Republicans - what is your plan for staying competitive in the following states

[DC Al Fine]

Adopt the Canadian Tories approach to winning over minorities:

1)Accept that Hispanics generally don't go for abortion/gay marriage social conservatism and adopt a "family first" approach. This would include lots of rhetoric about small business, hard working families, and insinuating that the Democrats are patronizing elitists.

2) Adopt big government conservatism with lots of targeted tax credits and allowances. Ex: Child care allowances. This meshes well with the rhetoric in #1.

3) Not sure how feasible this is in the American system, but adopt a much more disciplined communications strategy. Adopt a unified, disciplined message and stick to it. Try to avoid Akin moments.

[DC Al Fine]

Adopt the Canadian Tories approach to winning over minorities:

1)Accept that Hispanics generally don't go for abortion/gay marriage social conservatism and adopt a "family first" approach. This would include lots of rhetoric about small business, hard working families, and insinuating that the Democrats are patronizing elitists.

2) Adopt big government conservatism with lots of targeted tax credits and allowances. Ex: Child care allowances. This meshes well with the rhetoric in #1.

3) Not sure how feasible this is in the American system, but adopt a much more disciplined communications strategy. Adopt a unified, disciplined message and stick to it. Try to avoid Akin moments.

1) Rhetoric about hard working families? What kind of rhetoric? Talking about your party's cutting funding from the public schools their children attend? Or about reducing general revenue contributions to state universities, resulting in high tuition that those families often cannot afford? Or about treating the "evil public sector union workers" like pinatas when the reality is that a lot of Hispanics - particularly Hispanic women - would not be middle class were it not for their county and municipal government jobs. (What other job opportunities do you think there are for Latinas in rural South/West Texas?)

2) The people who write checks to the GOP are not your kind of conservative, Al. They don't care about "strengthening families." Only the useful idiots in the heartland care about that. The GOP's donors care about one thing - ensuring they pay as little tax as humanly possible. And the only way to do that is to "broaden the base and lower/flatten the rates" which means fewer deductions (which they will call "loopholes") and not more. Mitt Romney's 47% comment more or less cemented the belief that Republicans hate and disdain people who do not pay net federal income tax, and your suggestion would only increase the number of people in this category.

3) Not sure what to do about that. Todd Akin was only saying what he really felt and that is the problem. You could stop nominating people like him, but the sort of people who vote in GOP primaries tend to feel the same way he does.

1) It's rhetoric Indy, it doesn't need much content Here's an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60OypDB3YfI

We ran a bunch of ads like that in the 2011 election; all with the tag line "Isn't it time we voted our values?" in Mandarin, Hindi etc. Admittedly this approach was designed for East/South Asians but it could be adapted for Hispanics.

2) As I've said before, the only thing keeping me in the GOP is abortion... Although I suggest your big bad 1%ers might be willing to trade a few tax credits for the presidency

3) Yeah, that's the toughest one. The Canadian system allows for a lot more influence from party HQ. Primarying an incumbent is basically impossible and the party can boot someone who's too unruly. It creates a different culture for politicians, that I'm not sure how to replicate in the States.

[DC Al Fine]

This is basically just copy and pasting the Democratic Party platform though. The only way that would work is if the Dems moved hard left to compensate (sort of the reverse of the current political environment where Dems are moving right and Republicans are moving hard right, even though it's the Dems who are winning elections).

If the GOP actually did this, a new right wing party would start and the GOP would get 3rd place in most elections.

Not really. It's capturing the middle.

The Democratic Party is winning because they have captured the middle since 1992.

Republicans captured the middle 1968-1988. The demise of the USSR eliminated Communism as a uniting factor withing the Republican Party(which had a massive moderate wing), leaving them with divisive social issues as their basic platform. Since then(with the exception of 2004), the focus has been domestic, and that's why Democrats won the popular vote in the other 5 elections. Clinton, Gore, and Obama have all been moderately liberal and the New Democrat brand is very popular.

Polling has shown that people view the GOP as extreme, out of touch, too conservative, and a party of rich old white men. 1988 was the last election in which Republicans performed well with blacks, inner suburbs, the working class, and in cities.

Quite a bit of what I posted is too conservative for liberal Democrats, but acceptable to moderate Dems/Indies/Repubs.

You're right about the GOP's image problems, but that still doesn't address Icespear's point. You still need to give the socons and free marketeers a reason to vote for the GOP. The platform you suggested, especially on the social side of things basically guarantees a 3rd party candidacy from someone like Huckabee or Santorum. 

[DC Al Fine]

You're right about the GOP's image problems, but that still doesn't address Icespear's point. You still need to give the socons and free marketeers a reason to vote for the GOP. The platform you suggested, especially on the social side of things basically guarantees a 3rd party candidacy from someone like Huckabee or Santorum. 

GUYS: the point of this topic is to stay competitive across the nation, not appeal to the hyper-conservative base. Moderates outnumber conservatives; independents are more important than pure Republican turnout. The GOP would actually have to become center-left for a serious right-wing challenge.


This was just a vague set of ideas on how to become competitive. If SoCons staying home in Alabama and Wyoming means the GOP wins *only* 55% instead of cracking 60%, who care so long as that 2-3% shift in Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Colorado wins those states?

The point is to win elections. Not ideological purity.

After re-reading your platform, I'll drop my quibble about fiscal issues. Those proposals are at least within the ballpark of what a hardcore fiscal conservative would consider reasonable. Now as for social issues and electoral geography...

You feel your social platform is moderate enough for America. It would indeed be true in say the UK where being pro-SSM and anti-abortion after 6 months is a pretty normal conservative position. However, this being the USA, enough of the population feels that those positions are completely unacceptable.

While I'm among the first to admit that socons are in the minority, they're still a considerable interest group, and considerably more dispersed than the segregationists. It's not like Strom Thurmond where the 3rd party got basically 0 votes outside of the deep south. There are sizable pockets evangelicals in places like Ohio and Florida that could go 3rd party.

If for example Huckabee got a mere 20% of the white evangelical Romney vote, and nothing else he'd manage 4% of the vote, which would be enough to ruin an election for the GOP.

This is a good example of the GOP's problem that IceSpear brought up before. The GOP has to find a balance between attracting moderates and keeping a base from up and leaving. The base is just too large and too out of sync with the moderates for a balance to be easily struck.