What GOP Pollsters Tell the GOP

9 Comments

1. 

   Geov Parrish on May 12, 2012 at 8:50 pm

   The problem with this memo – and, for that matter, with a lot of what Sullivan and other “independent” conservatives write – is that they’re often going by polls and data and logic and stuff. The base of the post-Palin Republican Party, and a lot of the pols they’re electing, DO NOT CARE about any of that crap. They’re thinking, and governing, with their lizard brain, they know what they know, and any polls or facts that contradict what they know to be true are either the words of apostates or traitors or the fault of the liberal media or some other vast liberal conspiracy.

   The country desperately needs the Republican Party to get back to the point where it is no longer dominated by crazy people, and where people who care about actual facts are in control. But we know perfectly well that when Romney loses, the narrative will be that he lost because he wasn’t a real conservative, and the wingnuts will triple down. So I’m afraid we’re going to be stuck with this lunacy, and the dysfunction it promotes, for a while to come. At least.

   • 

     mainsailset on May 12, 2012 at 8:56 pm

     Right you are. At this point, the GOP, Romney, Cantor and crew could actually try and pivot and they would be ignored.

     The only way to get the GOP off the rails is to have Fox, Limbaugh and the Evangelicals start retraining. They are all that is listened to and it will surely take years even if they were to start Monday morning  to bring their crowd into the 19th Century…

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       wvng on May 12, 2012 at 9:11 pm

       Fox is the key, and they won’t change until their business model no longer is insanely profitable or until some outside entity forces them to change.  Obama gave the rest of the media the opportunity to separate themselves from Fox, and they chose Fox.

       • 

         mainsailset on May 12, 2012 at 9:31 pm

         With Murdoch’s empire being shredded in the UK and now investigations in the US looming the question will be just how much will Murdoch and his minions double down with all their bs.

         For Murdoch, there’s nowhere to run to anymore, the UK gone, US savvy to his ways, Australia putting on the brakes. Gonna be FOX earthquakes happening.

   • 

     Superpole on May 13, 2012 at 10:35 am

     The country desperately needs the Republican Party to get back to the point where it is no longer dominated by crazy people, and where people who care about actual facts are in control.

     To be sure, but I can’t recall a time in recent history where the GOP was all that concerned with governing based on “facts”, particularly facts that progressives care about.

     Keep in mind part of the GOP crazy here is driven by mainstream media combined with an insanely long POTUS campaign period (now it’s 2-3 years long).

     Gingrich saying inane, stupid stuff like “let’s put bases on the moon” is a perfect example of bad publicity is better than no publicity.

     I agree with you- the lunancy and dysfunction will continue until the final train wreck, not because of the GOP crazy- but because our “leadership” just doesn’t have answers/a plan for our numerous problems.

2. 

   Quaker in a Basement on May 12, 2012 at 11:42 pm

   I don’t have time at the moment to offer much analysis, but I think there are a lot of other issues that will evoke memos like this in the not-too-distant future.

   If that’s supposed to be an homage to Jonah Goldberg, it’s missing something. Maybe if you throw in a couple of fistfuls of stupid, or a fart or two.

   • 

     BooMan on May 12, 2012 at 11:48 pm

     No.  I wasn’t going for that.  I was literally being called away from my computer.  

     • 

       Quaker in a Basement on May 13, 2012 at 12:31 am

       joking!

3. 

   Superpole on May 13, 2012 at 10:25 am

   David Frum from earlier this year: (read the entire piece, it’s worth your time.)

   Basically, I just don’t think there’s a huge mystery to be solved here. When Democrats lost to Reagan, they nominated first Walter Mondale and then Michael Dukakis before finally tacking to the center and putting Bill Clinton in the White House. That was a 12-year stretch. Britain’s Labour Party spent a decade moving left before they finally tacked back to the center after losing to Margaret Thatcher. It took them 18 years to finally regain power. Republicans have only been in the wilderness for either four or six years, depending on how you count. If it takes until 2016 for them to come to their senses, that would be a pretty normal progression.

   Regarding GOP’ers “pivoting” on culture war issues:

   I am, obviously, being a smart-ass about this. In fact, as Jon Chait writes today in “2012 or Never,” the demographic trends that Judis and Teixeira wrote about really are continuing apace. Smart Republicans are well aware of this, and they’re especially well aware that one of the biggest demographic trends working against them is the growth of the Latino population. So a few years ago, as a way of peeling off some Latino votes from the Democrats, they took a stab at passing a moderate immigration bill. Unfortunately, their base went into a full-bore revolt and began demanding a harsher anti-immigrant policy instead of a more moderate one. As Jon says, this was about like publicly announcing an electoral suicide pact on national TV.

   Unfortunately Frum doesn’t go into the draconian, anti-democratic GOP response to the Latino voter issue- i.e. requiring voter ID, etc.

   http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/republicans-are-crazy-thats-perfectly-normal