Should the Republicans lose in 2012

[Hotblack Desiato]

Whoever wins in 2012 will wish they hadn't.

[Hotblack Desiato]

So what happens to the direction of the GOP if next year they fail to beat a vulnerable incumbent Obama?

It helps discredit establishment republican moderates and neoconservative types. For a possible analogy to the evolution of the party under a second Obama term compare Ford's platform in 1976 with Reagan's in 1980. What we see coming out of this is a GOP that's more along the lines of what the tea party types would want.

Personally I would like such a shift in the platform since it'd mean a Republican Party that's no longer the democrats under a different name.

[Hotblack Desiato]

So what happens to the direction of the GOP if next year they fail to beat a vulnerable incumbent Obama?

It helps discredit establishment republican moderates and neoconservative types. For a possible analogy to the evolution of the party under a second Obama term compare Ford's platform in 1976 with Reagan's in 1980. What we see coming out of this is a GOP that's more along the lines of what the tea party types would want.

Personally I would like such a shift in the platform since it'd mean a Republican Party that's no longer the democrats under a different name.

What makes you say that?

Say what? The fact that the Republicans as they stand are virtually indistinguishable from the democrats in practice? That's simple. Allow me to list a few historical case studies.

Ronald Reagan: He talked a good game in his campaigns but didn't do much in practice on taxes, regulation, social security in practice.
George W. Bush: He ran on a platform of no more Clintonian nation-building and ended up doing an over the top response to 9/11 which included two long wars, when if he was consistent he would have just hunted down Al Qaeda's top brass, gotten us out of there in 1-2 years and not bothered with Iraq.

This isn't even getting into Bush's domestic statism with the DHS, the TSA, Medicare part D, the bailouts.

[Hotblack Desiato]

So what happens to the direction of the GOP if next year they fail to beat a vulnerable incumbent Obama?

It helps discredit establishment republican moderates and neoconservative types. For a possible analogy to the evolution of the party under a second Obama term compare Ford's platform in 1976 with Reagan's in 1980. What we see coming out of this is a GOP that's more along the lines of what the tea party types would want.

Personally I would like such a shift in the platform since it'd mean a Republican Party that's no longer the democrats under a different name.

What makes you say that?

Say what? The fact that the Republicans as they stand are virtually indistinguishable from the democrats in practice? That's simple. Allow me to list a few historical case studies.

Ronald Reagan: He talked a good game in his campaigns but didn't do much in practice on taxes, regulation, social security in practice.
George W. Bush: He ran on a platform of no more Clintonian nation-building and ended up doing an over the top response to 9/11 which included two long wars, when if he was consistent he would have just hunted down Al Qaeda's top brass, gotten us out of there in 1-2 years and not bothered with Iraq.

This isn't even getting into Bush's domestic statism with the DHS, the TSA, Medicare part D, the bailouts.

^^^

Romney and Huntsman will undoubtedly continue the cycle.

Yeah.

It wouldn't be a stretch to see a "moderate"/liberal GOP in the next 20 years evolving from our current one.