A friend of mine who is a Democratic operative points out that Romney could have won in the Electoral College with various combinations of 3 of these 4 states: Florida (29 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), and Michigan (16). Romney needed 64 more votes, so FL, PA, and OH would have worked or FL, PA, and MI (but FL, OH, MI would have come up 1 short).
He argues that the GOP would be best off adopting strategies aimed at Northern suburbs. I haven't been to Florida in 20 years, so I don't know what to make of this claim, but he says that, for all its exoticism, Florida also has much in common with Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan due to retirement patterns and the like. There are a lot of voters in Florida who are pretty much Northern suburbanites by background.
I'm writing my chapter on the Industrial States (many of which are your Big 10 states) and found out that your Big 10 idea can work. Romney essentially lost the election in 3 or four states: Florida, Penn. Ohio or Michigan. ...
What do all four states have in common? Lots of suburbanites and/or retired blue collar workers. Florida nows swings with the rest of Northern suburbia. Tipping the Sunshine State to Romney would have given him 235 votes. Adding Penn (20 votes & Michigan (16) would have given him 271, despite the loss in the national popular vote (due to huge Obama margins in New York, Chicago, LA and San Francisco).
Here's the stat that will have Republicans tearing their hair out: if Romney had just matched Jerry Ford's 1976 performance in the suburbs of Philly and Detroit, he would have carried those two key states and (assuming Florida also swung) won the Electoral College ala Bush in 2000. ...
Rove has talents; he is an expert on getting white Southern Democrats to defect. But he never learned how to appeal to Northern suburbanites....and the GOP already has the South in their hip pocket, so Rove is no longer needed....But somehow I imagine Jeb will call him in 2016...
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72 comments:
Does this Dem friend of yours know about your blog?
If so what's his take on your views? Do you argue a lot?
OT
Libertarianism triumphant.
http://rt.com/usa/news/san-bernardino-bankrupt-crime-003/
Government bankrupt, individual protection at its zenith, and virtually unlimited immigration.
Throw in stock-juggling, gold and silver stockpiling, porno, polymorphous perversity, and the wafting of marijuana smoke over it all, and it will be the anarcho-capitalist Millennium.
No thanks to Jeb. Why on earth would we want an Open Borders liberal, who is pretty much anti-white in practice?
Wait, I thought it was homosexuals, youngsters, and 90% of 40% that elected Obama.
Now we're told it's "suburbanites and retired blue collar workers," a lot of them passing their golden years in the Sunshine State.
Someone voted for Romney, right? It was on TV.
It is really very easy, the GOP has to move left on economics. Middle class Midwestern whites are right to vote for Democrats, rather than for the Wall Street-run GOP, which stands for wage cuts, usury, free trade, and cuts to social security and Medicare.
The state GOP in Ohio dominates local and state races by running pro-union moderates when and where it needs to.
Romney did the complete opposite, picking someone for VP most famous for "fearlessly" being completely open upon huge Medicare cuts, when most GOP congressmen were unwilling to do the same. A Guiliani or Dick Lugar pick might have won him the election. It was a pretty big middle finger to the Midwest to nominate Romney in the first place, with his record of shutting down factories, being an "outsourcing innovator" and writing an article for the NYT called "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."
Even if Romney had won, the direction of the country would not have changed...
Rather than party politics, I'm more interested in a candidate I can genuinely respect, who has the leadership to bring the country together and the firmness to take us forward. I know this sounds vague, but when we hear the message, we'll know.
"if Romney had just matched Jerry Ford's 1976 performance in the suburbs of Philly and Detroit, he would have carried those two key states and (assuming Florida also swung) won the Electoral College ala Bush in 2000"
Are the suburbs of Philly and Detroit demographically the same as in 1976? I don't think so.
Two or three times a week (it seems), Karl Rove mounts his podium on the Op-Ed pages of The Wall Street Journal. For a non-Leftist familiar with the concepts discussed at iSteve and elsewhere, it's an unpleasant reminder of what the Republican party means to its big business and paid-operative elites. Open Borders, low taxes on the wealthy, Blank Slatism, Libertarianism. Delivered with a charming mix of condescension and certainty.
The party's Deserves To Lose Again wing.
OT but in continuing your theme of 'why are they here?', an Iraqi refugee was arrested for blowing up a Social Security office in Casa Grande and apparently that doesn't make the news cycle.
why is it so important that the GOP win, steve? They haven't done #@$! for the white man, Steve, and you know it. Bush trumpeted mass immigration and affirmative action, and you know it. Romney stood right up on debate stage about a month and spoke of immigration in the most glowing terms. You can't deny it.
And when did Romney get up on that debate stage and say the least little thing about stopping the discrimination of affirmative action, of stopping race spoils? Did he ever speak one little word against the anti-white, anti-male animus that emanates from the government, from Hollywood, from the media, from the Democrats?
So why does it matter to the readers here if the GOP wins?
Is the GOP going to cut spending some great amount? No. They will cut social programs and spend that money on the war machine, where it will go to profit margins of corporations that provide gear to soldiers to fight the "War of Terror" overseas.
And of course the GOP will spend more money on the War on Drugs. Aint that great!
The GOP is worth nothing to me as a white man.
I don't know why it is worth anything to you...unless you hope to get a writing gig for some outfit that backs the GOP...is that why you promote the GOP, Steve?
Steve: the GOP is toast, and the sooner conservatives realize this the better. In fact, the sooner conservatives realize there's really not anything left to 'conserve' the better. We don't even have the military any more.
How is a platform of low taxes and limited government going to appeal to retired union members and government employees in the Rust Belt and Florida? They'll be too invalid to vote in a few years anyway. Even if they adopt some CDU-style/citizenist platform, where are we going to get the tax base to support it? Answer: immigration, not that it's actually a solution. And what's your platform then? Answer: we'll just get all the vibrant young people to pay the taxes to support all the old white retirees in the Rust Belt and Florida! Should go over well. Game over.
Your politically active friend shares most such people's fetishization of process.
Like they say on Boardwalk Empire, you can't be half a gangster. If Romney has come out and said, "we have run a trade deficit for 20 years in a row, its costs us millions and trillions in debt. I will eliminate the trade defict or I will not run for re-election" (Warren Buffett's import certificate plan would do the trick). If hed thrown his cap over the wall like that he'd have carried the Northern suburbs. Hell, that and he'd endorsed a higher minimum wage and a watered down card check organizing bill he would have and stolen the white organized labor vote from Obama
I think this could work, but only as a transformational step.
My belief is that a Republican party that semi-reinvented itself could do as your friend speculates. Additionally I think it could then pick up more independents and people who currently vote democratic, and also start getting more Asians and Jews.
But one problem with this is that Texas and Arizona are going to flip democratic at some point in the near future. And despite the fact that the South votes solidly Republican, it wouldn't take more than a 5 to 10% shift in demographics to flip states like Georgia and Mississippi as solidly democratic as they are republican now.
Exactly when Texas flips, I dunno. I kind of expect them to vote democratic in presidential elections by 2020, 2024 at the latest. But my understanding is (correct me if wrong), is that if Hispanics registered and voted in the same percentage as whites do, Texas would already be democratic.
Couple that with increased immigration to the South of black people who are being gentrified and otherwise encouraged to migrate from the North, and I don't see how this is more than a bandaid unless something radical is undertaken. It might work for one or two presidential elections, but that's it.
To me the wildcard is if the republicans dumped the guys like Ryan, Norquist and the rest, along with changes in the abortion platform and the "christian identity" aspects.
They might start to get some of the Northeast back. See Bloomberg, Giuliani, and Christie.
Off topic, but over at reddit, a hereditarian presented his case poorly and got his ass handed to him by an egalitarian. Egalitarians push this to the front page and declare victory.
Maybe you guys have something to add to the discussion.
http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/146cnj/guy_trying_to_prove_black_people_are_mentally/
I've lived here in the midwest (Indiana) for fifty years and have always been interested in local history. The midwest has always been more isolationist than the rest of the country and the interventionist foreign policy of the Republican party hurts them here. They need to rethink that. Midwesterners are pretty fiscally and socially conservative so that part of the Republican platform appeals to them. On social issues, the Republicans could get the socially conservative midwest while appealing to more socially liberal states at the same time by adopting the idea that issues like abortion, immigration, gay marriage and so on should be decided at the state, not federal, level. On economic issues, to get suburbanites and blue collar workers the Republicans need to be seen in the midwest as the party of free enterprise but not the party of big business or Wall Street banks.
Believe or not Reagan won Florida in 1980 at 65 percent and that was higher than Texas. Republicans think the world now is Texas. That's why they try to go for hispanics too much.
Educated suburbanites... exactly. And older voters. Obama's principle 47% commercial consisted of faces of retirees. The Republicans need to re-focus the debate about "spending cuts for social programs" as "YOUR money that YOU put into Medicare and Social Security is YOURS. The debate is about transferring YOUR earnings to others who haven't."
1. GOP storms to victory in 2010 on the Tea Party wave.
2. GOP ignores same Tea Party during 2012 presidential campaign and loses big time.
3. Karl Rove says "we didn't ignore the Tea Party hard enough!"
Ohio and Michigan will not be winnable by running candidates who shit on the American car industry, have accounts in the Cayman islands, and whose number one priority is not to raise the tax rate on the over $250K folks.
Three things: (1) Ohio will not be winnable by running candidates who shit on the American car industry, have accounts in the Cayman islands, and whose number one priority is not to raise the tax rate on the over $250K folks.
(2) Steve might be implying here that its possible to get to 270 by focusing on the Rust Belt states and therefore not having to hispander. The problem, however, with that strategy is that in these four states combination, Florida is the indispensable state. The Cuban Americans in Florida are becoming less Republicans in every election lately, the Hispanic population in Florida continues to trend more non-Cuban in every election, and the over all Hispanic population continues to grow; these three trends demand some level of Hispanic pandering in Florida, so Florida will be out of the equation without hispandering.
(3)Pa and MI have been solidly blue now for 6 elections. Pa is a little closer so might be a better bet as its withing the five point rage. MI is not turning red so it will be useless to target it. So if you are shooting for a non-Hispanic strategy for Republicans in 2016/20, the targeted states will be Ohio and Pa plus Iowa and NH (that's 48) ....and then what? How do you get another 16 ECVs? Some level of hispandering will be required in FL, VA, CO, NM as they all have a growing Hispanic population. Maybe target the 10 votes of Wisconsin which has not voted Republican in 6 elections but which Bush lost twice by less than 1 point. But Obama won it by almost 7 points in November and even if you were to flip it, you will still fall short by 6 ECVs. Maybe you target Va where the rising Hispanic population is not at the levels as it is in the Western States but winning Va's 13 ECVs will not get you to 270. So you will need both Wisconsin and VA. A tall order indeed.
You and your friend are trying to solve the wrong problem. The Republicans don't want to simply win elections, they want to win elections while simultaneously gaining amnesty, free trade deals, and tax cuts for their rich friends. The problem is how to hoodwink the people into thinking that these giveaways aren't giveaways and are in their interests.
If they were to win elections on a platform of restricted immigration and economic nationalism...why, they'd rather lose.
Why would white suburbanites in the Rust Belt suddenly start voting against their own interests? The GOP as presently constituted only has two interest groups it cares about: the international moneyed elite, and hard-right Christian nutters.
They may be able to win non-presidential cycles every now and again, and due to gerrymandering will look more significant than they really are for the next decade, but they're toast. Good riddance.
"Believe or not Reagan won Florida in 1980 at 65 percent and that was higher than Texas. Republicans think the world now is Texas. That's why they try to go for hispanics too much."
Please explain how it is possible for the GOP to win the Presidency if Texas shifts over to the Democratic column?
Michigan is a tough state to win for a Republican; it is 14% black (high for a northern state) and 18.8% of its labor force consists of union members, the fifth highest percentage of union members among the 50 states. Moreover, Romney lost Michigan by 9.5%%, 54.21% to 47.28%. Virginia should be easier for Republicans to win, as it's a right-to-work state with only 4.7% of its workforce in unions, and Romney lost it by only 3.88% (51.16% to 47.28%). A Republican who won the states Romney carried plus Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvanie would win the electoral college 286 to 252, with 16 electoral votes to spare.
Don't you think it's quite a silly reach to refer to what Jerry Ford did in '76?
Candidates matter. No one votes for a generic Republican or Democrat. The Republicans could not beat Obama and the Democrats could not beat Bush. If Hillary runs, there is no Republican who stands a chance of beating her. She will soak up enough of working class Whitey to make this Strategy a non-starter.
"They haven't done #@$! for the white man, Steve, and you know it."
She's right. And now with political choices taking on a more overtly race-conscious flavor, there will be opportunities to build coalitions with conservative leaning third parties to challenge the Republican candidates if the Republican establishment manages to ram through amnesty in 2013.
Elections in 2016? Har!
"Here's the stat that will have Republicans tearing their hair out: if Romney had just matched Jerry Ford's 1976 performance in the suburbs of Philly and Detroit, he would have carried those two key states"
If the demographic makeup of those two states matched that of Jerry Ford's 1976, Obama wouldn't have been elected in '08.
"He argues that the GOP would be best off adopting strategies aimed at Northern suburbs. "
I.e., union members.
If so, the strategy is simple. Ally with the unions in fighting immigration and out-sourcing, saving union jobs. The Dems will do the second but not the first.
To win, the GOP must leave Wall Street and take Main Street from the Dems.
Whether the country would be better off with a GOP administration...who knows? If the past is prologue, probably not.
I'm from the Philadelphia suburbs and I can tell you that the suburbs have changed a lot from 1976 when Ford carried them. Back then the Main Line was WASP and old line Republican. Now it's more Jewish and liberal. The voters of 1976 are mostly dead and a different group has replaced them. It's not totally obvious because the area remains mostly white and prosperous with real estate values high enough to keep out NAMS, but there has been a real demographic and political shift. In the last redistricting, there was such a dearth of Republican votes that the Republican controlled PA legislature detached our township from the Republican strongholds to the west and threw it in with Philadelphia (my Congressman is now "Chakka Fatah" - I'm sure he'll hold the interest of our white suburban asses close to his heart). Local government (contrary to Steve's rule) has also gone Democrat, mostly on the basis that you can NEVER spend too much money on local schools (even it if gets wasted).
In the past the rule was that the Philadelphia suburbs (where all the white people had fled) sort of balanced out the city, which was in the Democrat plus column by several hundred thousand votes. The city remains as Democrat as ever (more than ever - there were black precincts where Obama received virtually 100% of the vote - he did better than Saddam Hussein did in the Iraqi "elections". But the suburbs are now more or less evenly divided, even leaning Democrat, which leaves the state as a whole firmly in the "blue" column. I would no longer count PA as a swing state except in a really, really bad year for the Democrats.
It seems like all the commenters claiming AZ will flip are either hispanic mouthpieces on hopium or beltway commenters.
AZ was overwhelmingly red this last cycle. Texas makes a big show of being anti illegal but Rick Perry would have been recalled if he tried his illegal alien pandering here. There is a reason why the state is always being sued by the judiciary arm of the Democratic Party.
Tucson is barely 900 thousand people but somehow its presented as a counterbalance to Republican Phoenix metro, ignoring the fact the rrst of the state goes red as well.
Romney did the complete opposite, picking someone for VP most famous for "fearlessly" being completely open upon huge Medicare cuts, when most GOP congressmen were unwilling to do the same. A Guiliani or Dick Lugar pick might have won him the election. It was a pretty big middle finger to the Midwest to nominate Romney in the first place, with his record of shutting down factories, being an "outsourcing innovator" and writing an article for the NYT called "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."
Steve's friend is dead on, Romney lost the election primarily in the Midwest, but not because of the auto bailout, which although it didn't help, wasn't a deciding factor. Romney was completely cash depleted by May, and Obama and friends took full advantage by carpet bombing the airwaves of the Midwest all summer long. I live in Ohio, and I don't watch much TV, but I probably saw 50 Obama ads before I saw my 1st Romney ad. Romney was pretty much dead even with Obama in May, by August he was way behind even after the convention which usually provides a bump to the new nominee. The debate merely got him back to where he had been after the primaries. I didn't see a single Romney ad all June and July, whereas you could not miss Obama ads and they were without fail, all negative on Romney, portraying him as a Dickensian plutocrat ( Almost entirely Bain and personal wealth related, not auto bailout focused ) without a peep about Obama's record, I didn't see one of those until maybe 3 weeks before the election.
And why was Romney so bereft of cash? Santorum's evangelicals and Santorum himself who hung around long after any realistic chance of being nominated had passed. He forced Romney to spend money he couldn't afford to spend, and tempted him to stake more extreme positions on social issues, that Obama used all fall to portray Romney as a religious extremist. I suspected this was the reason he lost, and the day after the election, Bloomberg News reported that this was basically Obama's strategy, spend like mad on negative ads in swing states all summer long when Romney had no money to counter it. It put him into a huge hole, that he was mired in from June to October, and which the first debate merely got him back to square one, instead putting him ahead. The Bloomberg piece even mentioned that Obama's campaign bought the most ads when Romney was on his European tour, mentioning that they bought over 1,800 ads alone in Ohio just that week.
Regarding the auto bailout, that was good luck for Obama, it "worked" because the Japanese earthquake, which caused a tsunami, which killed Japan's power grid, which killed supplies to Japanese auto factories in both Japan and the US, which lead to huge shortages of Japanese cars for quite a while, which lead to a lot more sales for GM, Ford, and Chrysler. I had this pointed out to me by an acquaintance who is a big Democratic activist and whose dad is lifelong UAW member and he did it without prompting and back during the primary season in the spring. He basically acknowledged Obama's bailout was successful because of an earthquake. It may prove short lived, but it helped Obama get re-elected and no one will remember the Romney was right in the long term if GM and Chrysler need a bailout again in 7 or 8 years, just like like no one remembers Chrysler's first bailout in the 1980's. Anyway, for proof that Santorum was largely to blame for Romney losing, look only at the man himself, within hours of the election being over, he immediately blamed Romney's loss on wait for it..... not pandering to Hispanic voters, those natural Republicans.
It doesn't matter what the GOP says or does, what their policies are, or who their candidates are.
The democrats will lie and portray them as the party of the ultra-rich social extremist ban casual sex party.
The GOP's problem is they have no control over their own image.
This will never happen. The GOP has made it perfectly clear with their post-loss talking points that they are sticking with the 3Is. GOP leadership is essentially a cult based on low taxes, deregulation, financial malfeasance and wars of aggression. Anyone with a thimble of common sense can see that Hispanics will never go Republican, yet the GOP is going to try it anyway.
Fuck the GOP. Fuck it dead.
"So why does it matter to the readers here if the GOP wins?"
Correct, The GOP is a joke.
Are they going to stop immigration, kick out illegals, stop insourcing, stop outsourcing, allow people to have restrictive clauses, get rid of affirmative action, allow business to hire whomever they want,allow free association, overhaul the whole ridiculous education system we have?
The only thing they want is to allow business to do whatever they want and lower taxes on the rich, while at the same time allowing immigrants to compete for jobs with Americans and continue to force white people to live with groups they don't want to live with for the most part.
I wouldn't even mind a real national health system, but we aren't going to get it because the insurance companies don't want it.
A California Republican with strong views about illegal immigration is facing party backlash after expressing interest in running for governor in 2014 – a sign the party is committed to its post-election pledge to connect with Hispanic voters.
State legislator Tim Donnelly -- a former member of the Minutemen Project that tried to stop illegal immigration – announced shortly after Election Day that he was forming an exploratory committee for a potential run.
Donnelly’s announcement was followed last week by a statement of non-support from the president of the influential Lincoln Club of Orange County.
“Donnelly’s views on immigration do not represent the views of the (club), nor do I believe he represents the views of most Republicans or Californians,” president Robert Loewen wrote. “We cannot support Republicans who continually target immigrants, who are members of our community, as scapegoats for their own political advantage.”
Donnelly was elected to the State Assembly in 2010 and is the first Republican known to express interest in a 2014 California gubernatorial run. The Tea Party-backed lawmaker told the conservative political website Politichicks.tv that he was running because “there’s just nobody out there” fighting for Californians, including many “fleeing for a better life” because of bad economic conditions.
Republicans in Washington and elsewhere in the country said publicly after the Nov. 6 election that the party needs to connect better with Hispanics – considering President Obama won roughly 71 percent of their vote, compared to about 27 percent for Mitt Romney.
But the realization was especially glaring in Orange County – once a conservative stronghold.
Republicans now account for just 41 percent of registered voters in that Southern California county, compared to the mid-1990s when the number was 52 percent. A major reason is changing demographics – with voting districts in and around the county seat of Santa Ana, for example, now largely Hispanic.
Scott Baugh, chairman of the county's Republican Party, said afterward that Hispanics belong naturally in the GOP because of their shared values for faith, family, education and hard work. Baugh also said the party can win over Hispanic votes in large part by leading the way in comprehensive immigration reform.
Donnelly, who represents the San Bernardino area, remains a controversial figure, despite no longer being a member of the Minutemen.
In March, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of bringing a loaded pistol to an airport earlier this year. Donnelly said he made an “honest mistake,” forgetting to remove the gun from his briefcase.
The Minutemen Project was essentially a group of volunteers monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border that gained national attention in the early part of the decade.
“We as conservative Republicans call upon members of our party in Congress to support real reforms to our antiquated immigration laws,” Loewen wrote, as reported first by Politico. “That includes creating a 21st-century, market-based, temporary-worker system that pairs labor with businesses needs and gives both future immigrants and those illegal immigrants who are already here an opportunity to gain legal status.”
The 50-year-old group of business men and women supports candidates and causes to limit the size of government.
Well, most whites and Mexicans against illegal immirgation and a few asians against it in Orange County laugh at the natural conservative remark, Scott knows that hispanics have not voted Republican in Orange County for 10 years and are the least likely to vote Republican in the county even more so than asians in richer Irvine or small business Westminster.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/02/california-republican-eyeing-governorship-criticized-for-hard-line-illegal/#ixzz2E4NfrBrT
This reminds me how 8 years ago, about this time, everyone was saying that the Democrats would never win another election. The only hope for them, everyone said then, was to become more like Republicans. Instead the Democrats doubled down on liberalism and in a short order captured both Congress and the White House.
These things are cyclical. Personalities and issues of the day change. Winning coalitions crumble. Party in power invariably screws up.
The bad news for the GOP is that there is nothing they can do to capture the vote of "Northern suburbanites" or whomever. The good news is that they don't have to do anything; the Democrats will do the job for them in the next 2-6 years.
Here's a plan for assaulting the lock the two parties now have on the US:
An openly pro-white, pro-middle class, nationalist 3rd party targets just Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The aim is to gain enough support in the polls to be able to swing these three states to either party.
After spending $6 billion, what do you think the Romney and Obama campaigns would do if the only way they could win OH, PA and MI was to publicly pledge to end affirmative action or cut immigration back to pre-1965 levels?
At the very least, such an effort would at least put issues that the two parties have agreed to sweep under the rug front and center.
"So why does it matter to the readers here if the GOP wins?"
Because it would mean the Democrats lose.
The GOP is like the lazy, fat, no-good boyfriend who never does anything nice for you. The Democrats are like the psycho boyfriend who wants to cut your head off and keep it in the freezer.
Anonymous wrote:
"Regarding the auto bailout, that was good luck for Obama, it "worked" because the Japanese earthquake, which caused a tsunami, which killed Japan's power grid, which killed supplies to Japanese auto factories in both Japan and the US, which lead to huge shortages of Japanese cars for quite a while, which lead to a lot more sales for GM, Ford, and Chrysler. I had this pointed out to me by an acquaintance who is a big Democratic activist and whose dad is lifelong UAW member and he did it without prompting and back during the primary season in the spring. He basically acknowledged Obama's bailout was successful because of an earthquake. It may prove short lived, but it helped Obama get re-elected and no one will remember the Romney was right in the long term if GM and Chrysler need a bailout again in 7 or 8 years, just like like no one remembers Chrysler's first bailout in the 1980's. Anyway, for proof that Santorum was largely to blame for Romney losing, look only at the man himself, within hours of the election being over, he immediately blamed Romney's loss on wait for it..... not pandering to Hispanic voters, those natural Republicans."
See this is what gets me about the Republican party and economic matters besides the issues like tax cuts for the 1%.
Let Detroit go belly up. Then what? Other than export grain and raw materials what's left here?
Silicon Valley? A lot of them don't believe it, but everything they do can be done in China.
Wall Street? That is a kind of conjunction of a lot of things that don't necessarily have to continue to be true. US dollar as reserve currency, tradition, back room arm twisting, big military, inertia, etc.
Once again China, Europe, or a few other places can do "world class" accounting and moving 1's and 0's around in computer accounts as well as New York can.
Also why exactly does no one ask why Germany and Japan can have perfectly viable automotive industries, have union workers, but we can't? What's wrong with this picture?
I also think a hammer can dropped on Hollywood and the TV industry, along with publishing for similar reasons to a possible decline of Wall Street.
If you are some kind of University of Chicago/Austrian nutcase that thinks we should accept a role as some kind of third world resource exporter, well turn around.
Because I want to plant my foot two feet up something.
Mercantilism has never really gone out of style. It's what the cool kids have always done.
When they were cool.
The GOP as presently constituted only has two interest groups it cares about: the international moneyed elite, and hard-right Christian nutters.
The Cathedral also said that Reagan was pro-plutocrat, but it turns out that Obama is more pro-plutocrat than Reagan was.
http://www.capitalismwithoutfailure.com/2011/12/bill-black-on-incidence-of-fraud.html
(...)
On the prosecution of fraud following the Savings and Loan Crisis: Our agency filed over 10,000 criminal referrals that resulted in over 1,000 felony convictions. We worked closely with the FBI and the Justice Department, to prioritize cases—creating the top 100 list of the 100 worst institutions which translated into about 600 or 700 executives. We went after the absolute worst frauds.
On the prosecution of fraud following the current crisis: We now have appointed anti-regulators. The FBI warned in open testimony in the House of Representatives, in September 2004, that there was an epidemic of mortgage fraud, and they predicted that it would cause a financial crisis if it were not contained. It was not contained. Since then we have had zero criminal referrals. They completely shut down making criminal referrals. Both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration have not made it a priority to prosecute these elite criminals who caused this devastating injury.
(...)
Maybe the GOP strategy of burning Ron Paul and his supporters needs to be looked at instead of appealing to the mythical conservative hispanic vote. You'd figure someone would have assumed that pissing off that faction of the GOP would have had consequences and talked about it.
Instead Romney's son being chased off stage by hurled garbage after insinuating to AZ Ron Paul supporters that an Obama victory is their fault doesn't make the MSM.
Romney was a horrible candidate, a liberal from the NE who passed an assault weapons ban, got abortions paid for by the government, and socialized medicare. On one hand its amazing that the Democrats managed to malign him so successfully, on the other its amazing that the GOP was so stupid to think he appealed to anyone but their Beltway echo chamber.
I'm from the Philly suburbs too. while they have trended democrat, western Pennsylvania has trended republican. Pennsylvania was less than 2 percent more democrat than the country this year. a pro white, middle class strategy could win it (and Romney sort of tried this at the end) but the Bain damage was done.
Ohio will also vote for this strategy, in bigger numbers than Pennsylvania. Florida will vote republican in a better year. Maybe we'll have to give Rubio VP.
Texas is nowhere close to competitive. even Arizona probably has to wait until 2024.
Of course if amnesty passes the Republican party is dead.
Romney did the complete opposite, picking someone for VP most famous for "fearlessly" being completely open upon huge Medicare cuts, when most GOP congressmen were unwilling to do the same.
Except Romney carried the voters who care about such stuff, i.e. the older voters. Indeed, Romney won a majority of voters aged over 30.
Two points.
1) The Democrats understand party unity and accept the fact that their party will take positions contrary to their best interests. Examples: Unions and carbon taxation and open borders. Blacks and abortion on demand, Social Security (a transfer program from black men who die early to white women who live longer) and open borders. Trial lawyers and Obamacare. Democrats understand that they have to vote for candidates that are not perfect, that are contrary to their best interests, in order to gain control of the reins of power. Because not having your guy in office is radically worse.
2) The Libertarian Party is a Fifth Column working inside the walls of the Conservative city by demotivating voters who would otherwise vote Republican. Whether intentionally or not, by running vanity candidates like Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party is a vital ally if the Democrats.
3) To be clear, a vanity candidate is one whose voters vote for him to get a warm glow of moral superiority, but which does not have the practical effect the voter wants. This is another thing Libertarians Party voters have in common with Democrats. It's a little like peeing on your leg to warm up. It might feel good short term, but longer term no.
The argument that helping the Democrats destroy liberty in the Republic will somehow accelerate the establishment of a libertarian paradise is profoundly stupid. The collapse of the American Republic will be succeeded by an arrangement much more statist, much less free. There is no other argument for voting for vanity candidates like Gary Johnson.
OK, a few thoughts. Some of them said a few months ago since the election was almost a month ago:
1. The Republicans should return to their historical (Lincoln to circa Hoover or Ike) protectionist roots. Republicans are currently a free trade party, and the Democrats are too. The Democrats might rip free trade here and there, but they don't really mean it. Remember Barry's notorious "bitter clingers" speech, where he spoke of rural Pennsyvanians clinging to guns, religion or ANTI-TRADE SENTIMENT.
It's time for the Republicans to mean it. We may have to renegotiate or withdraw from trade treaties, but modest tariffs (10-15%) should be levied on imports. We could also or instead follow Pat Buchanan's 2006 suggestion to levy an equalizing fee on imports equal to the exporting nation's VAT rate. Maybe try a balanced tariff like DaveInHackensack has spoken of. We're always bemoaning the decline of our manufacturing base, let's try to stop it.
2. Higher tax rates for the wealthy, less welfare and giveaways for the poor. The GOP has carried the wealthy's water for years now and what have we got in return? They outsource manufacturing, import service employees from foreign countries, and often vote for the Democrats to boot. (I believe 8 of the 10 wealthiest zip codes voted for Barry O. ) The Dem vs Rep dynamic is basically the top and bottom vs the middle. Reps need to focus more on the middle. Tax the top more, give the bottom less. Barry has been weakening the welfare reform requirements, time to take him and Karl Denninger's Free S___ Army on.
3. Republicans will be tarred as racist no matter what, so damn the torpedos and take immigration head on. Push E-Verify, push a border fence, push fines or jail for businesses that hire illegals. Everything short of another Operation Wetback. Cut legal immigration to 200,000 to 300,000 a year, with preference given to scientists and those with enough capital to start a business employing Americans.
4. Affirmative action. End it. When racial preference bans are put on a state ballot, they almost always win. Republicans need to stop being mealy mouthed and push for an end to affirmative action. A poll out a couple months ago showed even young (18-30) whites opposed preferences.
5. The abortion issue. Republicans need to give the country a credible lesson on federalism. Republicans shouldn't abandon pro-lifers in friendly territory, but it shouldn't scorn Republicans in New England or the Left Coast who are pro-choice friendly. I think alot of northern whites, especially northern white women have left the GOP because it has a rep as the Puritan Party. The GOP should push to overturn Roe v. Wade. They should inform voters that overturning Roe wouldn't ban abortion nationwide, but would let each state regulate abortion in accordance with the will of its voters. Let Mississippi and the Dakotas ban abortion, let California and Connecticut have abortion up until the water breaks. Same thing with drugs. Other than perhaps banning the importation of dope from foreign sources, let drug legalization/prohibition become
a state issue.
6. The courts. I don't know how to handle this as I'm not a lawyer, but I think eventually the GOP will have to take on the judicial system or the practice of judicial review. I don't think judicial review is always bad (thank goodness for DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago) but I think we all know that if the Republicans pass something interesting on immigration or affirmative action the courts will overturn it or gut it. What do we do with the courts?
7. Local and state Republicans should push school reform. Less college, more trade school. Tracking systems. Take on what Steve calls the Yale or jail idea.
Pennsylvania was less than 2 percent more democrat than the country this year.
A miss is as good as a mile. Obama got almost 400,000 more votes than Romney in PA. Picking up 400,000 votes when the demographics keep running against you year by year is an uphill swim.
"I wouldn't even mind a real national health system, but we aren't going to get it because the insurance companies don't want it."
In many ways a real national health system is conservative. It's probably one of the few things that at this point can curb rising levels of obesity, drug use and sedentary behavior. If people's free health coverage is tied to fulfilling certain behaviors then they will have incentive to be more responsible. A substantial portion of liberals would probably be okay with this, though the crazy hard left will decry it as insensitive of course.
Nationally the Republicans are well-deserved victims of the Faustian bargain for racial-cultural gerrymandering. If more among their brain trust were used to competing in urban metros than in sprawl archipelagos they at least would be more informed about the proportion of people who consider their latest candidate to be David Duke, David Koresh, Jack D. Ripper or Henry F. Potter for taste
San Bernardino has been Detroit West for decades
In many ways a real national health system is conservative.
Can any new or expanded govt program really be *conservative* in neo-Bolshevist Empire USA? Maybe only "retro" programs that protect jobs ("protectionism")and contain population replacement-but the logic of Empire makes such programs impossible.
Google "The View From a Cog in the USA’s Aggressive-Multicultacracy Machine"
Serious question for you guys. Since objectively speaking, the George W Bush years were a demographic disaster for white people and saw an explosion in illegal immigration, while the Obama years saw (his rhetoric to the contrary) more deportations than ever and the demographic trendline finally moving back in your direction, isn't your best bet to continue with the status quo (a Democratic administration, deportations and legislative gridlock) while working to gum of any major amnesty long enough for more illegals to get depressed that it's never going to happen and go home?
Fair states that Obama deporations are actually a lot less than what is reported. There are some to make whites and blacks happy. Obama is prez and their is going to be grindlock. No jobs and no babies might not last that long, we will see.
It's been 2 elections and one four year presidency and I'm still not sure what Obama is about.
According to a lot of posters he is a Bolshevik who hates white people.
I'm not sure what he is to be honest.
What I think I have observed is:
1) He hates controversy and likes consensus.
2) He doesn't hate white people.
3) He doesn't love white poeple.
3a) I'm not sure he loves Black people. Or Mexican or Asian people. I think he views them as "Citizen Units" or something.
4) He has some natural, inborn drive to be at the center position on everything.
5) He hates information leaks (he is a lot more gung ho about this than Bush).
6) He has no problem with the trend that started sometime in the 90's of increased government infringement on civil libeties.
7) He loves, loves drones. The Predator completes him.
8) He will put out a "hit" on Muslims in a heartbeat. It might be because he loves to watch the drones fly, I don't know.
9) The man is a cipher in a lot of ways.
10) He is a total wonk. He's not a cowboy, when they invented the word "technocrat," they called Obama into being.
He might be the most beige man I've ever seen in public life.
I don't think you can count on any trend in his first four year term to be continued. Of course you can't count it out.
i've been to florida many times, and recently. it has nothing in common with pennsylvania, michigan, or ohio. florida is a weird, messed up state, and getting weirder.
here's the best way to handle florida:
http://www.fbgif.com/wp-content/uploads/gifs1112/florida.gif
LOL. who actually thinks FL is anything like PA, MI, or OH? not anybody who has been there in the last 10 years.
florida is so weird, it's like 2 different states in one. it's "da souf" from the panhandle and jacksonville down to about orlando, then it's...some weird, hybrid culture from orlando down to miami. a place where "da souf" ceases to exist and instead it's a mixture of yankee culture with pockets of third world islanders. under all that is this vast pool of black americans who slowly and steady grow. i think we know how they vote.
How about a third party designed to win just enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives?
i grow tired of hearing that republicans can win pennsylvania in a presidential election. is anybody even aware there are 1 million more registered democrats in PA than registered republicans? 1.1 million more, in fact.
http://www.dos.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/voter_registration_statistics/12725
does anybody who claims to understand this stuff even do any research? because it's obvious to me, they don't know what they're talking about. republicans will never win pennsylvania again.
"Herp derp well Republicans can win if they win Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan."
the odds of this are below 1%, approaching 0%. might as well talk about the odds of the starting quarterback at your local high school being drafted in the 2016 NFL draft.
if the republicans have to win all 4 of those states to win the white house, they will never win the white house again. when GW bush was re-elected in 2004 with 62.0 million votes, the most votes a republican has ever received, he lost pennsylvania and michigan. when was the last time the republican won those states? 1988. 24 year ago.
this "strategy" is a really bad bet. the kind of bet all your friends would try to talk you out of at the sports book in vegas. "Seriously man, one year's salary on the Browns to win the Superbowl?" get used to a 1 party system like mexico. in fact, the US is going to actually look like mexico once the next presidential cycle rolls around. not only will there be 10 million more mexican citizens from a de facto or official amnesty, but the republicans look like they might even run a mexican, or a cuban, or something like that.
PS: obama has continued to widen his popular vote lead over romney. romney is now up to 60.7 million votes, the second most ever for a republican and almost a million more than mccain. however, obama is now up to 65.3 million votes, for a 4.6 million vote lead. even with voter ID laws in effect, where are those extra 5 million republican votes going to come from in 2016? hint - they aren't coming.
As for Florida, I've never been there, but about 12 years ago Chris Matthews said something to the effect, Miami-Dade County is Cuba or Latin America, the Panhandle and north of the peninsula is south Georgia, and the Gulf Coast is like Iowa with all the Midwestern retirees and sun seeking transplants.
Actually for presidental elections Geroge W Bush won Texas at 61 percent and Romeny at 57. Texas will probably be down to 55 in 2012 and 53 in 2020, unless the politicans really want to do something with illegal immirgation or get hispanics to move somewhere else.
What the GOP needs to do is get white people to vote as an ethnic bloc in the same proportions other ethnic groups do.
One part of that will be modifying their economic policy away from globalism and more towards a more Buchananite economic nationalism.
An economic nationalist argument naturally leads into an immigration restrictionist argument.
"It's been 2 elections and one four year presidency and I'm still not sure what Obama is about."
He's an actor auditioned to play a role on the political stage.
"Rather than party politics, I'm more interested in a candidate I can genuinely respect, who has the leadership to bring the country together"
Not possible.
Diversity is simply balkanization spelled wrong.
It was a con.
Mr. Mendez, you are on fire Sir.
"Here's a plan for assaulting the lock the two parties now have on the US: An openly pro-white, pro-middle class, nationalist 3rd party targets just Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The aim is to gain enough support in the polls to be able to swing these three states to either party. "
Not sure if it could work...but the idea of a third party keying on swing states is a good one.
"The GOP is like the lazy, fat, no-good boyfriend who never does anything nice for you. The Democrats are like the psycho boyfriend who wants to cut your head off and keep it in the freezer."
Seriously ... that is funny LMFAO.. and I am a guy.
For a third party to win electoral votes it would have to win a whole state, in most cases (since most states assign their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis). If rightist a third party competed in a presidential election without winning any electoral votes, it would just tilt the election further in favor of Dems by drawing away GOP votes. The Electoral College itself supports the status quo of two major national parties.
Lived in Jacksonville for years. It sucks.
The quintessential Fla. town is West Palm Beach: a tiny sliver of affluent Scots-Irish lording it over a much larger benighted dark population. The closer you get to the north of the state, the more this grim mix is salted with Georgia-like crackers. (There are tiny pockets of smarter or at least less wild whites, hiding out in the general crazy. These communities are usually non-coastal are lent their character by the Midwest retirees in them.) But WP beach is the template. Haven't been in Miami in years or read Wolfe's latest, but I'm certain it's no exception.
Yes, Pennsylvania has not voted republican for president since 1988. We get it. But states change. Virginia, north Carolina and Colorado are trending against us. we will need to expand the map to compete, and the next republican to win the presidency will likely win Pennsylvania, a state full of white and old people. it won't be easy. But of all the Kerry 04 states, Pennsylvania was the best one for Romney.
Haven't been in Miami in years or read Wolfe's latest, but I'm certain it's no exception.
South Florida is becoming Caribbean. The Cubans will be the new elite there, if they aren't already. Whites are withdrawing to the northern part of the State.
The most cracker crackers I've ever met have been in Florida. 'The Yearling' and 'The Paperboy' both describe them in detail. I didn't see the movie version of the latter, as apparently Pete Dexter butchered it in order to sell in Hollywood.
For a third party to win electoral votes it would have to win a whole state, in most cases (since most states assign their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis). If rightist a third party competed in a presidential election without winning any electoral votes, it would just tilt the election further in favor of Dems by drawing away GOP votes.
Correct -- which is why my plan is to use that minority voting bloc to blackmail one (or both) parties to adopt your position.
Run on a very few positions that can be enacted by executive order. Make the GOP candidate publicly pledge to enact them on Day One of his administration, or your people stay home on election day. Hopefully, the Democrat gets scared and makes the same pledge.
"In many ways a real national health system is conservative. It's probably one of the few things that at this point can curb rising levels of obesity, drug use and sedentary behavior. If people's free health coverage is tied to fulfilling certain behaviors then they will have incentive to be more responsible. A substantial portion of liberals would probably be okay with this, though the crazy hard left will decry it as insensitive of course." - Disparate impact.
[QUOTE]2. Higher tax rates for the wealthy, less welfare and giveaways for the poor. The GOP has carried the wealthy's water for years now and what have we got in return? They outsource manufacturing, import service employees from foreign countries, and often vote for the Democrats to boot. (I believe 8 of the 10 wealthiest zip codes voted for Barry O. ) The Dem vs Rep dynamic is basically the top and bottom vs the middle. Reps need to focus more on the middle. Tax the top more, give the bottom less. Barry has been weakening the welfare reform requirements, time to take him and Karl Denninger's Free S___ Army on.[/QUOTE]
Maybe there can be a middle ground, not raise taxes on people making over $250 thousand dollars a year.
But raise taxes on people making over $ 1 million dollars a year, you know the true millionaires and billionaires.
After all a lot of the ultra wealthy are huge SWPL liberals, so why would Republicans want wealthy liberals to keep more of their own money when they will never in a million years vote for a Republican.
Why wouldn't Republicans want to see fat cat liberals like Michael Moore and George Soros pay more taxes.
"Off topic, but over at reddit, a hereditarian presented his case poorly and got his ass handed to him by an egalitarian. Egalitarians push this to the front page and declare victory."
Yeah, when I made my HBD case on a Leftist site, it was so effective that I got banned. Probably wasn't pushed to the front page.
To summarize the basic exchange:
Them: America is racist! Blacks are poorer than whites. That proves America is racist!
Me: Uh, what about Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya, Somalia, etc.?
Them: Banned!
And this wasn't some third-rate site. In Leftist circles it was actually pretty respectable.
"If Hillary runs, there is no Republican who stands a chance of beating her. She will soak up enough of working class Whitey to make this Strategy a non-starter."
If the economy is still shit in 2016 the Democrats will have to own it. It would be very unlikely for Hillary to win in those circumstances. In four years the economy will still suck. This is our lost decade. Our second lost decade, if you consider that the Bush years were all just a bubble.
Incumbent presidents have huge advantages. They have an enormous and growing government at their disposal to dispense favors and to buy votes. Clinton got reelected, Bush got reelected, Obama got reelected. The nation now uses term limits to change parties.
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