Republicans Could Lock Up 2016 If...

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
By the way:

Fiorina “has my ear”…she just needs to lay out her vision.

Walker needs to get moving on his vision also.

I was impressed with what Paul laid out at Bowie state.

The Problem?

I see all three getting chewed up and spit out in the GOP Primary. (Even though Paul “won” the CPAC Straw Poll, for what it’s worth).

And Jeb is amassing INSANE amounts of money.

Mufasa[/quote]

The very fact that he is amassing that amount of money already is one reason I despise his candidacy. As H Factor said elsewhere, Cruz won’t win but the deciding factor shouldn’t be the amount of money he gets into his warchest–or lack thereof.

More money just means more people to pay back afterwards.

42

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I mean, tell me exactly what the publicly acceptable Republican is going to actually accomplish?

Is he going to promise to cut taxes for an economic/financial sector of the economy that has gained the windfall of wealth/income, while promising to increase US military activity? And he’ll offset this with what? Apparently trying to offset some of the loss from the previous by promising to cut SS, medicare/caid? Lol.
[/quote]

This is how most voters view the current group of Republican Candidates…and for good reasons.

43

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
By the way:

Fiorina “has my ear”…she just needs to lay out her vision.

Walker needs to get moving on his vision also.

I was impressed with what Paul laid out at Bowie state.

The Problem?

I see all three getting chewed up and spit out in the GOP Primary. (Even though Paul “won” the CPAC Straw Poll, for what it’s worth).

And Jeb is amassing INSANE amounts of money.

Mufasa[/quote]

The very fact that he is amassing that amount of money already is one reason I despise his candidacy. As H Factor said elsewhere, Cruz won’t win but the deciding factor shouldn’t be the amount of money he gets into his warchest–or lack thereof.

More money just means more people to pay back afterwards.[/quote]

It’s likely that same money (or lack there of) keeping an economically illiterate, falsely populous kook like Liz Warren on the sidelines.

So, I’ll take the bad with the good.

No worries on god ol’ Jeb. Dude couldn’t beat Biden in a general.

44

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
But I agree with you - having a moderate candidate, while not sufficient to win, will be a necessary condition.[/quote]

Fine. And I agree that the Santorim and Huckabees of the world aren’t getting elected. But neither is a Bush…

I feel like you guys don’t appreciate the low information garbage middle and left voters eat up. If you have facebook, go to the page “being liberal” or the website “addicting info” or “upworthy”, they are all run by the same dude, Matthew Desmond. THAT is what the republican’s are up against…

Intellectuals don’t win elections, and intellectual platforms based on sound economics dont’ win elections. 30 second soundbites that hit people right in the feels, during good appearances on the Daily Show win elections.

People like Zepplin and Pittbull vote, understand nothing about economics and are representative of a lot of voters… [/quote]

I take your point, and I get that a lot of voting is driven (unfortunately) by sound bite politics instead of substantive platforms.

To a point, though. Republicans didn’t capture the House in enormous fashion in 2010 and the Senate last year because they played a better sound bite game (far from it, they actually would have gained far more, especially in 2010, had they even been marginally competent at “image” politics - witness the Sharon Angle debacle in Nevadal . They won because voters were reacting to poor policy, performance, and politics on the part of Obama and the Democrats. And now they are expected to deliver with better policy, performance, and politics.

That will require a better platform. And I think more people pay closer attention than is the usual complaint.

45

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Who are you liking in the possible GOP field so far, Sloth?

Mufasa[/quote]

Nobody. And, again, what’s the point? [/quote]

No more than for discussion, that’s all.

You right to Vote is also one to NOT Vote…

Mufasa

46

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

Walker needs to get moving on his vision also.

Mufasa[/quote]

ONe of the few, that based on my understanding, could run on his record, not go negative, and whoop major ass.
[/quote]

He doesn’t seem to hold up well when asked to explain policy…he may have a vision; but doesn’t seem able to articulate it at this point. Look a little deeper into the WI economy and you’ll discover they are trailing every other state in the region.

47

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
They won because voters were reacting to poor policy, performance, and politics on the part of Obama and the Democrats. And now they are expected to deliver with better policy, performance, and politics.

That will require a better platform. .[/quote]

Agreed.

They’ll fuck this up, no doubt. They always do. And it’s because of what you’ve been saying. Democrat message: “government is your friend, savior and always here for you”.

It’s hard to counter that at the same time your asking for the very job you’re denouncing.

48

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:
Look a little deeper into the WI economy and you’ll discover they are trailing every other state in the region.
[/quote]

I’ll assume you’re correct, but the better comparison is how they were before he came along, and how they are now.

He’s hopeless anyway, not affirmative action enough.

49

[quote]Mufasa wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Who are you liking in the possible GOP field so far, Sloth?

Mufasa[/quote]

Nobody. And, again, what’s the point? [/quote]

No more than for discussion, that’s all.

You right to Vote is also one to NOT Vote…

Mufasa
[/quote]

Well, I’m not really talking about not voting. I’m only asking what’s the point of worrying over it so much? We’re pretty much done with the Republican party being able to win as something fundamentally different than the Democrat party.

50

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Therein lies the problem.

“Repeal Obamacare/The last 8 years have been a disaster”; “Close the Borders”; and “Benghazi” are not Platforms. They are debate points and issues used to fire up ones base.

Platforms should represent a clear blueprint for where a Party or Person would like to take the Country, in order to solve our Myriad of problems.

BOTH parties fall short in this regard.

However; as someone said…“Not Hillary” and blasting President Obama is neither a blueprint nor even a vision. There will need to be a lot more presented if a 2016 Presidential election win is a Goal.

Mufasa

[/quote]

I think a number of GOP tropes aren’t working and won’t work in 2016, but running against the laat eight yeara isn’t one of them. Hell, I am of a firm belief that the Democrat is actually going to run against the last eight years in 2016.

One huge issue will be income inequality - in the most basic sense. Real wages aren’t keeping up, and haven’t for a while. Obama claimed in 2012 or 2013 that it was the most salient issue of our time (paraphrasing) - and has attempted to do zilch about it. And it has worsened since the Great Recession, an event that should have been the sounding bell to address these issues.

I don’t think Repeal Obamacare is a winning message, but running against the last eightb years can be - for both candidates.

51

[quote]Sloth wrote:
This year’s qualifying question from the media–the ever watchful guardians of liberty–to GoP hopefuls, “Do you support the idea that a pizzeria can refuse to service, and discriminate against, a homosexual wedding?”

[/quote]

Sloth, this question on its face is exactly why I don’t know if we can pull back from the edge politically anymore.

No republican will have the balls to say yes to this question in a general election. This means that we, well, won’t get a republican that 1) has balls; or 2) isn’t just a RINO. But that no one will answer this question in the affirmative demonstrates the greater problem. You can’t win if you say yes. No one cares about living free. Americans at this point lack the intelligence to be able to parse the idea that a person can support freedom and also not be a bigot. And at this juncture in our nation’s history, a bigot is about the worse thing you can be called. Apparently it’s worse than being an actual slave driver.

52

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
Apparently it’s worse than being an actual slave driver. [/quote]

They were democrats… So yeah, it is worse.

53

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
No one cares about living free.[/quote]

This pretty much wins the whole idea. The left isn’t afraid to say they are for bigger government. The right gives all sorts of lip service to reducing the size of government in primaries, but when you get right down to it they have no desire to reduce it either. They aren’t touching taking tons of tax dollars to support by far the most bloated military in the world, in fact they want more. They talk about doing something to Medicare, Social Security, etc but those positions are as unpopular with right wing people as they are left (keep government hands off my medicare, red states who lick up government services at insane rates, etc).

In essence you have one party who tells you you need bigger government and another one that talks about how bad bigger government is but only does that because it sounds good to the base. When the devil is in the details neither side does jack shit when they are in power to reduce it.

It’s not a right/left thing. The vast majority of Americans are not for reduced government and those of us on here who are will never be in the majority. Pack up your shit and go home, fight’s over boys.

55

[quote]H factor wrote:

It’s not a right/left thing. The vast majority of Americans are not for reduced government and those of us on here who are will never be in the majority. Pack up your shit and go home, fight’s over boys. [/quote]

Funny story, I was loading my new mags that came in last week and stacking them in the safe and my wife was like “oh, did Obama say something stupid again? Armed rebellion time?” (We’re a fairly mixed political marriage. She’s not communist lefty, but we certainly don’t see eye to eye on much, but she’s coming around. I used to be a lot more left myself.) Now she was just busting my balls, as she always does, and what fucking point is there to an unloaded mag just sitting there?

Anyway I just said, “you know wife, the more I think about it, the less I’m worried about the jack boot thugs of .gov coming for me guns, and the more worried I am about the dregs that live across the river coming for our stuff when the .gov money runs out.”

She sorta just looked at me, blinked, and walked out of the room.

56


This is the type of shit a “moderate republican” and a “conservative right-winger” is facing…

Being more like the democrats isn’t really a long term solution either.

57

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
Pack up your shit and go home, fight’s over boys. [/quote]

Can’t do it because there’s really no place on earth to emigrate.[/quote]

This.

58

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
By the way:

Fiorina “has my ear”…she just needs to lay out her vision.

Walker needs to get moving on his vision also.

I was impressed with what Paul laid out at Bowie state.

The Problem?

I see all three getting chewed up and spit out in the GOP Primary. (Even though Paul “won” the CPAC Straw Poll, for what it’s worth).

And Jeb is amassing INSANE amounts of money.

Mufasa[/quote]

The very fact that he is amassing that amount of money already is one reason I despise his candidacy. As H Factor said elsewhere, Cruz won’t win but the deciding factor shouldn’t be the amount of money he gets into his warchest–or lack thereof.

More money just means more people to pay back afterwards.[/quote]

It’s likely that same money (or lack there of) keeping an economically illiterate, falsely populous kook like Liz Warren on the sidelines.

So, I’ll take the bad with the good.

No worries on god ol’ Jeb. Dude couldn’t beat Biden in a general. [/quote]

Truth. I throw up a little in the back of my mouth every time I see a facebook post about how “Liz Warren should be president!!1!!11”.

It really ticks me off though that we are even TALKING about money being an issue in a campaign rather than the platform and policy decisions themselves.

59

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
Pack up your shit and go home, fight’s over boys. [/quote]

Can’t do it because there’s really no place on earth to emigrate.[/quote]

http://freeislandproject.com/

One last bastion of hope?!

Nah. It’ll never happen.

60

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
Pack up your shit and go home, fight’s over boys. [/quote]

Can’t do it because there’s really no place on earth to emigrate.[/quote]

http://freeislandproject.com/

One last bastion of hope?!

Nah. It’ll never happen. [/quote]

Heh. I predict such an experiment would last maybe six months. And that is being charitable.