“The choice of a social conservative like Palin…” Another backhanded attempt at slamming Sarah and promoting your hatred of her.

Yes, the youth of America know how to vote to fix the economy. Yea, what we need is more Arnold’s who jumped the shark and start implementing stuff for the opposition then in the middle of a recession starts talking about a 1 1/5% sales tax increase to pay for over spending instead of curbing spending… oh yea, and let’s add a few new taxes and new spending programs while we’re at it. Great way to help out. Make goods more expensive so more business take off to other states. Young people are freaking idiots.

You think tacking left to the center and sticking there is what we need to do because Reagan is obsolete? Oh, I get now. Politics is all about tailoring your brand to meet what the masses think they want rather than principals. How about this, Allah, how about re-educating them from the HS & College Liberal indoctrination on want WE OFFER and showing them how this is what they need and have them climb on board with that? Sound good to you? Because if the opt for the later after that, I figure it’s just a matter of time when year after year serving 50 hours a year in Pres. Obama’s Youth Groups without pay and taking time away from their online gaming, they’ll eventually change their minds naturally. Socialism has a way of doing that to people who’ve had a taste of freedom.

Maybe so, but Obammy’s victory was not that overwhelming considering the fact that he outspent McCain threefold, the MSM stood solidly and unabashedly behind him, their deliberately dishonest reporting of the cause of the economic meltdown and turning the other way from numerous occurances of voter and election fraud. Seen from that angle, Obamma was due to media partisanship and a stroke of pure luck. He’s still vulnerable because the vast majority of Americans don’t really know who he is and once the middle class and small business owners get the bill in the mail for having made the mistake of putting this usurper in office and sowing the seeds of their own financial ruin, we’ll see a markedly different attitude among the white middle-class Obama supporters in the coming years. If the Republicans can manage to nominate some Reagan-like figure that everyone in the party can get behind — money will not be a problem; Especially after a few years of an unwelcome Carter economy revisiting the nation.

angrywonk on November 6, 2008 at 5:57 PM

That’s part of it. Another is also the massive migration of illegals. Nevada’s white non-hispanic population is almost below 50%. Colorado isn’t far off either.

As ddrintn noticed on page 2, the Scots-Irish or Ulster Scots belt went more strongly for McCain than for Bush in 2004 — that’s Appalachia, stretching from western Pennsylvania through West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

That map is wrong for that reason. If you don’t want to take my word for it… ask Mark Steyn. He mentions us a few times in his demographic talks.

I didn’t read through. But, what is going on in eastern Mass.? A little red there, not that it helped us.

cobrakai99 on November 6, 2008 at 7:37 PM

A huge chunk of Massachusetts is church-going WASP and might even vote Republican if Republicans would quit bashing them constantly as East Coast liberals/elites. Same with New Hampshire.

Massachusetts has one of the lowest sales taxes in the country (at 5%). Too bad the proposition to get rid of the state income tax didn’t pass on Tuesday.

This is why the current secular- and elitist-bashing is actually so harmful for the party’s future. We can’t afford to make our party any narrower. Believe it or not, there are tons of Democrats who believe in fiscal responsibility and small government, and we need to win them over.

A party without elites is a mob.

But hey, maybe king HopeyChange will bring us all together and it won’t matter anyhow. sarc/off

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2008_General_Election_Results_by_County.PNG

Handel – With all due respect, the idea is to capture the hearts and minds of youth and thereby create conservative voters for a lifetime. If we ignore youth by rationalizing that they don’t vote, we are giving those votes away and shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of their future votes.

DrDeano on November 6, 2008 at 7:10 PM

Yes but you have to also be realistic about to whom your brand appeals. The education system indoctrinates the youth into liberalism, and that has to be challenged, but it’s a slow process, and until that changes we have to realize we appeal to adults.

This is particularly important with the youth vote. We need to take a lesson from what worked here and use facebook and the internet to get these points across.

msmveritas on November 6, 2008 at 5:45 PM

That assumes that the ‘youth vote’ turned out. They didnt from what I understand.
A little more than last election, but yet…were once again, not that much of a factor.
I hate to say it..but it looks like the thing that hurt us..was the candidate himself. And I aint talkin about Palin.

Handel

msmveritas – excellent point about using social networks.

Handel – With all due respect, the idea is to capture the hearts and minds of youth and thereby create conservative voters for a lifetime. If we ignore youth by rationalizing that they don’t vote, we are giving those votes away and shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of their future votes.

Here’s an idea: drop gay marriage down a rung or three on the priorities list. Younger voters are now far more in favor of it than older voters, and constant right-wing complaining about the “homosexual agenda” makes Republicans seem like a bunch of haters. Tone it down a bit on that issue.

Another thing: stop acting like a top-notch education and the like are strikes against people. Young people have their futures ahead of them, and still hope to achieve many of the things conservative Republicans have recently started to label as “elitist”. You’re condemning their hopes and dreams, and that’s not a good way to get their votes.

Big S on November 6, 2008 at 4:29 PM

In a way I agree. We need to make a conscious effort to take back schools. We need Republican school board members and conservative teachers all the way up the ladder to universities. Taking back the schools where the agenda is being taught is much more effective than complaining about the agenda itself.