Did the GOP slide begin in the 1990s?

[sg0508]

When the religious right took over for good in the late 90s, it was all over.  We made gains in 02 because of 9/11 and in 04 because the southern states happened to vacate that year in the Senate.  Notice how we lost the seat in CO though.

The democrats appear to liberals and moderates/suburban voters.  The conservatives will be enoguh in the south and that's it.

[sg0508]

The loss of surburbia has destroyed the party.  Suburban votes used to make us viable in MI, PA, IL, CO, CA, OR and WA.  Try to remember that THESE USED TO BE OUR STATES.

We've lost the surburban vote and we've failed to account for the demographical movements in those states too. Even NY we were competitive for years because we used to win huge margins with surburban voters who were socially moderate and fiscally conservative.

[sg0508]

You tell that to the Jim DeMint's, Marsha Blackburns and the other social idiots of our party and see what they think.  These social conservatives want their platform as #1, even if it means losing.  There is no room for defaction in the party anymore.

And, those voters we've lost have turned to vote for democrats.

[sg0508]

The party slowly made itself unelectable by creating a platform that is too far right and too narrow with no allowance for opposing points of view. 

You could even make a case that the 1992 RNC speech by Buchanan started it.  Remember how many moderate republicans were completely turned off by that?

[sg0508]

It's very worrisome though because you had people like Santorum (gone thank god), DeMint, Cornyn and Brownback running the show.  These people have no clue that they are the definition of the problem and not the solution.

It's very concerning because to a lot of northerners, the party is seen as blatantly intolerant and ignorant.  Whether true or not, the perception, which is always reality is that the party is run by religious fascists and when you have people like DeMint, Delay and others that consistently make ignorant remarks about human nature, etc, it looks very bad and unfortunately, having gone to college down south, you have some very ignorant people and uneducated human beings that revere the GOP nowadays.  How to reverse that, I have no idea, but it's a big problem.

[sg0508]

DeMint?  What's principaled about him? That he thinks single women and gays shouldn't teach in public schools?  Great representation of the party there.