Time for a new Republican Party
The Republican Party — which, by the way lost women to President Obama by 12 points — needs to run away from its archaic stance. Yes, object to abortion. Yes, work to make it rare. But move on: Abortion is here to stay. (And while you’re at it, GOP, it might just be time also to abandon that vaunted “abstinence-only” policy that has been such a dismal failure.)
Second, gay marriage. On this, simply — who cares? America 2012 has enormous problems. Is this really an issue that matters to — anyone? Christians, two men getting married doesn’t affect your marriage in any way. Get over it. The Republicans are on the wrong side of history on this issue, and Mr. Obama swept in millions of young voters by his tolerance. It’s time to walk away.
On both issues, the GOP can make a clean break: As the party of individual freedom, the GOP can simply say it now sees that Americans — especially women — do have the right to choose their own path. In fact, the party espouses the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, always has, so the turnabout won’t even raise an eyebrow.
Such a recalibration would allow the millions of Americans who believe in the core Republican tenets to give the party a real evaluation at election time.
Blowback
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Ahh, yes. Let’s run away from the social cons. You know, the people who actually showed up and voted.
Good plan. Expect to lose more elections.
Vancomycin on November 12, 2012 at 8:29 AM
translation-become democrate lite
cmsinaz on November 12, 2012 at 8:30 AM
I’m getting so sick and tired of hearing this. Why is it always the Republicans who have to change their positions after an election, but the Dems don’t have to do jack squat?
ZK on November 12, 2012 at 8:30 AM
Guess what, the Republicans DID move away from these issues, it was Democrats and Obama who used Culture war issues to make gains with scare tactics and government intervention. And the Dems will always do this no matter how much the GOP changes.
rob verdi on November 12, 2012 at 8:30 AM
In the past week we have heard:
Support for amnesty.
Increase taxes.
Ignore value voters.
rob verdi on November 12, 2012 at 8:31 AM
Yeah, no.
thebrokenrattle on November 12, 2012 at 8:32 AM
Another plea for Republicans to become Democrats. Not interested.
backwoods conservative on November 12, 2012 at 8:33 AM
Sorry, but a human being is a human being, regardless of the era.
Four SCOTUS justices disagree. Get one more, and you’d be surprised at just how quickly that “here to stay” decision goes out the window.
People who care that every child be raised by the ones who created them, and that those people be bound by a commitment to one another so that they provide for a stable home for their kids. But hey, who cares about kids, right? After all, we should be aborting them!
Murder, marital infidelity, and spousal abandonment — the values of the new Republican party? No thank you.
Perhaps the GOP should spend more time running away from people who condemn 47% of the country because of their income level. Perhaps the GOP should stop heaping praise on people that ship jobs overseas. And perhaps the GOP should actually look at the candidate that lost and what afflicted him, rather than use the tired excuse of blaming social conservatives.
Stoic Patriot on November 12, 2012 at 8:33 AM
THIS
funny, the lsm brings this up EVERY 2 years
cmsinaz on November 12, 2012 at 8:34 AM
If you want more people to stay home you can. It won’t change a thing. So we should be for making the government provide free birth control!? No thank you!
mrscullen on November 12, 2012 at 8:34 AM
Let’s just become a one party nation, kinda like California. What the heck.
djl130 on November 12, 2012 at 8:34 AM
I kind of like this article – the GOP needs to become a common sense libertarian party.
HondaV65 on November 12, 2012 at 8:35 AM
I almost made a mistake. Thanks for warning me, Joseph Curl! Solidly!
Buddahpundit on November 12, 2012 at 8:37 AM
Conservatism is a three-legged f**king stool! Somebody please tell this joker.
HerneTheHunter on November 12, 2012 at 8:38 AM
If we could not landslide 0bama, maybe it is best he won. The only reason the election was able to be won with binders and Big Bird was because far too many people still believe. We need to kill their faith as effectively as they have killed our faith in the American electorate.
They are the idle poor, who believe that Santa Claus owes them a living.
They are wealthy and upper-middle-class liberals who honestly believe higher taxes on themselves mean giving up a daily latte so that the poor, naked starvelings can have a crust of bread to get through the night, thanks to government benevolence.
They believe that somewhere out in Switzerland or the Bahamas, there are vaults the evil rich can use as Scrooge McDuck swimming pools, where enough wealth exists to pay for every want, need, and desire. They believe taxing the rich enough will cause the rich to open the doors of those vaults for the good of all.
If 0bama had lost narrowly, of course these people would believe that if 0bama were just given another chance, everything would have been rainbows and kittens. Only the landslide of 1980 kept the Left from trying to rewrite the history of Carter—but don’t think they won’t try once those who were of age to remember 1980 pass on. We need to kill Santa, and kill their faith. This can be done.
Get out of the way of tax-base-killing liberal policies. Force them to choose between government employees’ jobs and government benefits. We should be ready with narratives to fuel resentment of whoever wins. Wow, they chose their cushy jobs over paying for your ride to the doctor? Santa wouldn’t do that….
Let the tax cuts expire for all. If the noble little starvelings who exist solely in the liberal imagination are worth a daily latte, aren’t they worth a summer vacation, finally getting your bum knee fixed, or even your job? Oh, you mad bro? Guess you don’t care enough….
Remind the “vault-ers” that anybody who could afford secret stashes worth more wealth than has ever existed since the invention of writing can probably afford whatever it takes to bug out of the jurisdiction of anybody who would think to
stealshare it.We need to sow chaos in their well-organized communities, and make each component of the liberal machine resent the other more than they hate us. We need to pop the education bubble that pays the likes of Bill Ayers to educate our children and drive them to the polls out of fear of the Uterus Police. We need to sabotage Hollywood, not just complain about it or engage in decades-long education projects. Pirates want free artistic content. The artists who produce this content help keep the resentments of the various components of the liberal machine from fighting one another, and refuse to stand up for our property rights. We should aid and abet theft of their property.
This is war, and we need to win it.
Sekhmet on November 12, 2012 at 8:39 AM
No, WE the PEOPLE need to clean house in the GOP leadership. Kick out the self-appointed “leaders” and tell them they aren’t in charge anymore.
The GOP has had the same folks in charge for far too long, and they’ve been around Democrats so long that they’ve developed a sort of “Stockholm Syndrome” whereby placating the leftists is the norm.
I’ll be voting for TEA Party candidates from now on. Not another dime of support for the GOP, not another vote, no more letters of support or any other form of support until they get the message. If they don’t get the message, then what the heck. It’s about as bad already as I’ve ever known.
TKindred on November 12, 2012 at 8:39 AM
What’s the point of having social issues but hiding them in the attic? Oh yeah, the demographics. Fine, just close the f****n’ Republican party and join the Libertarians.
Dongemaharu on November 12, 2012 at 8:40 AM
Actually, I dare say that what I bold-faced, that not far more than half of Americans support. For several of those, I don’t think you’d even get half of Americans to support them.
Stoic Patriot on November 12, 2012 at 8:40 AM
Abortion IS here to stay. So is gay marriage. To continue to rail against them is delusional and stupid.
SlimyBill on November 12, 2012 at 8:41 AM
hear hear
SlimyBill on November 12, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Democrats need to be hammered on their support for sex selection abortion – even if they pay lip service to not supporting it. Straw man them if necessary. It’s been proven to work.
forest on November 12, 2012 at 8:44 AM
Um, where exactly was the emphasize on social issues in this campaign? We nominated a mormon who hardly spoke of god and the place of religion in society and the political issues connected to this. Probably because he feared to provoke anti-mormon sentiment.
All we heard from the Republican Party about social issues were 2 gaffes and the retractions and distancing statements in the aftermath. Under such circumstances no issue can be an advantage to any party. Social issues will stop to be a problem and become a huge advantage, the moment Republicans overcome their cowardice to fight the culture wars again.
2004 we made “values” the most important issue of the election. This year all we heard from Republicans was “flee! flee! run for your lifes! all is lost!” as soon as social issues came up anywhere. Republicans simply refused to provide leadership on these issues.
Our problem is not the social positioning of the Republican Party, but the unempirical, completely irrational defeatism that we put on display when discussing this stuff. Where the hell did that suddenly come from?
Valkyriepundit on November 12, 2012 at 8:44 AM
You know, as I recall it the left were the only ones shrieking about loss of abortion & contraception rights. That was “affirmed” by Akin & Mourdock.
roy_batty on November 12, 2012 at 8:52 AM
Perhaps the GOP should spend more time running away from people who condemn 47% of the country because of their income level. Perhaps the GOP should stop heaping praise on people that ship jobs overseas. And perhaps the GOP should actually look at the candidate that lost and what afflicted him, rather than use the tired excuse of blaming social conservatives.
Stoic Patriot on November 12, 2012 at 8:33 AM
I think we’re seeing Rahm Emmanuel’s old “never waste a crisis” axiom in play here. What the party hacks and shills are saying doesn’t make any sense when you look at the data and what actually happened during the election, but the Usual Suspects are trying to stampede the conservatives into surrendering rather than revolting against them and/or leaving the party.
Doomberg on November 12, 2012 at 8:52 AM
The GOP needs to run on these issues being decided at the state and local level. That is where the constitution put them.
Odysseus on November 12, 2012 at 8:53 AM
You people still don’t get it do you? No one is saying that you have to change your beliefs, but we should believe that free humans have the right to make their own decisions as long as they aren’t violating anyone else’s liberty. The GOP supposedly stands for federalism and small government….except where you want a strong oppressive central government. Try embracing liberty and maybe you will attract more individuals. It’s like free speech, you don’t have to agree with peoples words but you damn well better believe that they have the right to say whatever they want without fear of government.
Until the GOP starts embracing actual liberty and federalism – in deeds not just rhetoric – they will continue to lose. Many republicans that embrace liberty actually got elected just look at Ted Cruz, Justin Amash, and others. They believe in real liberty, are against such things as the NDAA, Patriot Acts, domestic drones and useless foreign interventions.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 8:54 AM
I’m a Libertarian. And I can tell you turning the Republican Party into a carbon copy of the Libertarian Party is not the solution. The GOP is already much more libertarian than it was 10 to 20 years ago, and we Libertarians are grateful. Example: Republican legislators in three states introduced medical marijuana legalization bills last year (Idaho, New Hampshire and Maryland.)
No, the solution is to get nasty with Democrats. And that means on a personal and business level. De-friend and Di-vorce. Know anyone who voted for Obama, scream in their faces, then break up with them.
Let’s boycott blue state America. Don’t buy any products made in Obama voting states. Don’t spend tourist dollars to Obama states including Florida. Definitely do not give money for hurricane relief or other national disasters in Obama-voting states.
Time to get brutally nasty and vicious with Democrat friends, neighbors, lovers and business associates. Tell them all to ‘F’
off today!
ericdondero on November 12, 2012 at 8:54 AM
I wouldn’t care about gay marriage if they’d stop forcing other people to accommodate them, i.e. e-Harmony and the various other lawsuits.
I don’t mind abortion in case of the mother’s life being endangered.
I don’t mind broader sex education (although I plan on homeschooling) if they kept the freakshows such as this: http://imgur.com/yCnpM (NSFW – an actual pre-teen sex ed class in action)
p0s3r on November 12, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Didn’t you hear? THE ONE WON!…/s
Clink on November 12, 2012 at 8:54 AM
Wow…that’s an awesome way to gain support. Fool.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 8:56 AM
So Romney lost because he ran hard on social issues? Really?
I would have guessed he didn’t get those “missing voters” sitting out because all he did talk about was the economy.
Punchenko on November 12, 2012 at 8:57 AM
Don’t be short sighted, it wasn’t about Romney it was about the Party as a whole. Look at those idiots like Akins – are you serious? The party – the establishment – doesn’t practice what the preach. The talk about liberty, but then support laws such as the NDAA and the use of domestic drones, the GOP talks about federalism and states rights but doesn’t actually embrace it.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 9:01 AM
It wasn’t even that. He really only talked about the economy in the broadest of terms, with everything poll tested and focus-grouped to avoid offending anybody. He essentially ran as “not-Obama” and only really began to put forth a message of his own in the final days of the campaign. This stuff about how “conservatism failed” is a fairy tale by our so called “moderates,” who are shamelessly trying to use this as a means to silence opposition from the conservative base and avoid taking responsibility for their failures.
Doomberg on November 12, 2012 at 9:01 AM
Something seems to be missing. The fact that the House was Republican, and still is. People rejected the Republican party?
Dextrous on November 12, 2012 at 9:03 AM
On the gay marriage question, I ask again: if you are going to eliminate supposed discrimination by gender (gay marriage), by what right to you retain ‘discrimination by number’ (polygamy)? Especially when the latter has historical and religious precedences that the former does NOT have? You are arguing gay marriage based on consenting adults; polygamy can easily be argued the same way.
(I’m NOT an advocate of either, but DETEST selective logic.)
michaelo on November 12, 2012 at 9:04 AM
Yes. It does. If America does not return to its moral core, all of the economic issues in the world are irrelevant. Our society, as structured, cannot function without a strong moral foundation. Anyone who claims to be an economic conservative but not a social conservative is neither.
Having said that, the analysis of the electoral loss is crap anyway. Romney stayed as far away from social issues as he possibly could. He’s about as moderate as one can be and still be within the Republican party. The idea that we ran to the far right on social issues and that’s what cost us the election is drivel.
Again, Romney won independents by a large margin. It was the Republican base who did not turn out and vote for him. Turnout among the base was down from 2008. If you think the Republican base did not turn out because Romney was too conservative, I’d like to talk to you about a bridge I have for sale in New York.
Shump on November 12, 2012 at 9:05 AM
It isn’t the message.
It is the candidates we run. No, I’m not talking RINOs vs. TruCons.
I’m talking candidates with finesse, and bumbling idiots who eat their feet for breakfast.
Latinos aren’t socially liberal. Blacks aren’t socially liberal. Blacks struck down gay marriage in places like California with Prop 8. Minorities are VERY religious, much more than whites.
The problem is we have horrendous candidates like John McCain, like Todd Akin, like Christine O’Donnell, etc.
Also, we do not frame the debate properly. We always let the left frame the debate. It is time that ends.
blatantblue on November 12, 2012 at 9:05 AM
Pro-lifers, love you guys, and I say this in friendship: Y’all are sometimes as dumb as a bag of hammers, and awfully high-maintenance. The Democrats know how to exploit that dumb, and do it at every opportunity to our detriment. Instead of screaming about how the rest of us are diluting the message, and threatening not to vote without serious butt-kissing, y’all need to listen. It will really help if you learn a few things:
The best Christian is not necessarily the best leader. That can save y’all a whole lot of dumb right there. You need to look at what you are presented with and go, “Does this guy agree with me, and (even more importantly) can he articulate it in a way to where the liberal media will come away with nothing when they inevitably try to entrap him?” God gives many gifts, and does not necessarily give strength of faith and preaching ability to those to whom the capacity for effective leadership is given.
Circling wagons and polishing feces is a much easier job when the media is on your side. The media is never on the R side, so we can’t afford to coddle Senator Foot-in-Mouth when he makes an unforced error. Demanding we do so under threat *koff koff AKIN AND MOURDOCK koff koff* causes folks like me to resent the crud out of folks like you.
Think through the legal implications of what you are demanding we drop everything and support. Heck, think of the political implications. You embody the far left’s daddy issues. Every time you swing a metaphorical belt, Democrats tell the kids, “Spite Daddy. Vote Democrat. We just pick your pocket clean, we don’t *gasp* tell you you shouldn’t leave the house dressed like that.”
Just friendly advice.
Sekhmet on November 12, 2012 at 9:05 AM
We just have so many amateurish candidates. We need people who aren’t going to put their feet in their mouths, who won’t trip themselves over, who won’t RUIN themselves with things they DIDN’T need to say.
Yea, it’s not fair, but that is life. It’s time we start adapting now for the long term goal.
blatantblue on November 12, 2012 at 9:10 AM
its called having principles.
just friendly info.
renalin on November 12, 2012 at 9:12 AM
It’s not about winning their support. We’ve already lost it, and we’re never going to get it back.
It’s about letting them know our sheer disgust and hatred for their fascist/socialist ideology. Problem with you conservatives, speaking as a libertarian, is not the social issues. Rather, it’s y’all are too damned polite, and too damned cautious.
This is no time to be “safe.” This is a time to now get down in the gutter. Di-vorce and De-friend every Democrat in your life. It’s a nationwide movement catching on. Join today!
ericdondero on November 12, 2012 at 9:12 AM
This is a good point, and an area to show just how intolerant progressives really are. I don’t believe in gay marriage – nor do I believe in polygamy – but the government shouldn’t be involved at all as long as everyone is adults. I don’t believe in burning the US flag, but I’m not going to tell someone else they can’t. By embracing their rhetoric – the GOP can truly show how intolerant the left really is. Point out that the left loves the idea of burning the flag but denounces the idea of burning a Koran.
Embrace liberty, and we win.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 9:13 AM
…Look at the House of Representatives lately? Those guys won. Sorry, but Romney’s failure was about Romney. Did Akin and Mourdock shoot themselves in the foot? Sure. Then again, the beloved moderates of Thompson, McMahon, and Brown all got wiped out too.
So what we have evidence from this is:
1.)Conservatvies lose when they praise rape
2.)Moderates lose when talking only about the economy and get all squishy on social issues
The social conservatives have acknowledged that they shouldn’t be downplaying rape or getting their facts wrong on biology. However, the economic conservatives and moderates still refuse to acknowledge what got them killed. Rather than own up to their own faults, they’d rather blame others — and that’s the problem here.
Stoic Patriot on November 12, 2012 at 9:14 AM
I agree with you 100%.
Punchenko on November 12, 2012 at 9:16 AM
I see. What’s next, entrenched, punitive taxation is here to stay so time to change? Gun bans are in place so just accept it and move on.
If you stand for nothing then what is supposed to attract me to support a party? Eff you, I’ll be over here with the closed wallet, and on election day I’ll write in “Ace” (my favorite dog) on every ballot.
Bishop on November 12, 2012 at 9:18 AM
this x1000, I personally do not care how many people I offend or alienate by reminding them of the fact that this is what they ASKED for. I have many (toooo many) friends n fam who voted for zero…let them all disown me, if their own lack of intellectual self-honesty will not permit them to see the world unvarnished it is not my problem.
NY Conservative on November 12, 2012 at 9:19 AM
They were Democrat – moderate just like Romney. The were part of the establihsment which is status quo. They did not embrace liberty and all Thompson and Brown – not sure about McMahon – actually supported a powerful central government via the NDAA, and other oppressive laws – they didn’t support liberty. You are under the impression that embracing actual liberty means being a moderate when our moderates do nothing but embrace more government.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 9:21 AM
Well boy howdy, when you put it that way I just want to drop everything and pull up a chair. Nothing better than being called dumb and then given a finger-pointing lecture.
Bishop on November 12, 2012 at 9:23 AM
The abortion battle is over and the pro-choice side won. The pro-life side hasn’t made any meaningful progress since Roe v. Wade, even when the GOP controlled the House, Senate and Presidency. Not under Reagan, not under Bush 41, not under Bush 43.
Continuing to fight this this lost battle in the political arena just gets the GOP more Akins and Mourdocks. If you really want to save unborn babies, you should volunteer at an adoption center or other diversion program, not waste your efforts in politics.
cool breeze on November 12, 2012 at 9:25 AM
Once again you miss the point. Gun bans are in and of themselves counter to individual liberty. If you give people more freedom – freedom that you don’t have to like – but you should at least respect the concept – then you will get more voters. I don’t believe in gay marriage, nor do i smoke pot, but these are all issues that should be left up to the states.
MoreLiberty on November 12, 2012 at 9:26 AM
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