Rant: Ron Paul/Rand Paul- 2016 and this previous election.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by XgrimX [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think we can all agree there is a POSSIBILITY he could have been a better economy. I still think he would have won hands down over Romney just because Obama has a terrible record to run on for the last 4 years. But the point I was making more was the fact that the GOP screwed Ron Paul therefore if they would have just accepted him gave him speaking slots etc. they would have had the 4-5% of the independent vote that would have put them over the top to beat Obama this past election. Just wondering if anyone thought the same I do on the mistake by the GOP/RNC

Good discussions though

I say this as respectfully as possible, but you're being delusional. Romney did awesome with independent voters. He did awesome with white voters. He did as well as you could have possibly expected in those demographics. He lost because he got destroyed by the Latino, black, and gay votes, and alienated single women. Ron Paul doesn't help with those demographics -- he hurts. And Ron Paul cannot be put in a central position within the party because there is entirely too much dirt on him. The minute he starts seriously stumping for a presidential candidate is the minute national news agencies start talking about his newsletters, which referred to MLK Jr as a "pro-communist philanderer" and MLK Day as "Hate Whitey Day". And that's seriously just the tip of the iceberg. It's not a mistake that the Republican leadership's approach to Ron Paul has been "thanks but no thanks".

The reason the Republicans lost is because their campaign strategy is a thing of the past. You cannot win on white voters anymore. You cannot win by taking average Joes and independents. You absolutely must be competitive within the Latino and black voter blocs to have a shot. You don't have to win them, but you can't lose them by 40+ points. Especially not when you're strategically ceding the gay vote.

There wasn't a single serious candidate for the Republican nomination that had any shot in the general election. They were all going to lose 90+% of the black vote, 65%+ of the Latino vote, and 60+% of the gay vote. You can't win like that. Not anymore.

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

6% is negligible? I realize it wouldn't have tipped the election, but it's certainly not insignificant. Now you could make an argument that there are probably a significant number of anti-black votes that went Romney's way, which might have stayed home or gone for the half'n'half Obama instead of Cain. This may have even balanced the difference in black vote.

6% of a group that comprises 12% of the population is negligible. It's mathematically impossible for that to have given Cain more electoral votes than Obama. I also think a lot of independent voters, and some smarter republicans would not have voted for Cain because of other problems I mentioned in previous posts (like the fact that he's blatantly prejudiced against muslims, to the point of saying he would never appoint one to his cabinet, and saying that it should be okay to outlaw building mosques). Also he was completely incoherent in the primary debates, so I can't imagine he would have done well in the debates against Obama.

(I realize this thread is more about Ron Paul now, I just wanted to get this out of the way since Cain was mentioned earlier)

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

stuff

Keep in mind that there were 15 million fewer voters this year than in 2008. Voter turnout was below 60%. I'd imagine a big chunk of that were people completely disallusioned with both candidates, whether they are leaning left or right. I know a lot of usual Republican voters who couldn't vote for the moderate Romney. I know the media paints Romney as a right winger, but he is very much in the middle. The Republicans keep putting up these moderates and they keep losing. A Ron Paul would have brought in a lot of people who otherwise were not voting. He also would have picked up a good chunk of Obama voters who were simply voting anti-Romney.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by Orruar [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Keep in mind that there were 15 million fewer voters this year than in 2008. Voter turnout was below 60%. I'd imagine a big chunk of that were people completely disallusioned with both candidates, whether they are leaning left or right. I know a lot of usual Republican voters who couldn't vote for the moderate Romney. I know the media paints Romney as a right winger, but he is very much in the middle. The Republicans keep putting up these moderates and they keep losing. A Ron Paul would have brought in a lot of people who otherwise were not voting. He also would have picked up a good chunk of Obama voters who were simply voting anti-Romney.

I disagree that Ron Paul would've been a net positive with independents as compared to Romney, but even granting that point, you're continuing to work from a starting point of ceding Latinos, blacks, and gays. You cannot do that and win. The country's electorate has changed. It's not 1950. If you want to take Louisiana and Alabama, you can fight for the independent vote and ignore minorities. If you want to win Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- the states that actually decide the election -- you MUST compete in minority demos.

I believe that you know a lot of people that are sick of the Republican party running moderates. Rush was complaining about it just the other day. But if you think the Republicans stand to gain more than they lose by shifting even further right, particularly in the states that matter, I think you're kidding yourself. The Republican party is in bad shape and it's only going to get worse. Young people are overwhelmingly Democrat and minority populations are growing by vast margins.

[Barkingturtle]

Even my wife's 83 year-old, white, FOX News addicted, staunchly Catholic grandmother voted for Obama.

It's over for the GOP. You can't win national elections when your televised convention looks like the alzheimer's wing of a white-supremacist nursing-home for the terminally wealthy.

[MrSparkle001]

Ron Paul won't ever make it. He's too libertarian and isolationist for the mainstream.

I'm hoping for Christie myself but he has to worry about reelection in 2014.

The Dems will have to nominate a woman or another minority if they hope to have the same turnout they did the past two elections. If it's Joe Biden, well lol.

Look at how the election went this year. A lot of the battleground states saw the majority of counties go red, but the populated urban counties went blue. Why is that you think? And do you think the same results would have been seen if the democrat was a white guy instead of Obama?

Cain would not siphon the black vote from Obama. Republicans will always lose that fight. The most that will happen is they don't bother to vote at all. But they can siphon the latino vote, and possibly the woman and youth vote if they change their stances and strategy. Obama's personality is infectious and won over a lot of people. Voters are fickle and naive and a lot are easily swayed (oddly enough, that's exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers created the electoral college to prevent).

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

[Lazortag]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The Dems will have to nominate a woman or another minority if they hope to have the same turnout they did the past two elections. If it's Joe Biden, well lol.

Look at how the election went this year. A lot of the battleground states saw the majority of counties go red, but the populated urban counties went blue. Why is that you think? And do you think the same results would have been seen if the democrat was a white guy instead of Obama?

Cain would not siphon the black vote from Obama. Republicans will always lose that fight. The most that will happen is they don't bother to vote at all. But they can siphon the latino vote, and possibly the woman and youth vote if they change their stances and strategy. Obama's personality is infectious and won over a lot of people. Voters are fickle and naive and a lot are easily swayed (oddly enough, that's exactly the kind of thing the founding fathers created the electoral college to prevent).

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

I like how in your world, minorities all have no agency and feel compelled to vote for people who they "identify" with, but white people vote for people whom they share an ideology with (ignoring the fact that less white people voted for Obama than the average democrat, meaning that whether the democrats pick a minority or not is irrelevant). There's a ton of evidence that minorities vote democrat because they agree with their policies (or at least they're revolted by republican policies), including statistics that were already mentioned in this thread, while there's no evidence that they voted for Obama just because they look like him or because they identify with him as a minority. That's seriously very farfetched, and saying it over and over again won't make it true.

[Autotune]

Originally Posted by Lazortag [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I like how in your world, minorities all have no agency and feel compelled to vote for people who they "identify" with, but white people vote for people whom they share an ideology with (ignoring the fact that less white people voted for Obama than the average democrat, meaning that whether the democrats pick a minority or not is irrelevant). There's a ton of evidence that minorities vote democrat because they agree with their policies (or at least they're revolted by republican policies), including statistics that were already mentioned in this thread, while there's no evidence that they voted for Obama just because they look like him or because they identify with him as a minority. That's seriously very farfetched, and saying it over and over again won't make it true.

go check out twitter and facebook.


"my president is black like me!"

[Orruar]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I disagree that Ron Paul would've been a net positive with independents as compared to Romney, but even granting that point, you're continuing to work from a starting point of ceding Latinos, blacks, and gays. You cannot do that and win. The country's electorate has changed. It's not 1950. If you want to take Louisiana and Alabama, you can fight for the independent vote and ignore minorities. If you want to win Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- the states that actually decide the election -- you MUST compete in minority demos.

I believe that you know a lot of people that are sick of the Republican party running moderates. Rush was complaining about it just the other day. But if you think the Republicans stand to gain more than they lose by shifting even further right, particularly in the states that matter, I think you're kidding yourself. The Republican party is in bad shape and it's only going to get worse. Young people are overwhelmingly Democrat and minority populations are growing by vast margins.

Disagree. There are a huge number of people on the right that believe in economic liberty, and as a candidate moves more and more towards the center, it becomes harder to believe that candidate when they say they'll govern under economic liberty. Romney lost a lot of votes because people realized he'd govern 80% as a democrat and only throw a few bones to those who believe in liberty. As a Republican moves farther to the left, the contradictions become more and more obvious, and fewer and fewer from the right will vote for them. The general election this year was basically like another democratic primary. Romney may have talked about cutting spending and balancing the budget, but the only program he ever specifically mentioned in regards to cutting was PBS. Hell, his running mate was seen as this extreme conservative, while his budget plan only cut the rate of growth of programs, without cutting any actual spending. With this kind of team, they really only picked up the anti-Obama vote, which is not enough to win.

[Barkingturtle]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The past two elections were not about a changing demographic or the declining appeal of GOP or conservativism, they were about Obama, a man that oozes charisma and whose racial identity made minorities vote en masse like they've never voted before. Good luck repeating that in 2016.

Que?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAOjpWVJ3y8

On the left our stable is overflowing with charismatic folks of all hues.