Posted on 11/15/2008 12:15:19 PM PST by St. Louis Conservative
BY now you've probably heard: The GOP is becoming too regional, too white, too old to compete nationally. Democrats look like the cast of "Rent," while Republicans look like diehard fans of "Matlock" and "Murder, She Wrote."
Fine. The GOP needs to win over more Hispanics, young people, suburban women. That sounds plausible. But what does "win over" mean?
To listen to many pundits, it means Republicans must become Democrats. The GOP has become too socially conservative, and if it wants to win the support of mainstream voters, it will need to become more socially liberal.
If only the party could be more like former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, these voices have been saying for years, the GOP would truly become the majority party. Remember the Alan Alda character on NBC's blessedly defunct "West Wing"? We were told that his pro-choice stance on abortion would make the Republican Party vastly more competitive in places like California and New York.
The problem is that Alda's TV character is only marginally more fictional than Christine Todd Whitman. Economically conservative social liberals are the "jackalopes of American politics," in the words of National Review's Kate O'Beirne. The press keeps telling us they exist out there in huge numbers, but when you go looking for them, they refuse to emerge from the bushes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Hopefully the soul of the G.O.P. has changed from a tired old white guy to Saracuda.
hahah, “Colin Powell endorsed bho for largely ethereal reasons.” hahah. I love Jonah Goldberg.
What does the US Military look like? I would venture to say that they are largely conservative in voting patterns...
So it can lose the support of grassroots conservatives like....... this last election!
Just damn!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
We can reach out to other groups by explaining why our beliefs in small gov’t, low taxes, free enterprise,stong defense,personal responibility... is better. The main issues people have are the financial and phyical security families. Once we show them that they will be more prosperous and safer under our plan, they will come. We should not abandon our pro-life principles.
Before the diversity question— the GOP has to account for the competency question.
If you look at the leadership situation...we have Boner, who has led us into historic defeat after historic defeat...
And the other guy, Lungren, who is the scariest looking politician I’ve ever seen. If the whole politics thing doesn’t work out, he could play the villian on 24.
I’m sorry but those cannot be the two best guys we can come up with. Historic defeat guy or scary villian guy. I would rather have Nancy Pelosi’s forehead as leader than either of those two.
How about if instead of adopting all of the stupid liberal views in order to appeal to the libs that that we choose to say that most (not all, of course) of the divisive issues are for the states to decide?
We need a smaller federal gov’t and the best way to make that happen is to push the authority back to the states. That way the libs in Kalifornia can enjoy their liberal lifestyle and the rest of us don’t have it forced upon us.
The Soul of the GOP is fine. Even the Heart is.
The Flesh, though, is weak.
Screw all this ideological theory and rhetoric. If we don’t make inroads in exposing ACORN and the Lame Stream Press Coverup Machine to the general voting public, we are doomed! Period!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Much of the GOP is old people. Sen Stevens is 84, and apparently retiring now. Rep Young is 74. There are younger up and coming personalities, but the young people seem to be much less interested in being any particular Party. Lots are registering Independent, which is perhaps not such a bad thing anymore.
exactly. I know more people who voted for Obama DESPITE the fact he’s pro-abortion then because of it. They voted for him because “he’s better on the economy” which is complete BS but that’s their thinking. McCain did a Horrible job explaining his economic plan. The last Republican who could explain financial matters was Reagan.
Bingo.
These economically fiscal-social liberal “moderates” sooner or later show their true colors. They wind up spending too much, or not seriously cutting taxes. Christine Whitman, Ah-nold Schwartzenegger, etc. They are liberals, period, and any Republican who is not a strong Social conservative should not be supported.
I have been a registered Republican since I was 18, but the party doesn’t want people like me around any more.
How stupid. Our social conservatism is the only thing with which minorities ever agree. We lose them because of our (former) opposition to big government and the welfare state. All we need to do to “win” them, apparently, is try to out-pander the ‘rats. We’d never win that race, and we shouldn’t try, or we’re not even conservative anymore.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
It’s to the point that I’m wondering if certain individuals in the Republican leadership have made deals with the left, for personal gain, because nothing else explains this blind stubbornness and refusal to see that they are rapidly losing the support of the conservative base, and they don’t have a realistic chance in hell of gaining ‘rat voters by trying to be the “rat-lite” party.
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