Rand Paul lays down some truth:
“The party can’t become the opposite of what it is. If you tell people from Alabama, Mississippi or Georgia, ‘You know what, guys, we’ve been wrong, and we’re gonna be the pro-gay-marriage party,’ they’re either gonna stay home or — I mean, many of these people joined the Republican Party because of these social issues. So I don’t think we can completely flip.”
It’s really a choice. Does the GOP want to compete in states outside of the Deep South and make themselves into a viable national party that can win a presidential election?
The answer is ‘no.’
And, for now, this is a very good thing.
Yet somehow this political party that isn’t viable at the national executive level continues to wield a lot of power:
Yes, they do. But they aren’t going to win the White House until they get a candidate who can appeal to the majority on social issues.
How long before the GOP social-issue “conservative” base decide those issues are less important than winning the WH? Let’s not over-read Obama’s two wins (after GWB’s two wins). Particularly in light of losing the House in 2010, no rebound in 2012, and not poised to recapture it in 2014. And projections are for additional Senate DEM losses this year (although those seem a bit pessimistic to me, limiting losses this year is hardly an indication of DEM strength and GOP weakness).
Arrogance — Rove etal. in 2004 declaring a forty year GOP majority or “the GOP can’t win the WH” — isn’t a strategy. Nor is “we suck less.”
No but they’re going to win control of congress this year.
Yet somehow this political party that isn’t viable at the national executive level continues to wield a lot of power:
I wonder if the post-Obama Democratic majority being interrupted at the zenith of its power by the second-greatest economic crisis in our country’s history has anything to do with it.
Your analysis makes as much sense as pointing to the post-Watergate, pre-Reagan Democratic Party and going ‘see? SEE? The Democratic Party is still strong and holds the advantage. How in the world could you say that they’re in trouble?’ Well… yes, if you just look at the immediate turn, both the Democratic Party then and the Republican Party now look not only ascendant but dominant.
The Republican Party only being able to fight to a draw after being given the third-best black swan in our post-ACW history (after the Great Depression and Watergate) is a sign of incredible weakness, not strength. Economies that were less weak than what we had now enabled the opposition parties more, as Truman, Carter, 1982 Reagan, and 1992 George H. W. Bush can tell you.
Your response isn’t all that intelligible.
A political party that has nothing to offer the vast majority and nevertheless can fight to a draw for an extended period of time means it stays in the game and can thwart, obstruct, slow down the agenda of the opposition. Truman only lost Congress for two years and the damage that Congress did continues to negatively impact us today.
btw — did you mean to troll rate my comment? If so, why?
Opinion in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia is a lot more swingy than you or Rand Paul imagine. The Republican Party is rapily losing on the gay marriage issue in every state; it’s reply is likely to get court-ordered religious powers of discrimination. That will hold the base until the courts change. Even in the South, the Republican Party is aging out on racism, except for a loud, violent, vocal minority. The fear of the majority to call them out because everyone thinks the nutcakes are the majority is the major issue. When that callout occurs, it’s over.
What most GOPers in my acquaintance peddle in the Carolinas is the small government economic freedom issue, which at least in North Carolina is coming up against the legislatures policy of starving the infrastructure–a policy that business interests are now beginning to grasp is bad for business.
The GOP is depending on “social issues” and the “culture war” to keep them going. It’s going to cost them more and more in investment in preachers and media folks and opinion leaders to keep that message strong. And there will be lots of loyalty testing involved that will eventually turn folks off.
But Democrats have to be an alternative to be effective. When you drill down to localities and individual legislative races, Democrats fail to be an alternative and call out the GOP minority for what it is.
Change? Of course not, that might be learning.
“[M]any of these people joined the Republican Party because of these social issues. So I don’t think we can completely flip.”
They could if they would simultaneously moderate their commitment to Gilded Age, bare-knuckle capitalism.
Well, it’s not really a question of a “complete flip,” anyway.
They would certainly gain more than they lost if they moderated their social and economic positions while still leaving some daylight between themselves and the Democrats.
They need to move left, toward the center.
Then the Dem can move further left.
And so on.