The Republicans defeated themselves.

 
 

The Republicans defeated themselves. 

They did that by allowing themselves to become a closed system in which they would not communicate with anyone outside the system and would not accept information that was not generated within that system.  Half the country is made up of people who refuse to watch anything but Fox News, who listen to no opinion but that of people like Limbaugh and the like and who are enchanted by political pitchmen like Lance Priebus, Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove.  Rove is a man so deluded by his own fantasies that Megan Kelly had to physically go to the Fox News analytic cell during election coverage to correct the on the air effect of Roves' delusions.

What were these massive shared delusions and what errors do they engender?

1- As I have written, the GOP badly over-estimated white turnout for the election.  The party apparatus did not grasp the fact that disdain for BOTH candidates would auto-suppress the vote in their core white constituency.  The GOP did that to themselves by nominating a candidate who in the end was still a "Mormon plutocrat married to a known equestrienne."  There IS real demographic change in the US but the effect of that would have been less in this election if the Republicans had not shot themselves in their various feet by ignoring the actual situation in the electorate.

2- The GOP has to learn to make reasonable concessions to the people who voted Democratic in this election.  John Wilkes Booth asked in his journal "Who's country is this?"  The little book was found on his body after he was killed by federal troops. The adherents of the hard, hard anti-Latino positions of today's Republican Party need to consider the futility of Booth's question.  They need to grasp the idea that the sons and daughters of today's Latino immigrants can be made into conservative Americans if a sincere effort is made to do so.  As I have written the central values of the great majority of Latinos are compatible with a rational conservatism.  Prosperity and a welcoming attitude will make the transfer of allegiance from the Democrats a reality.  That is not to say that the border should not be secured, but, in fact, that process is moving steadily forward.

3- The GOP needs to start nominating electable candidates.  In the old days party bosses picked candidates on the basis of their electability.  Perhaps nomination through the primary election process is not such a good idea.  pl  

                          

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Apparently even the Cuban-Americans moved left in their votes this election and if Rubio on the ticket in 2016
and the Castro brothers gone then Florida will need to have improved its election machinery or again be proved irrelevant!

[bob randolph]

David Frum (Bush II speechwriter) was first out of the blocks with an e-book on "Why Romney Lost." He said on "Morning Joe" today:

"Republicans have been fleeced, exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex...there are too many to name. Because the followers, the donors and the activists are so mistaken about the nature of the problems the country faces..."The people who put the cement shoes on Romney's feet are now blaming him for sinking."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/msnbc-morning_joe/#49757420

[GregB]

Col. Lang,

As always, you give wise, simple and conservative advice.

If my ear to the ground is anything, it seems that it will be ignored by most of those calling themselves Republicans.

Their takeaway has been distilled down to two points.

1) Everyone who voted for Obama is an idiot or a moocher.

2) The are victims of the liberal media.

They will gain permanent political minority status if they continue of this path of self-deluded indoctrination.

[steve g]

As long as the picture of "O me so Michele
Bachmann" adorns this article a comment and
observation. Her district is just north of
mine in the twin cities area some suburban
and rural. She barely defeated her opponent,
Jim Graves. His bio speaks volume of the current
GOP mindset IMO. Raised a catholic in central
Minn. he taught elementary school for two years
before starting the AmericInn chain. He and his
son currently head the Graves Hospitality Group
that partners with some of the largest hotel
brands. A business man extraordinaire, a job
creator, family man, and endorsed by a former
Republican governor. What's not to like when
compared to Bachmann and her sometimes bizarre
comments. Party loyalty apparently trumps
everything including common sense.

[zanzibar]

Pat

I believe you are right on in your analysis. I know many folks who are registered Republicans that did not vote for President in this election. I think the Republican party has become an extremist party dominated by ideologues that want to impose their morality on everyone else but themselves. I think the Democrats too have serious issues. Neither major political party seem to be able to govern in the best national interests. They seem captured by a kleptocracy that loots the treasury and by ideologues that pursue fantasies in social and foreign policy. The size of government (federal, state and local government spending) has grown from around 20% of GDP in 1950 to 35% of GDP today. This growth in government has not been funded by taxing the people but by leveraging the future income streams of Americans. We have not run a trade surplus in any year since the 70s. Our healthcare expenditures are doubling every 8 years and today on a per capita basis we spend more on healthcare than any OECD country. Similarly, in K-12 education expenditures per capita we are the second highest among all OECD countries. Yet, what are the outcomes? Where is the bang for our buck?

It seems to me there is a tremendous opportunity for a politician or a another political party to form a coalition of disaffected rural and urban voters around the principles of reducing the size of government, devolution of power to the states, creating a level playing field with fully enforced rules of the games that allow American entrepreneurs to risk and win or lose. A government that does not interfere in the personal lives of it's citizens nor feel it is our responsibility to interfere in the lives of people in parts of the world we can't even pronounce. A simple, transparent and uniform taxation system that funds our common interests. Pat, do you think this is just a fantasy? Can we ever return to Jeffersonian values?

[confusedponderer]

I think you describe well the absolutely terrifying intellectual incest that now permeates the party as a result of Republican 'litmus testing'.

Movement conservatives have driven out insufficiently ideological candidates. The primaries of the last years have shown that consistently. It's a self imposed (and self-destructive) purge from within.

It mirrors the careful if silly screening for bias of every news source and trusting only in FOX (as if, of all news sources, were the only ones that are unbiased and objective - what a joke). In doing so people simply listen only to what they want to hear and blend out what they don't want to hear. The result is people who live in an insular world of their own, under often putative siege by the rest of the nation. People who limit their information intake to the likes of FOX and Rush engage in escapism.

If the R's don 't wake up to that unpleasant reality, and get some fresh blood, then they will continue degenerate intellectually as a party.

Already what passes as candidate material in the party is often dumb as a bag of hammers (think Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell or that "Rape-is-part-of-God's-plan"-guy) with ideological reliability as their only supposedly redeeming quality. I shudder at the thought who will run for office if it continues the downwards spiral.

And what solutions to America's problems do they have?

Take this small problem: Banks rip off America's middle class by merrily and recklessly inflating bubbles to burst them and profit from that to an obscene extent - screw them suckers - and nearly bring down the American economy in the process.

Republican explanation: It's just because them stupid house owners who now can't serve their mortgages any more didn't exercise due diligence and individual responsibility! And because of Obama and Freddy Mary and Mac Whatnot! Hmm. Now what about all the fraud? Ahem. Never mind.

Republican solution: Deregulate, because the market will prevent such bubbles if left to its own infallible magic. And cut taxes, for good measure, because cutting taxes is good for and against everything.

Why not just dig out Reagan and nail him to the Republican platform? The man is dead, sure, but he's not going to crawl from his grave on his own to save the GOP ...

[Lars]

After perusing some of the more popular conservative websites, the only conclusion I have is that most are in deep denial. It is unlikely that anything changes until the Tea Party completely runs the GOP into the ground.

Fox News has a lot to do with them remaining in their "bubble". Nothing will change there unless Roger Ailes finds the on ramp to Damascus Road.

[agin' cajun]

I don't see it as a "move left". Might we consider that the younger Cuban American generation is seeing through the BS? Why is it you automatically view a rejection of current Repub positions as a move to the left? I consider it a move back towards sanity and reality. The labeling of anything anti-Repub as Left insinuates that being anti-racist would make one, exclusively Left. How do you feel about being labeled as a Lefty Col.? Just my two cents.

I suggest giving John Tester a call and congratulate him on being a Lefty.

[turcopolier]

Agin' cajun

"How do you feel about being labeled as a Lefty, Col.?" If you are referring to me I am unaware of anyone calling me that. they would not do so to my face. pl

[JohnH]

Republicans knew that voter turnout for the Mormon plutocrat was likely to be bad, which is why they pushed voter suppression so hard in Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin, all potential swing states.

Both parties have become top-down organizations, unresponsive to public sentiment, which is why Congress ranks so low in approval. Potential Republican candidates have to pass Grover Norquist's no tax pledge. The Democratic Pary's DSCC and DCCC carefully screen out any candidates who might offend the sensibilities of wealthy underwriters.

Both parties have become closed systems, run by apparatchiks, who are aloof and unconcerned with the lives of anyone outside their small gang of insiders and their funders.

Yet it must be American voters' tribal instincts that lead them continue to support this unrepresentative duopoly, giving it 98% of the vote, even though the vast majority live in spectator states, where the outcome was never in doubt.

When Democrats finally wake up and realize that BO has gutted their most cherished programs, they need to be reminded that they voted for him. They did not register their discontent by voting third party, an opportunity that was readily available.

It will be just as bad in 2016. The lesson Republicans learned is that they need a cosmetic change, a Latino like Marco Rubio on the ticket. Democrats will probably follow the Obama model and choose someone who talks a good game but whose real political positions have been carefully obscured.

[agin' cajun]

Exactly my point. Labeling issues as left or right IMO is part of the nation's problem. My Father was what I call a "natural born conservationist". He hated waste, and would kick ass on anyone who willfully polluted, dumped garbage.......etc. He was a life long Union, blue collar worker. Yet in his day he was labeled conservative in most ways. He was not a racist even though born in the deep south. Right or left did not fit him. Yet by today's standard definitions, he would most likely be labeled as "to the left" which in his day would be calling him a Commie. If stated to his face, I would have to raise bail and the offender would be hunting his teeth.

[The beaver]

GregB

Look up project Orca on the web.

From HuffPo before the demise of November 6:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/project-orca-mitt-romney_n_2052861.html

and this one on PBS on November 5th:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/11/romney-campaign-enlists-help-of-killer-whale-project-to-get-out-the-vote.html

AT 4 PM on November 6th they were still confident it was in the bag with jet planes landing at BOS airport and bringing in the supporters from across the land for the big bash and fireworks at Boston Harbour.

[Patrick D]

I think some comments above have have alluded to something I will say more directly. The immediate dangers of a deranged Republican Party aside, the bigger, medium term danger is that these circumstance give the Democratic Party false confidence and foster its own delusions.

Being "better than Republicans" is nothing to brag about and does not automatically mean they have a sufficient grasp on reality.

[Thaumaturgist]

The "tell," in 2012, was that none of the first string Republicans was willing to run in 2012.

[Patrick D]

"Yet it must be American voters' tribal instincts that lead them continue to support this unrepresentative duopoly, giving it 98% of the vote, even though the vast majority live in spectator states, where the outcome was never in doubt."

I don't necessarily support you analysis of the situation but we are definitely in agreement about this. Americans are not ignorant, innocent children voting for their nanny.

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

You are spot on. Both political parties have been spun off into corporate propaganda and myths; it is just that the Democrats are not crazy.

Life always comes around to bite you. Corporatists hate Unions and busted them by looking the other way as millions of illegal aliens invaded the USA; working for lower wages. Today, their kids voted against the Plutocrats.

If history is a guide, the coming austerity cuts are going to come around and bite the Democrats next. The only thing that will get America, Europe and Japan going again is government spending and writing off all the bankers bad debts.

[Lars]

What is lost in the general discussion has to do with how the Obama campaign defined the battlefield and 2 years ago started to find out what women wanted, what young people wanted and what minorities wanted in those battlefield states. Then they motivated them to show up at the polls.

It worked.

[kao_hsien_chih]

I think you are right on the target wrt education and healthcare spending in the US.

The "solution" put forward by the Democrats is always to throw more money at a problem. The Republicans' "solution" is to take the money away and hope and pray that, without the money, things would somehow get more efficient. Both are silly, dangerous, "pie-in-the-sky" notions. No one seems to be seriously interested in looking at the details (although many demand that the details be made easy and explained to them--in the style of the SNL skit about "non-voters"). Doing something about the details is where the answers to many, if not most, problems will be, and the real answers will not be easy to understand. We just have to start thinking beyond the catchphrases--but no one in politics will....

[confusedponderer]

I think for whether you're a lefty in the parallel universe does not depend where you stand politically but simply on where you don't stand.

The attitude is, in Bush 43's words, "if you're not with us, you're against us" - or everyone who's not their kind of conservative is, for practical purposes on the left, to them anyway - i.e. the left starts with filthy old commies like George Bush Sr., James Baker and Brent Scowcroft.

[The beaver]

Breaking:
Petraeus resignation from the CIA: Extra-marital affair

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/09/david-petraeus-cia-resign-nbc/1695271/

NBC's Andrea Mitchell said the resignation was submitted in a letter dated Friday and was accepted by the White House.

[Mj]

David Petraeus Resigns As CIA Director, Citing Extramarital Affair. What was HE doing during the raid?

[Walrus]

The problem is money.......the electoral system is corrupted by money, at all levels. Republican and Democratic parties. Until that is eliminated you are doomed. The massive rent seeking activity in the economy is killing it, and fast.

To put that another way, the returns on investment of investing in American politicians are stratospherically high.

Look for example at the abomination that is the healthcare system which is expensive, inefficient and economically toxic in that it forces both employers and employees to be entangled together and sucks up billions of dollars into the medical and insurance industries.

.....and Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it has not changed the industry one whit because the idiot electors were asked to focus on how to PAY for medical care instead of asking why it had to COST so much.

For example, I am taking Nexium for a few months at a cost of $49.50 for thirty 40mg. tablets and the cheapest American price for exactly the same name brand product in America is $203. And no, that is the full non government subsidized price in Australia, and don't try and give me that horse**** about American consumers subsidizing R&D for the rest of the world, I worked in the industry.

We have run a decent public/private mixed healthcare system here since at least 1950, its affordable and caters for everyone. My private health insurance premium is $3500 per year with $500 co pay. Yet thanks to your rent seekers , you can't have the same.

Now multiply that situation by tenfold, or a hundred fold, and you get a perspective of what has been done to you. America is well along the path to the USSR - where the public were constantly told they lived in a workers paradise and that life for the rest of the world was miserable, it isn't.

[Al Spafford]

Ex-CIA Behr stated that there is a BIGGER story behind this as the ex-Gen was already headed out do to "mishandling Bengazi info to WH and remaining aloof"

[Matthew]

Walrus: Money corrupts, but not completely. This election showed that Big Money do not produce winners: Adelson's candidates were 0-6. But fund-raising big money does limit the field. Think of money as a funnel, not a barrier.

[Babak Makkinejad]

In Australia: can one setup a private hospital or laborartory?

That is, can one purchase an NMR machine - as a private businessman - and setup his own NMR service?

In Canada, that is illegal, I believe.