Who/what did the most damage to the GOP brand name?

[hopper]

Allowing the conservative movement to take over the party and ceasing function as an actual political organization, allowing all sorts of crazies to simply walk in and get elected with little to no effort. This has been slowly happening for a few decades, but progresses in waves of elimination and re-election. The wipeout after the Bush years and the lucking out of getting re-elected on the backs of misdirected media-co-opted outrage allowed them to replenish their numbers without being ready to do so, and now there is effectively no party anymore.

On misdirected co-opted media outrage? What? People didn't want Obamacare and the Dems didn't run on anything in 2010 because they knew they were beat right when their members in swing districts voted for Obama Care.

I agree though after the beatings that the R's took in 2006 and 2008 they did win too quickly in 2010 without a party rebuild which is still needed. Still not the R's fault that the D's didn't run on anything in 2010. The Obama brand was too tough to beat in 2012 and Romney's catering to the far right on social issues didn't help obviously.

I don't have a problem with the GOP being conservative but being loony far right wing is hard to watch.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Here we go:

1. Social issues, at least too much emphasis on them
2. The Tea Party movement
3. The ideology hacks ("RINOs vs. real conservatives")
4. The simple fact that Democrats are almost always more popular, even when the GOP is at its zenith

[TNF]

Ronald Reagan. His nomination virtually assured that the Republican Party would go down the path of reactionary conservatism subsumed to the interests of the American overclass.

[soniquemd21921]

Here we go:

1. Social issues, at least too much emphasis on them
2. The Tea Party movement
3. The ideology hacks ("RINOs vs. real conservatives")
4. The simple fact that Democrats are almost always more popular, even when the GOP is at its zenith

The RINO thing is one of the worst. I can understand a dislike of Republicans who are as liberal as the average Democrat (i.e. John Lindsay or Jacob Javits), but regular Republicans who differ on a few social issues? Virtually all 30's-50's Republicans would have been labelled "RINO" by these same social conservative nuts had they been around then, except for maybe McCarthy and a few others. Hell, they consider Nixon to be a RINO now!

[Blackacre]

Here we go:

1. Social issues, at least too much emphasis on them
2. The Tea Party movement
3. The ideology hacks ("RINOs vs. real conservatives")
4. The simple fact that Democrats are almost always more popular, even when the GOP is at its zenith

The RINO thing is one of the worst. I can understand a dislike of Republicans who are as liberal as the average Democrat (i.e. John Lindsay or Jacob Javits), but regular Republicans who differ on a few social issues? Virtually all 30's-50's Republicans would have been labelled "RINO" by these same social conservative nuts had they been around then, except for maybe McCarthy and a few others. Hell, they consider Nixon to be a RINO now!

They dont even like Ike

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Ronald Reagan. His nomination virtually assured that the Republican Party would go down the path of reactionary conservatism subsumed to the interests of the American overclass.

And ironically, he would be opposed to ideological purity.
Also, didn't John Lindsay switch parties?

[TNF]

Ronald Reagan. His nomination virtually assured that the Republican Party would go down the path of reactionary conservatism subsumed to the interests of the American overclass.

And ironically, he would be opposed to ideological purity.
Also, didn't John Lindsay switch parties?

What does John Lindsay have to do with Ronald Reagan?

[sg0508]

How about this one? The 1992 RNC "Culture Wars" speech by Buchanan? That one event is seen as perhaps one of the biggest earthquakes within the party.  If you watch the video of that speech, you can literally see women and others in the crowd nearly booing...at the RNC.

[soniquemd21921]

Ronald Reagan. His nomination virtually assured that the Republican Party would go down the path of reactionary conservatism subsumed to the interests of the American overclass.

And ironically, he would be opposed to ideological purity.
Also, didn't John Lindsay switch parties?

\

He did. He started his political career in 1958 as a congressman from NYC's Upper East Side district, which was the only GOP stronghold in NYC (much like Boston's Beacon Hill congressional district, which also had an uninterrupted run of GOP congressmen, including Christian Herter). His voting record was moderately liberal, but as soon as he became mayor of NYC in late 1965 he veered farther and farther to the left during the next six years before becoming a Democrat in 1971.

One of the most blatant examples of someone changing their ideology I've ever seen was Charles Goodell. He started his career as a conventional congressman from a rock-ribbed upstate district in western New York, but after RFK was assassinated Rockefeller appointed him to the U.S. Senate, and almost overnight became a flaming RINO. In a three-way race in 1970, he was defeated by Conservative candidate James Buckley.

(As you can see, I only use the term RINO to describe Republicans who were full-blown liberals.)