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The best political demographic analysts came to the same general conclusion regarding the presidential election of 2012.

It was the 6 million+ strong blue collar ‘Perot’ demographic that would not under any circumstances vote for Romney. And Obama was never even a consideration.

So those 6 million+ voters ‘stayed home’ or ‘sat it out’ or ‘left it blank’. But they will certainly be there for a conservative that they TRUST.

The republican party has lost TRUST and they don’t think it’s necessary to gain it, why?

I saw the signs in the second term of the Bush presidency. I saw clear symptoms during the 2008 campaign of John McCain. It became painfully obvious in the 2012 Romney campaign.

Where and when did it start and why? The republican party leadership tried as hard as they could to pass ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ in 2006. This is where the base revolted and more importantly revenues and donations to the republican leadership and campaign orgs started to decline.

Grasp that last part for a minute: revenues and donations dried up.

It is unfortunate to see unintended consequences arise in the logic of a conservative voter who decides he or she has had enough of the GOP and their betrayal or lack of faithful representation. The logic is simple “If those republicans want more of my money, they are going to have to talk the talk and walk the walk” and so on. One would hope that the GOP would get the message and change their views and positions.

But that’s not what happened.

During the 2000s, property values went through the roof in a gigantic bubble and life in and around the Beltway became quite expensive. Money was and became more so the overriding consideration of political operations. Principles and promises were ‘nice talk’ but everyone knew what was truly important. Republicans in DC and other parts, realizing that revenue and donations were in decline, could not find funds to close the gap and they could no longer make a closing sales pitch to the base because there was very little TRUST.

So what did they do? They phoned fat cats via their law firms on K street and Wall Street. They went on a search of wealthy candidates to sell their skill set of running campaigns. They found Carly Fiorina, and Meg Whitman and John McCain (wife inherited mob-tied hard liquor business) and Mitt Romney and anyone else that wanted to buy a seat at the gambling table of elections. And there were all kinds of way to reduce candidates upfront out of pocket expense through reimbursements to campaigns which could be kept regardless if the candidate won or lost. Seats were for sale. Principles were not so important. Of course candidates were coached and briefed on what to say and how to say it and some of the candidates like McCain and Romney were very good liars.

So there it is. The republican leadership doesn’t give a damn about our views on limited government or our tax situations. For sure they will look concerned as they choose how to parce their words to voters.

Government itself relies less and less on the taxpayer. Most taxes are just transfer payments to social security and medicare and other entitlements. The bloat of government is financed via deficit spending, the Federal Reserve credit card so to speak.

Here’s the mindset of a typical DC pol or hack:

“If I have virtually unlimited credit, why do I need to go and earn a salary? I can pay my interest payments with more borrowing. Well I might act like I am working only because there is a principle out there of a work ethic and I don’t want to run afoul of people’s views of that principle. So I’ll just kind of tell everybody what they want to hear. And if I am good at it, then I get to continue living the lie.”

And then there are pathological liars in DC that are such good liars because they actually believe their own lies or lies that others have persuaded them to adopt, for example Lindsey Graham claiming the SC Coast Line was receding and sea levels were arising due to man-made global warming.

So all the above is describing how the GOP is finished, for now. If their current leadership ever abandoned the GOP carcass, I would bet that same leadership would be looking for positions with the democrats or some media contracts to mark time with.

My bet is there is a coalition of voters that badly want the federal government to be trustworthy. Any chart of the trust or favorability of the White House or Congress over the last 5 decades shows a general trend downwards. The people that are shaking their heads at those in government, these same people would jump at an opportunity to nod their heads for leaders they can TRUST.