Romney 2012: The Last Great White Campaign

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It's hilarious to see Democrats try to slander anything and everything as a racist ploy. It's even more amusing to see Democrats go "okay, some of our policies might be ethnic pandering...BUT THE EVIL GOP RUNS ADS ON OBAMA'S WELFARE CHANGES."

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One person who (probably) supports Romney makes a racist joke ---> Romney is waging a racist war of racism.

Cool logic bro. Tell it again.

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One person who (probably) supports Romney makes a racist joke ---> Romney is waging a racist war of racism.

Cool logic bro. Tell it again.

Logic?!  Yeah what about all the other people that laughed and went right along with the joke?  What does your logic say about that?  And if someone can say this on a microphone to a crowd of people what is said in private?  What does your "logic" say about that?

Well, it was still kind of funny. Kind of racist yeah, but more of an nervous chuckle-type than gasp and head for the hills.

Anyways, that's ridiculous. Much worse things have been said about Republicans (jokingly) at Democrat rallies. This is a schoolboy argument at best.

But I guess the conclusion we should be drawing is that if a campaign that doesn't have poll-tested goodies specifically designed for every single narrow ethnic group, it is predicated on racism.

The foundation of Romney's appeal to whites is predominantly a mixture of the poor economic climate and ideological hostility toward Obama (from right-wingers to left-wingers). It's amazing how Democrats don't even know what the talking points of the other side are, but I suppose it's not unsurprising.

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Well, it's not like you can really "boost" white turnout. Whites are not at all a homogenous political group. Obviously. And neither are Hispanics.

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Although being stuck at 30% with Hispanics would be inconvenient, it's hardly an unsurmountable climb. No reason the GOP can't push up to 60% of the white vote as their norm. A GOP that dominates the Upper Midwest and Rust Belt can afford loses in the Southwest.

Plus, the Hispanic population will probably grow much slower than people expect. Net migration from Mexico is negative and the hispanic birth rate has /collapsed/ in recent years. Not to mention white hispanics (who have an extremely high intermarriage rate) intermarrying and having children who don't identify as hispanics (seriously, everyone considers George Zimmermann white), which also puts a crimp in that growth.

The intermarriage rate of non-white hispanics is very low and they will almost remain a very unfriendly demographic for the GOP, pushing large parts of the Southwest marginally to the left, but it's hardly a death knell.

Plus, the GOP does have one avenue for improvement. As Hispanic educational achievement increases (which it is rapidly doing so), obviously many Hispanics will drop out of religion. But at the same time, many won't, and those may start to vote based on their religious values. And the GOP's position can't really worse in that demographic, so it can only get up.

Also, immigration doesn't seem like the panacea to all issues with hispanic voters. Largely because hispanic immigration has collapsed.

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The problem with that idea is that unlike white evangelicals, these other groups that the GOP needs to outreach to if they hope to remain relevant generally don't see gays and abortion as the preeminent religious issues.

Well, not yet. What I'm saying is that they may grow to do so as more, especially on abortion, which the Church views as a moral imperative.

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As Hispanic educational achievement increases (which it is rapidly doing so), obviously many Hispanics will drop out of religion. But at the same time, many won't, and those may start to vote based on their religious values. And the GOP's position can't really worse in that demographic, so it can only get up.

Your entire post made no sense.  I just picked the strangest of your utterances and high lighted it.

It's hilarious watching people try to comfort themselves when forced to reckon with the demographic inevitability.

I don't think I've ever seen you make a coherent post, but whatever.

Massive Italian, Irish, Polish, and etc. immigration terrified Gilded Age Republicans for many reasons. And unsurprisingly, those groups voted about as Democrat as Hispanic voters today. Of course, the Republicans did not do them favors by being extremely anti-immigration (immigration controls acts, anti-catholicism, rum, romanism, and rebellion). Nativism is hardly new.

Of course, no one really cares today about that. Although large non-white cohorts among the hispanic immigrant community will consistently make this group more electorally challenging, it is hardly a death sentence. The idea that some new "brown America" is going to ensure perpetual Democrat governance is simply incongruent with demographic and cultural reality.

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Do you think there is anything inherent about their non-whiteness that makes them vote differently? Isn't what we are seeing today with Hispanic voters the same as was seen with the Irish and other ethnic white groups in the 19th and 20th century? I think we will see the same thing with over time Hispanics of all background becoming more likely to vote Republican. This is unless the Republicans go total white nationalist....which is possible if there is another economic downturn and it scares me. And the way some Republicans talk makes it seem like a real possibility. 

Well, inherent with them? No. Inherent with our society? Probably. As unfortunate at it is, race is extremely strong dividing line in our society. And many societies. As we know, hispanic just means spanish-speaking; it's not a racial classification (although many white Americans are quite confused). There's a huge gap between hispanics between white and non-white hispanics. For example, there's is very little intermarriage between white hispanics and non-white hispanics (a similar trend we see with white anglos and non-white anglos).

Also, the idea of any American party going all white nationalist is improbable at best. Every legitimate business interest with any say in the matter will have ways to shut that whole thing down. Also, we don't really have immigration from Mexico anymore, so who will care in a generation?

I mean, it's still bad for the GOP. But considering that white hispanics will probably behave like other white ethnic groups, Hispanic-American birthrates have collapsed (to well, Mexican levels), and immigration from Latin America has largely died down, it's not going to be a death knell.

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the more limited government that we used to have prior to the last few years

lol krazen thinks the size of government has actually noticeably expanded in the last few years?

Such is evident by the numbers.

The growth in government has been bipartisan and half driven by automatic stabilizers, but yeah, it has grown.

The irony is that the primary engine of government growth going into the next few decades will be programs like medicare and social security (defended by minority-backed Democrats), which will primarily service whites (due to older generations being much more white) until being completely insolvent by the time minority-heavy generations grow old enough to the point where they would have been able to collect.

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So shouldn't any changes apply to anyone who is not already on those programs? You do realize that is not what the Republicans are proposing....perhaps to protect their old, white base and ensure they keep voting for them.

The whole "doesn't affect people over-55", which is not a good plank, was not part of the original Ryan plan. It was inserted in after the Democrats charged the Paul Ryan was plotting to kill grandmom.

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How can someone, then, increase spending by so little (according to those sources), but still be bloating the deficit? The numbers don't add up in my mind, but maybe I'm not picking up something.

Uh, it's actually quite simple. Thanks to the joy of Obamanomics, tax revenues have plunged off a cliff.

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Umm you have to admit:
1) educating, providing hospital care, policing, providing "safety net" benefits, etc to a horde of illegal immigrants has a cost associated with it.   
2) If the federal government did it's job of protecting Arizona from all these problems and costs(per their duty outlined in the constitution, law, etc), then their would be no basis for the law. 
3) given 1&2 are true, than your assertion that the law is race based doesn't hold any weight in the face of the legitimate real reasons.   

Considering that the main reasons we've restricted legal immigration well below the levels they would otherwise be is racism and/or chauvinism, then yes, the law is race based.  The idea that the main reason illegal immigrants come here to live off the government safety net is hokum.  They come here for jobs, which is why illegal immigration has plummeted the past few years.

The easiest solution to the illegal immigration problem is some combination of more aggressively going after those who would employ them and/or increasing the levels of legal immigration.  I.e., decreasing the demand for immigrant labor or increasing the supply.  All laws like SB 1070 are likely to achieve in the long run is adding to our law enforcement budgets, much as our futile war on drugs has.

You're calling Ted Kennedy a racist?

Chauvinist in his case.  Besides the racist arguments for restricting immigration are the chauvinist ones of deliberately trying to keep the national labor supply constricted so as to raise wages.  But that only works well if you have tariffs high enough to keep out goods from lower wage countries with a surplus of labor.

I mean, I think Ted Kennedy is a chauvinist, racist, murdering scumbag who would be burning in hell if I were Christian.

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Generally:
Republicans want immigrants to work and earn citizenship.
Democrats want illegal immigrants to be citizens and not work. 

I can make an argument for the republican's desire, but I can't justify the democrat's.       

Because your "Democratic" desire is a strawman.

The idea that the reason illegal immigrants want to come here is to live high off the hog off of our safety net programs is pure hogwash as the last few years should have made abundantly clear.  They come here to find jobs.

True, immigrants come for work. It's why illegal immigrants aren't coming to Obama's America. Welfare is not a huge aspect of their decision. Or even a major aspect.

But that doesn't detract from the fact that Democrats shoot down things like guest-worker programs and skilled-worker legal immigration. Because they want illegal immigrants to become citizens and then start voting Democrat. And immigrants don't come to enjoy welfare programs, but once they're here, they'll be enjoying social services (which don't get me wrong, I believe they deserve to have, even if they're illegal), and if they become citizens, more receptive towards voting for Democrats, especially if they have no way to economically advance themselves and their families, as is unfortunately often the case.

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Taxes are at their lowest since the 1950s.

Obama isn't the reason revenue is so low. We are recovering from a financial crisis, so revenue is obviously down. But yes, he has given 17 tax cuts in the past 4 years. I don't think you can attack him for such low revenue when that is the centerpiece of the GOP Recovery Plan.

So under Obama get the worst of both tax worlds huh? High marginal tax rates (a disincentive to earn) but low revenues (because of random tax credit give-aways).

It's quite easy for me to blame Obama. Companies, especially small businesses, are actually sitting on a great deal of money. When pressed as to why they're not spending it, over half blame "regulatory uncertainty".

Maybe if Obama hadn't squandered eight years of accumulated political capital on shoving through Obamacare and perhaps maybe spent it on tax reform, or regulatory reform, or entitlement reform, or hell, even a real stimulus, we might much better off. And please don't bring up "Republican obstructionism", as if the opposition party can do anything when you have 60 Senate seats and 250+ House seats.

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Maybe we would have gotten more done if the GOP were willing to work with us at all. Their stated goal was to block as much as possible to stagnate Obama and make him easier to beat.

Because you can totally filibuster with 40 Senators. Man, damn those Republicans, for uh...making funny faces and writing angry letters while our party passed the bills we wanted to pass!

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We only had the full 60 for a few months (between Al Franken's seating and Scott Brown winning in MA), and Lieberman joined the 40 on health care reform. The stimulus, which by all means should have been bigger, was probably about as big as it could have been.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

And you spend those months on...something not very good.

Not to mention, Snowe, Collins, and Brown were clearly willing to go along with things. As shown by the stimulus and Dodd-Frank.

The whole obstructionism doesn't work. Look how much FDR accomplished in 100 days. Compare that to Obama. It's indefensible.

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You would probably ignore this racial crap if you had fabrications thrown at you constantly.

You mean fabrications like Republicans support Voter ID laws because they'll stop rampant voter fraud rather than because they'll impact Democratic-leaning voting groups most?

Chillax. Here's Nate Silver explaining why chillaxing is good. Voter ID law doesn't make a huge impact.

The more likely political calculus is that considering 70-75% of Americans support Voter ID laws, the Republicans know that pushing it is a political winner, largely because Democrats do not chillax and find themselves acting very angrily on the more unpopular side of the issue.

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Maybe we would have gotten more done if the GOP were willing to work with us at all. Their stated goal was to block as much as possible to stagnate Obama and make him easier to beat.

My view is that Dems does it to themselves.  Lets take the economic situation now.  I feel
it will continue to slide as various busineses will not spend money to invest until they know what
will happen to the fiscal cliff.  But the bad economy is one of the major factors making it hard
for Obama to get re-elected.  Dems seem to accuxe the GOP of trying to make the economy bad
so Obama easier to beat.  In response Dems does not seem to want to even come up with a deal with the GOP today to take this factor off the table as something that will make the investment climate worse.  Dems should offer a deal of pushing out the Bush II tax rates for 2 more years with the GOP to take the fiscal cliff off the table.  And whoever wins the 2012 elections have a whole year and maybe two to do whatever tax/fiscal/entitlement reform necessary to get this debt under control.  It is totally possible that the GOP will not take such a deal but I do not even seem the Dems trying.

There's a problem with this. In short, Republicans want the sequesters to not happen (they're mostly) a lot more than the Democrats. And Republicans want the current tax code extended a lot more than the Democrats.

So this idea that both parties will meet in the middle is hard to see unfolding, because they're not negotiating from equal positions. My prediction is that the Democrats will refuse to offer the Republicans any kind of deal besides "do what we want", the Republicans will obviously not do what they want, and then we'll sail off the fiscal cliff.

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Don't underestimate the military industrial complex, Koenkai.

From what I've heard from family friends working in the defense industry, their clout is on the wane. And Pat Murray openly suggested sailing over the fiscal cliff despite being from Washington, home of Boeing, is a testament to their decreased influence. Not to mention the defense industry has never been as influential as people thought. Certainly they get a voice at the table, but the idea of a military-industrial complex is hyperbolic.

If anything, the biggest driver for defense spending has been congressman from economically distressed areas (see: Jack Murtha), who realize their districts are highly dependent on defense spending. And it's why Boehner's move to kill the F-35 engines was so surprising.

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Yes, both parties are dependent on military spending in their impoverished districts. But since they do tend to be concentrated more in rural (small town) areas, maybe Democrats are not as beholden to it as they were previously. They don't really hold the Murtha type districts anymore, replaced by populist Republicans.

They still hold some. Less than before, but still some.

But they do hold less. Which would naturally lead to Democrats being much more willing to jump off the fiscal cliff.

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Remember, anecdotal evidence is superior to statistical research, especially if it's done by a left-leaning thinker.

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Remember, anecdotal evidence is superior to statistical research, especially if it's done by a left-leaning thinker.

I thought Republicans liked anecdotal evidence?

Projection?

Seriously though, the tendency of certain people (from my opinion, usually leftists, but of course, not always) to assign negative traits to all people of very large political movements either betrays severe intellectual laziness, seriously disordered thinking, or the profile of a twelve-year old still living in a black&white-dichotomized world stumbling upon the interwebz.

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Remember, anecdotal evidence is superior to statistical research, especially if it's done by a left-leaning thinker.

Like all that statistical research that showed about 3 cases of voter impersonation in Texas?

Voter fraud is actually quite difficult to statistically measure. Though at least from what we can tell, it's not an epidemic, but it still does happen occasionally. Here is a good run-down on the difficulties of measuring voter fraud.

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/counting-voter-fraud-1165/

Democrat opposition to Voter ID isn't really that rational. Because opposition puts them on the wrong-end of public opinion. It'd probably be better on an electoral position to just politically accept the laws, allow the courts to strike down the stricter laws, and create party infrastructure/organs (and/or work with outside groups) to assist voters without voter ID (and convince them to vote Democrat).

But as this thread proved, I think it's just all about leftists being unable to resist the opportunity to slam people who disagree with them as racist.

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Getting back to the OP and how going all in on white votes will never work again (and may not this time) here are a couple of quotes from some GOP big shots said during the RNC

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I respectfully disagree with Graham. Now, I like that he's saying it. Because if the GOP makes more changes to appeal to Hispanic voters, they're probably moving their party positions much closer towards my personal views. But I actually think the GOP is winning the demographic war. Piling a decisive lead among white voters, just waiting for white Hispanics to start voting like other white ethnics (hugely in the favor of the GOP), and monopolizing the Midwest and holding onto Texas.

And what Jeb Bush says is obvious. You want to get as many votes as possible, regardless of where they're from. You should reach out to everyone everytime.