Kilmer17's roadmap to fix the GOP

[Rdskns2000]

I was looking at potential 2016 contenders as posted on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...election,_2016

I would love for Jesse Ventura to run in 2016.

[Elessar78]

Can you only redraw district lines after the census? I think that if the dems increase their governors they could redraw the districts earlier, right?

there's always lawsuits too.

Read that The Atlantic article I posted on redrawing districts, it's very illuminating how it's done—while not illegal, they are toeing a fine line. The GOP, as I'm sure the Dems have one too, have a consultant travel the country to states that are up for redistricting and advises them on how to draw the lines.

Go too hard core and you'll run into legal challenges—this seems to be the lesson that the state parties are pressed to learn.

[MattFancy]

Well this shows exactly what the GOP's problem is: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/how-div...mittee-leaders

[Jumbo]

"The GOP nominates Whitey McMightywhite from Whiteyburg to be Whitest (or "chairman") of White Interests (committee name) and enwhiten the White House, where it seems something is still terribly awry."

[JimboDaMan]

Good to see the Repubs have named the Chairwhites of all the committees.

It woulda been different if Mitt won and we were using binders of black people.

[Larry]

Found this article via a friend's Facebook link. It's a rather long piece about a self-described lifelong conservative being kicked out of the party for coming to conclusions that the Party didn't like.

(A good part of the article is simply the guy listing his Republican pedigree.)

The American Conservative:
Revenge of the Reality-Based Community
My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong.

I know that it’s unattractive and bad form to say “I told you so” when one’s advice was ignored yet ultimately proved correct. But in the wake of the Republican election debacle, it’s essential that conservatives undertake a clear-eyed assessment of who on their side was right and who was wrong. Those who were wrong should be purged and ignored; those who were right, especially those who inflicted maximum discomfort on movement conservatives in being right, ought to get credit for it and become regular reading for them once again.

I’m not going to beat around the bush and pretend I don’t have a vested interest here. Frankly, I think I’m at ground zero in the saga of Republicans closing their eyes to any facts or evidence that conflict with their dogma. Rather than listen to me, they threw me under a bus. To this day, I don’t think they understand that my motives were to help them avoid the permanent decline that now seems inevitable.

For more than 30 years, I was very comfortable within the conservative wing of the Republican Party. I still recall supporting Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater as a schoolchild. As a student, I was a member of Young Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom at the height of the Vietnam War, when conservatives on college campuses mostly kept their heads down.

In graduate school, I wrote a master’s thesis on how Franklin Roosevelt covered up his responsibility for the Pearl Harbor attack—long a right-wing obsession. My first real job out of graduate school was working for Ron Paul the first time he was elected to Congress in a special election in 1976. (He lost that same year and came back two years later.) In those days, he was the only Tea Party-type Republican in Congress.

After Paul’s defeat, I went to work for Congressman Jack Kemp and helped draft the famous Kemp-Roth tax bill, which Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1981. I made important contributions to the development of supply-side economics and detailed my research in a 1981 book, Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action.

Suddenly, I felt adrift, politically and intellectually. I now saw many things I had long had misgivings about, such as all the Republican pork-barrel projects that Bush refused to veto, in sharper relief. They were no longer exceptions to conservative governance but its core during the Bush 43 years.

I began writing columns that were highly critical of Bush’s policies and those of Republicans in Congress—all based on solid conservative principles. In other words, I was criticizing them from the inside, from the right.

In 2004 I got to know the journalist Ron Suskind, whose book The Price of Loyalty I had praised in a column. He and I shared an interest in trying to figure out what made Bush tick. Neither of us ever figured it out.

A couple of weeks before the 2004 election, Suskind wrote a long article for the New York Times Magazine that quoted some of my comments to him that were highly critical of Bush and the drift of Republican policy. The article is best remembered for his quote from an anonymous White House official dismissing critics like me for being “the reality-based community.”

The day after the article appeared, my boss called to chew me out, saying that Karl Rove had called him personally to complain about it. I promised to be more circumspect in the future.

Interestingly, a couple of days after the Suskind article appeared, I happened to be at a reception for some right-wing organization that many of my think tank friends were also attending. I assumed I would get a lot of grief for my comments in the Suskind article and was surprised when there was none at all.

Finally, I started asking people about it. Not one person had read it or cared in the slightest what the New York Times had to say about anything. They all viewed it as having as much credibility as Pravda and a similar political philosophy as well. Some were indignant that I would even suspect them of reading a left-wing rag such as the New York Times.

I was flabbergasted. Until that moment I had not realized how closed the right-wing mind had become. Even assuming that my friends’ view of the Times’ philosophy was correct, which it most certainly was not, why would they not want to know what their enemy was thinking? This was my first exposure to what has been called “epistemic closure” among conservatives—living in their own bubble where nonsensical ideas circulate with no contradiction.

It's a long article. And almost entirely personal history. But I thought people might like to read it.

[twa]

Your reality is 4 yrs of O Bruce...enjoy

[alexey]

..
It's a long article. And almost entirely personal history. But I thought people might like to read it.

Interesting stuff, thanks or sharing. A couple of thoughts.

I really see value in conservatism and I hold conservative views on a number of issues. Too bad the GOP has nothing to do with conservatism.

Monopolies in the media are really dangerous... I wonder what course the history will take in relation to them.

[Larry]

I really see a value in conservatism and I hold conservative views on a number of issues. Too bad the GOP has nothing to do with conservatism.

Oh, I certainly agree. Although I'm kind of at where the intersection of conservationism and libertarianism used to intersect. In the 70's-80's, I voted Republican. I didn't like all of their positions, (I was anti-war, and have always favored legalizing things like porn, pot, and prostitution). But I tend to think of myself as tough on crime, and believed that welfare needed to be brought under control.

[Stadium-Armory]

Oh, I certainly agree. Although I'm kind of at where the intersection of conservationism and libertarianism used to intersect. In the 70's-80's, I voted Republican. I didn't like all of their positions, (I was anti-war, and have always favored legalizing things like porn, pot, and prostitution). But I tend to think of myself as tough on crime, and believed that welfare needed to be brought under control.

Show me a candidate that believes in this, and I'll show them my vote.

[alexey]

Oh, I certainly agree. Although I'm kind of at where the intersection of conservationism and libertarianism used to intersect. In the 70's-80's, I voted Republican. I didn't like all of their positions, (I was anti-war, and have always favored legalizing things like porn, pot, and prostitution). But I tend to think of myself as tough on crime, and believed that welfare needed to be brought under control.

For me it was a more traditional evolution from a youthful "they are all full of crap" position as I matured... My biggest mistake was probably not really understanding complex internal dynamics of large organizations where people fight for turf, budgets, etc, resulting things like reducing costs and delivering value not always being high on the list of priorities. I did not change my positions on the role of government all that much, but I did realize that need to keep a watchful eye on it.

---------- Post added November-29th-2012 at 08:18 PM ----------

Show me a candidate that believes in this, and I'll show them my vote.

and I'll show you a candidate who fails to win a primary

Seriously though, this is so strange. It seems that in politics nowadays you have to oppose the other guys simply because they are the other guys. It sucks for pragmatists who do not mind taking things that work from wherever they come from.

[Jumbo]

It seems that in politics nowadays you have to oppose the other guys simply because they are the other guys. It sucks for pragmatists who do not mind taking things that work from wherever they come from.

Things don't ever truly change (and this is another case where I take any excuse to post a favorite ).

[Rdskns2000]

Honestly, the GOP doesn't need to be fixed. The various coalitions that make up the GOP were never really compatible. The party needs to die its natural death. Yes, the Dems will be dominating for a while but eventually there will be a viable national alternative to the Dems. Sorry but the GOP isn't it.

[alexey]

Honestly, the GOP doesn't need to be fixed. The various coalitions that make up the GOP were never really compatible. The party needs to die its natural death. Yes, the Dems will be dominating for a while but eventually there will be a viable national alternative to the Dems. Sorry but the GOP isn't it.

Due to lack of party unity, Dems can be a viable national alternative to themselves but I do not think that's happening any time soon.

Whatever happens to the GOP (and I think Obama is doing his best at driving a wedge with his "extend tax cuts for the 98% right now" push), I am having a hard time imagining the GOP just dying. What happens to the unified drivers of the GOP message, the Fox News, the talk radio, etc? What happens to carefully framed issues that still work for so many people? Too much investment has been made. I cannot imagine a natural death for a monster like that, especially if it can still deliver a majority in the House and get support of well over 40% of the population. I just cannot imagine it imploding. Maybe this is due to lack of experience or failure of imagination on my part. Needless to say I am curious to see what happens next. Maybe I should do some research into realistic future scenarios for USA politics.

Whatever it is, I'm against it

[Larry]

Due to lack of party unity, Dems can be a viable national alternative to themselves but I do not think that's happening any time soon.

I am not a member of any organized political party. I, sir, am a Democrat.

- Will Rogers.

Whatever happens to the GOP (and I think Obama is doing his best at driving a wedge with his "extend tax cuts for the 98% right now" push), I am having a hard time imagining the GOP just dying. What happens to the unified drivers of the GOP message, the Fox News, the talk radio, etc? What happens to carefully framed issues that still work for so many people? Too much investment has been made. I cannot imagine a natural death for a monster like that, especially if it can still deliver a majority in the House and get support of well over 40% of the population. I just cannot imagine it imploding. Maybe this is due to lack of experience or failure of imagination on my part. Needless to say I am curious to see what happens next. Maybe I should do some research into realistic future scenarios for USA politics.

Whatever it is, I'm against it

The article points out that the GOP will likely retain the House for the next decade (at least), simply due to gerrymandering.

I could certainly see the GOP using their control of the House to simply **** things up as much as they can, and then claim it's somebody else's fault.

It's what they've been doing for four years, when they didn't even have a majority in either house of Congress. It's what they've been doing in California for decades.

And it's been working for them.

It's certainly possible that they'll be willing, and able, to simply follow the existing formula.