exception, the rising immigrant population across counties is associated with sharply diminished support for Republican candidates."
Let's deal with facts on the electoral impact of immigration and not some romanticized version based on past history.
Immigrants, legal and illegal, use welfare services to a far greater degree than the native born. They support big government and are natural Dem constituencies:
We are bringing in more immigrants than anytime in our history. The last two decades--1990 and 2010--have been the largest in history.
The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached 40 million in 2010, the highest number in our history. The U.S. immigrant population has doubled since 1990, nearly tripled since 1980, and quadrupled since 1970, when it stood at 9.7 million. Of the 40 million immigrants in the country in 2010, 13.9 million arrived in 2000 or later making it the highest decade of immigration in American history, even though there was a net loss of jobs during the decade. Growth in the immigrant population has primarily been driven by high levels of legal immigration.
Roughly three-fourths of immigrants in the country are here legally. With nearly 12 million immigrants, Mexico was by far the top immigrant-sending country, accounting for 29 percent of all immigrants and 29 percent of growth in the immigrant population from 2000 to 2010. The median age of immigrants in 2010 was 41.4 compared to 35.9 for natives.
Immigration numbers have nothing to do with the need for labor. The finding that new immigration was higher in the 10 years prior to 2010 than in the 10 years prior to 2000 is important because the two decades were very different in terms of job growth. There were two significant recessions during the first decade of this century plus the September 11 terrorist attacks. As Figure 3 shows, during the decade there was actually a net loss of about 400,000 jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey of businesses. In contrast, the BLS reports a net increase in jobs of about 22 million between 1990 and 2000.
Between the first quarter of 2000 and the first quarter of 2013, the native-born population accounted for two-thirds of overall growth in the working-age population (16 to 65), but none of the net growth in employment among the working-age has gone to natives.
The overall size of the working-age native-born population increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, yet the number of natives actually holding a job was 1.3 million lower in 2013 than 2000.
The total number of working-age immigrants (legal and illegal) increased 8.8 million and the number working rose 5.3 million between 2000 and 2013.
And let me guess - you are a Baby Boomer. I can tell because you are puking out a river of generalistic statistics, trying to bundle them all up in a big ball, and presenting it as our certain future. That's the problem with you guys, you always go after the whole elephant, the brass ring, the big prize, white hats riding in for the big showdown. It is your fatal weakness.
No, I am 71. I have both the experience and knowledge to understand what is happening to this country. How old are you?
I am dealing in facts, not some Pollyanna view that we can still win despite massive immigration that is changing the electorate. We are no longer the same country. We have in 2013 45 million foreign-born in this country and most of them favor the Democrats. Every state is feeling the impact and it will grow.
And you liberal counterparts know it. They are punking you with Blowhard-Pinhead smoke and bum rush and overwhelming you, because you can't break out of your calcified thinking and take a step back and actually analyze what you are spewing out, sort out the problem, find points of attack, and come up with a workable plan. The whole thing just goes against the whole Boomer ego/psyche. With your thinking we would have lost WWII.
I have analyzed what is going on to a far greater extent than you have. You are buying into the GOPe proposition that we must have more outreach and that once the various target groups understand our message, they will flock to the GOP. The fact is that have entered the era of tribal politics and our tribe is decreasing in numbers while those on the other side are increasing in numbers.
"International migration is projected to surpass natural increase (births minus deaths) as the principal driver of U.S. population growth by the middle of this century, according to three new series of population projections released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. This scenario would mark the first time that natural increase was not the leading cause of population increase since at least 1850, when the census began collecting information about residents' country of birth. The shift in what drives U.S. population growth is projected to occur between 2027 and 2038, depending on the future level of international migration."
As far as strategy is concerned, such an approach as you suggest has already been undertaken by the political consultants. Essentially, they want the GOP to become more like the Dems and to ditch social conservatism. The numbers matter and unless we do something about immigration, the US will look like CA in the next 40 years. The status quo on immigration guarantees that the Dems will be the permanent majority party. Amnesty will just hasten the process.
The GOPe wants to increase immigration numbers to 33 million in a decade, almost triple what it is now, and to double the size of the guest worker program, all at a time when over 20 million Americans are underemployed or unemployed. This is insanity, but the corporate paymasters are pushing the GOP to commit suicide so they can help their bottom line.
By your thinking, we shouldn't even have a majority in the House, no Governorships, no State Houses, no nothing. Yet in the big picture we actually dominate in politically in this country. How can that be, given your demographic statistics? Maybe you just don't want to see, because it doesn't fit the Boomer narrative that all is lost because it's not 40 years ago, or something like that.
Don't be a fool. I said nothing of the kind. It matters how districts are gerrymandered and where immigrants and minorities are located in terms of how statehouses and Congress are comprised. But the changing demographics will affect all the states. Once Texas goes, it is all over for the GOP and the Dems are now targeting the state. When AZ added two new congressional districts due to the 2010 census, those two went to the Dems.
I compare what has been happening to boiling a frog slowly. Before the frog realizes what is happening, it is too late. Here in VA, we are starting to see the impact of immigration. In Fairfax County where I live, the foreign-born population has increased from 15% in 1990 to 30% in 2010. Fairfax County is the largest in the state with over a million people. It has become the Cook County of Virginia giving the Dems a huge cushion to offset the southern part of the state. We have doubled and tripled our efforts to get out the vote and despite increases, the Dems increse their turnout even more. Demography is destiny.
Seriously dude, if that's the best you got, maybe it time for you to hang it up and let a new generation take over.
LOL. The "new generation" is more minority, more immigrant, and more Dem.