Poll: is Roger35 for real??

texas_ex2000, you and NJlonghorn are having a good discussion on this. However, I'd like to add this point. You bring up the East Village. As NJ pointed out, that's wingnut central. In fact, most of Manhattan is wingnut central. Frankly, it doesn't bother me that the GOP can't compete there. It does bother me that the GOP can't win Staten Island, Queens (or really much of Long Island), and upstate New York anymore.

(Same phenomenon in California. Republicans never won San Francisco and Berkeley or even competed with them. However, they comfortably won San Diego, Orange County, the rural areas, and though they usually lost Los Angeles County, they were competitive. They didn't get their asses kicked there like they do now.)

Believe it or not, I'm not an advocate of trying to get everybody to vote Republican. For example, I'm not a fan of major efforts to attract black voters. Only about 12 percent of them are even remotely receptive to listening to a Republican, and that just isn't very many votes. The rest of them hate the GOP's guts and won't even give them the time of day, and frankly ideology and policy have nothing to do with it. They vote against conservative Republicans, moderate Republicans, and even liberal Republicans. That doesn't mean the GOP should crap all of them, because that'll turn off more politically correct white voters and the tiny handful who are receptive. However, making some huge effort to attract them is a waste of time.

However, the Northeast, West Coast, and Mid Atlantic are packed with educated urban and inner-suburban white voters who are receptive to voting Republican and often do vote Republican at the state and local level but shy away from them at the national level. That conundrum needs to be solved.

If one thing should be clear from the 2012 election, it's that the current electoral map (dominating in the South and inner rural states, getting clobbered in the Northeast and West Coast, and fighting over a small handful of swing states) is a loser for the GOP. It basically concedes 220 electoral votes to the Democrats, and that's just not workable. They need to realign the map, and educated urban and inner suburban white voters are the keys to doing that. We need the people who voted for Chris Christie (NJ), Rick Snyder (MI), Scott Walker (WI), and George Petaki (NY) to vote Republican at the national level.

You and NJ are focusing on policy, and that's fine, but more than anything they need to change how they communicate. They need a little more William F. Buckley and way, way, way less Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert, and Sarah Palin. You just can't come across as a dumbass and expect educated people to vote for you, regardless of your agenda.
 
Well said, Mr. Deez. I have a cousin who, because she only gets news from MSNBC et al, cannot see any distinction between the Tea Party and the religious right. There are obviously people who are in both groups, but she cannot see that you can be a fiscal conservative without being 100% aligned with the religious right. It is hard to straddle the two. When the idea of the government paying for birth control comes up, part of me wants to say to not only pay for it, but mandate it. The other part wants to say that it costs $5 at Walmart each month, the cost of a glass of wine or a few beers or a Whopper meal, so figure out a way to buy your own birth control. I can't buy everything I want, and I don't expect the government to give it to me. I'm also not against gay marriage, and although I think abortion is wrong, I am not God, and God will judge them, not I. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out, but it is where I stand. I guess I don't see the world in black and white.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top