If Mittens does end up losing (and I believe he will lose), we all know the GOP heavy hitters will turn on him right away. The Limbaugh's, Hannity's, Coulter's, etc, will instantly proclaim how they never liked him, never trusted him, never thought he "got it" and on and on. Where will the party go from there? We've seen moderate Republicans be thrown under the bus by the extremists for the last two years, and it's left the GOP as a cadre of radicals, tax protestors, evangelicals and millennialists desperate for war with Iran and massive, unfeasible cuts to the government. Will the moderates, realizing the radical way has been rejected, take back the party? Will they be cast out for good? Will the GOP split, wrecking the two party system hated by so many?
Yep, they always announcing they secretly hated the guy after he loses. Up until that point though they just couldn't suck his cock enough. And, sadly, no, the moderates will not take back the party from the extremists. That won't happen without at least a decade of the extremists continually losing. Only then will the extremists be so discredited that even the idiots in the Republican Party will have to dump them.
As someone who almost always votes with the GOP, my sense is that the party is less conservative and substantially less beholden to the religious right than it was a decade or two ago. Romney is more moderate than Bush II, who was more moderate than Dole. Bush I wasn't so conservative, but he was riding Reagan's coattails. My hope is that the libertarian streak in the GOP gets bigger and presents a smaller government, free market vision when the big reforms to government spending and entitlement programs are finally forced upon the politicians. Let the Democrats be the defenders of the status quo (or the advocates of MORE taxes).
They've gotten so extreme people in positions of authority now even talk about banning birth control pills. Just think, did kicking out all the moderates make them less extreme or more extreme? They've moved so far to the right they've fallen off the edge of the table.
Meh. They've been less than enthused about Romney from the get-go. Ryan's the one they want to groom for '16 and beyond. If Romney loses, they'll just scrub all the icky off little Paulie and spend four years polishing him up to make an adorable little figurehead for the FOX crowd.
Who? And would it even have made the news if this weren't an election year? Yes, Romney--the standard-bearer of the GOP--is a firebreathing conservative! McCain was, at best, quasi-conservative, and Bush II, the "compassionate" conservative, was hardly conservative at all. You may like to tell yourself that the GOP is more "extreme" (I wonder how a party can be "extreme," yet be in strong contention to win the majority vote?), but I think you're deluding yourself.
The guy the party's putting forward for President, who becomes de facto leader of the party if he wins.
That could have happened if Romney had stuck with the hard conservative talking points. But he flipped a few weeks ago, so now the likely response if he loses will be that he made a mistake by trying to move to the center. Whereas in reality, the mistake will be that he spent too much time away from the center.
Not to mention Dole was a very old style Republican conservative in the pre-Reagan mold. The type of guy who wasn't an ideologue wrapped up in "the gob'mint is evil and tax cuts solve everything" type thinking.
I think it's going to take at least one more failed presidential run for the GOP to accurately access certain inter-party deficiencies, but another loss of Congress may also be required for that to happen. As it stands, it will be more likely we will see another failed GOP presidential run, but with the GOP controlling at least one House of Congress (most likely both).
He's the compromise candidate. He's the "Anybody" in "Anybody but Obama". Hell, we've got Evangelical groups striking "Mormonism" off their official "List of Evil Cultz" for the sake of political expediency. What the hell happened to you?
The GOP had their chance, ironically, so did the Democrats... There is..... another.... Skywalker....
So what? He's the compromise that just about everyone in the party can get behind. I'm sure there were WASPs who said Catholics can't be all bad when John Kennedy ran, too. Does that make the Republicans more or less extreme that they're open to a Mormon party leader? I don't understand the hostile attitude. Is what I'm saying striking you as uninformed or deceitful? Because from my perspective, it's neither. The claim was made that the GOP was more "extreme" right than ever, and I pointed out that Romney--the guy the GOP has CHOSEN--is hardly the epitome of conservatism. Even YOU acknowledge he's a compromise. How can a compromise be extreme? How can a party that chooses a compromise be extreme? If you disagree with me, tell me why.
The yardstick that was used, is "Is he electable"...not "is he conservative enough". Did you not notice that during the primaries, Romney portrayed himself as borderline radical right, and now as we're getting closer to the election, he's moving more and more left? The Tea Party Revolution kicked out most of the moderates and moved the GOP farther to the right. I don't think you're being decietful, I just never pegged you for a cool-aid drinker.
The GOP needs to literally wise up & ditch all the Creationists, intelligent design crowd, & religious whackos. They should ditch associating with the likes of Ann Coulter, a professional troll. Ann's an EMBARRASSMENT to the RepCons, don't they get that? Ann Coulter DEAD SERIOUSLY compared evolution to scientology on more than one occasion? Is she for real? If she is her skull must be several feet thick. On other sites I came across, I saw her referred to as Ann Trollter. Quite fitting, as that's exactly what she is. Then you have the retards Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. When did the GOP become so polluted with these creatures anyway? Not that the LibDems are Scott free here, they have their share of cretins too.
To be fair, a primary election is going to see most candidates moving towards the extremes of their party and a general election is going to see them moving back toward the center. Romney, though, is an expert at travelling along the political spectrum when it suits any given situation. I'll grant that most politicians lie and flip-flop, but have they ever lied and flip-flopped quite as much as Romney?
Ann Coulter is quite literally a troll. I don't actually think she (nor Glenn Beck for that matter) believe half the things they say. Limbaugh and Hannity, unfortunately, are deluded enough that they believe in what they say.
The GOP is such a mess that Mittens was the best of a bag of crazy. I mean, nobody likes the guy, but who else was there? Bachmann? Santorum? A pilled-up Rick Perry? Herman Cain??
I've recently begun to think Hannity might also be more troll and less nutjob. I have a friend who knows him and says that he is very different in person. Not only that, but his wife is a liberal!
How is that different than ANY other Presidential candidate? Every candidate appeals to the core of their party during the primaries and then runs to capture the center for the general election. That's nothing new, for either Republicans or Democrats. Recall during the 2008 election season, that Obama was trying to appeal to centrists by evoking Reagan(!!!), which was, to me, the very depth of cynicism as Obama believes in NOTHING Reagan believed. I'm not a "cool-aid drinker" in any way, shape or form; I'm tempted to say the same thing about you because you seem to buy the leftist interpretation completely. Firstly, Mitt would HARDLY be the choice of a Tea Party-dominated GOP, although his selection of Ryan is a nod in their direction. Secondly, how are the Tea Partiers supposedly more extreme? Because they're for smaller, Constitutional governement? Republicans (in my lifetime, anyway) have ALWAYS been for that. Maybe you disagree, but please don't imply I'm either beguiled by or ignorant of what's going on in the party I support. The party's positions aren't really any different than they've ever been--lower taxes? smaller government? oppose Obamacare?--and the guy they've put forward this year can't in any rational way be labelled extreme.
Ah, the pipe dream of the Liberals. We hear them fantasizing about it everytime they think they're going to win!
I'm amazed at how many people think Romney's a bad candidate while he's LEADING in several polls of voters.
No. Radicals don't get "cast", anywhere. You've got to utterly break them, or make them chew lead. No one has the balls to make this occur, so, you're going to have to watch some very nasty and revolting history unfold. Enjoy the show.
The polling isn't entirely clear, but shouldn't he be well ahead in all polls? I mean, Obama is a tough sell. Why can't Romney do better against him?
