posted
At this time, with the Republican Party as rudderless as they appear, it will be Hillary v. Biden in the 2015-16 Democratic Primaries and the victor the 45th POTUS.
Unless the Republicans can reinvent themselves as "the loyal opposition", i.e. we don't agree with everything the Democrats propose, but we are Americans and the issues are too grave for us to interfere with the agenda and if we "work with", some of our ideas will find their way into enacted legislation.
Presently, I don't see the Republicans with anyone who would have a chance against either Hillie or Joey, so start looking for a sacrificial lamb and "think '24".
The Tea Party initiative clearly flopped; and even if the Republicans hold a House majority, they have learned and such is indicative with how they "folded" on the "fiscal cliff" and now have also "folded" on the matter of the debt ceiling. It appears that public sentiment will cast the GOP as the villians more concerned with their self interest than "pro bono patria".
With this landscape, the only national figure the Republicans have is "straight talkin'" Chris Christie; and somehow, along with becoming a "Biggest Loser Celebrity Contestant", will become a Democrat.
So who will be POTUS 45? Hillie or Joey? Hillary at age 69 may well be confronted with health issues, and Joe will be 75 - and to my knowledge the oldest person ever to seek the office. I can only hope that for either, Chris (and 100lbs less of him) will be the Democratic VP nominee as he may well be raising his right and taking that "short oath" prior to '20.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Well, Gilbert: I would hope the answer is none of the above.
Hillary: she has already held the office for 8 years. Yes, that is functionally, not officially. In reality, I somehow don't see her being the anointed one unless she can call in enough favors from the Obamba puppetmasters.
Joe: too old, too mouthy, too out of touch with anything west of the DC to Boston corridor.
If Christie is the Republican nominee, which I consider less likely than the guy switching parties, many of the "reliable" Republican voters won't bother to go vote unless there are secondary races that appear significant to them. That is, if you took Christie and any -fill in the blank- democratic candidate put them in a box and shook it, a lot of people would not care who fell out.
Not so sure that Christie would be around for the "short oath". Since the guy looks like a walking heart attack or stroke, I would not be suprised if both Clinton and Biden outlived him.
I really don't know who the likely Republican candidate would be, either. It would get down for many to who has the thickest skin. Think of how Sarah and George W. were treated by the media. It was off the scale vicious. I can't see many people of any sort of quality being willing to put themselves through such torture.
What may change the picture for all would be a fall off the fiscal cliff which we seem to be dancing along as if there were no tomorrow.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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Mr. Harris, it is a very safe supposition that Bill's stellar performance at the Convention (and sure beat the pants off Clint and the empty chair at the RNC) that many an analyst holds "is what did it" for Obama didn't come without a few strings. Even if "Barry and Hillie" only held respect for one another and weren't any kind of fast friends (there are reports that the Clintons have never been entertained in the White House; Hillary has been there only "in the line of duty"), you know Obama, absent him being part of some act that disgraces or discredits the office, will be out there on every last tree stump (anyone ever wonder where the term "on the stump" originated?), pushing for Hillary. As for Joey, his sitting VP, uh "sorry 'bout that".
Just as Obama "neutralized" Hillary with the State appointment (resign just to run against her boss? "uh uh"), so now has Bill ensured who Obama will support in '16.
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Call me around January 2015, when we have been subjected to the most intrusive government take-over ever. After enduring obamacare's 2014, no one in their right mind would vote for a democrat.
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
If the Republican Party is again to represent a balance in a two-party system, then David Brooks' masterful column appearing in Today's Times is a "must read":
The second G.O.P. wouldn’t be based on the Encroachment Story. It would be based on the idea that America is being hit simultaneously by two crises, which you might call the Mancur Olson crisis and the Charles Murray crisis.
Olson argued that nations decline because their aging institutions get bloated and sclerotic and retard national dynamism. Murray argues that America is coming apart, dividing into two nations — one with high education levels, stable families and good opportunities and the other with low education levels, unstable families and bad opportunities.
The second G.O.P. would tackle both problems at once. It would be filled with people who recoiled at President Obama’s second Inaugural Address because of its excessive faith in centralized power, but who don’t share the absolute antigovernment story of the current G.O.P.
Would a coastal and Midwestern G.O.P. sit easily with the Southern and Western one? No, but majority parties are usually coalitions of the incompatible. This is really the only chance Republicans have. The question is: Who’s going to build a second G.O.P.?
For our conservative members here, who have contributed much worthwhile material to this Forum (and as a centrist, I agree with much of it), the problem is how to mold such a party. The existing philosophies certainly have their appeal within the "Red Sea", but if the party is to make inroads into the Blue Coasts and the Midwest, there simply must be a concurrent moderate message being set forth.
Only problem; where do the votes lie? Where will they lie come '16?
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
The main danger the Republican party faces is the willingness of many of its members to pay attention to the advice of those who want it to lose. If anything, they should listen to the advice from these sources and use it as part of determining what NOT to do.
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
The USA is looking more like Rome, in its end-days.
There are too many people that are comfortably poor, living off of the property of people that produce. Money passes from the workers to the government and then, whatever is left over, passes to the "entitled" takers. (government keeps 72% of all welfare dollars to feed its bureaucracy)
Splitting our Nation may be the only way to save a part of it.
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
I think that the Republican Party simply has to accept that they have become "ingrown" with their ideologies and constituencies and that if they are again to become a contending party in the two party system that has evolved here over the past 200+ years (where does the US Constitution say one word about political parties?), a "retooling" is necessary.
Sure it is great to have a party that holds conservative, individual, values - that the family is the core of a governing unit, and that people will recognize they get sick and injured and accordingly budget (through a sequester of funds that otherwise be consumed or through insurance) to provide for those costs just as they do a host of other costs arising from living in a consumption driven society.
As for myself, I'm still pretty "independent" with my lifetime presidential voting record of 7R 5D 1I. I did vote for Romney last time. My vote was on the hope that bi-partisanship could be attained as to me Obama presented none of such during his first term. Now as the second gets under way, there appears to be an attitude of "OK, the other guys got the House, but I've got public sentiment and that means it going to be my way". Such an attitude hardly represents bi partisanship in which both sides have contributed to, as distinct from blocking, a major piece of enacted legislation.
But the Republican party during the recent election cycle apparently only measured the sentiment within the "Red Sea". As certain "partisans" here clearly shared at this Forum, they were sure "Romney had it" as that is what Fox News (yes, I consider that source to be recognized media) and the various alternative media sources disseminating like views were proclaiming. I think that Karl Rove's "controlled meltdown" on Fox after they declared Obama won, was indicative that "the faithful" simply had too many "blinders" on through the cycle. They could not recognize the value of "Bill's performance" over that of Clint's, the damage that "the 47% remark" spread, or the "we're Americans and we're all in this together" approach post-Sandy that the Governor of the hardest hit state and the President Of The United States took together.
But with an electorate far less educated and much less concerned about societal issues than are we here at this Forum, "the image" is everything, and the Republican party, if it is not to go the way of the Federalists, Whigs, or Bull Moose's, had best recognize that theirs needs a "retool".
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I agree. Republicans have tried two middle-of-the-road moderates in the last two election cycles and had a moderate from 2001-2008. It is time to get conservative.
And while we are discussing this, I can fix the Federal Budget problem.
Cut all welfare benefits by 2%. A welfare queen, taking $500 a month of our tax dollars to pay her rent will now have $490 a month. Cut all federal bureaucrat's salaries by 5%. Bureaucrats that were making $100,000 a year will now be making $95,000 a year. The $40,000 a year bureaucrats will be making $38,000 a year.
Do this again next year, if it goes well this year.
Free clue: Social Security and Medicare are NOT welfare programs for most of us. We paid for those programs through our payroll tax deductions.
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
It appears that Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan also holds views similar to mine; as well as to Mr. Smith who agreed of sorts with mine as well.
In short, I hope that Peggy will not need to be called "clueless". Her column is my "first read" in Saturday's Journal:
Do you hear the sound of an ice floe cracking? I think I did the past 10 days. In that time these things happened:
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal went before the Republican National Committee to call the GOP "the stupid party." Newly re-elected RNC Chairman Reince Priebus admitted the party got smoked on vote technology, will have a hard time catching up with the Democrats and must start now. Joe Scarborough told a conservative gathering that dissent within the party has been suppressed. John Podhoretz said some of its long-held assumptions are creating "dead ends."
Marco Rubio and the gang of eight got out ahead of the president on immigration reform. Rep. Dave Camp zeroed in on the worst of Wall Street, the use of derivatives that helped crash the economy in 2008. He proposes to "crack down on the ability of investment firms and wealthy individuals to limit their taxes through complex financial instruments," Roll Call reports. That's a pirate move, and of the best kind because it doesn't come from a pirate but from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, a conservative veteran respected on both sides of the aisle.
These sharp cracks in the air just may be the sound of a frozen party moving on into swift and warmer waters. And if it's just a beginning, good, it's a beginning
Posts: 9976 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Mike Smith: I agree. Republicans have tried two middle-of-the-road moderates in the last two election cycles and had a moderate from 2001-2008. It is time to get conservative.
And while we are discussing this, I can fix the Federal Budget problem.
Cut all welfare benefits by 2%. A welfare queen, taking $500 a month of our tax dollars to pay her rent will now have $490 a month. Cut all federal bureaucrat's salaries by 5%. Bureaucrats that were making $100,000 a year will now be making $95,000 a year. The $40,000 a year bureaucrats will be making $38,000 a year.
Do this again next year, if it goes well this year.
Free clue: Social Security and Medicare are NOT welfare programs for most of us. We paid for those programs through our payroll tax deductions.
Point one: If GWBush and John McCain are "middle of the road moderates", the GOP is in even worse shape than I thought. Mitt Romney fit any description you wanted, if it would get him votes. Point two: Most of us collect way more from Social Security than we ever pay into it, so how is it NOT a "welfare program"?
Posts: 510 | From: Richmond VA USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Jerome, have you ever heard of compound interest, and what it is capable of, over 50+ years?
Posts: 1418 | From: Houston, Republic of Texas | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
The Republicans are having the same problem as the Conservative Party have had over here. After 18 years in power during the Thatcher era they got one of the biggest electoral hammerings of all time followed four years later by another pasting at the polls and another heavy defeat four years after that.
They were branded as "the nasty party", perceived to be anti-women, anti-gay, anti-foreigner, anti-minority groups etc, and the main response from the stalwarts was to say "if only people understood our policies......we need to be more right wing......".
They chose a new leader who was more to the right and the electoral position got worse! Whilst all the time the centre-left government were being given a free ride to tax and spend and borrow to the point of almost bankrupting the country and trample over civil liberties to their hearts content.
Eventually the electorate caught up with the Labour Government, but even then the Conservatives only got back into power through a weak coalition, and were faced with cleaning up the mess the last lot left behind. Nearly three years in they are a mile behind in the polls and heading for almost certain defeat in 2015 which will be catastrophic for the country.
Posts: 395 | From: england | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Mike, that compound interest was supposed to be part of my retirement income. It worked for my mother a decade ago when she got 8 percent on what she got for her house, and it paid her living expenses. Now I can't find a safe investment that's worth staying awake for.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:Originally posted by TwinStarRocket: Mike, that compound interest was supposed to be part of my retirement income. It worked for my mother a decade ago when she got 8 percent on what she got for her house, and it paid her living expenses. Now I can't find a safe investment that's worth staying awake for.
Exactly! My parents never had to touch their principal. At current rates of interest, I better not live too long or I will burn it. Also, I can't sell my house for what I paid for it over 30 years ago. (My retirement home is now to be my parents home.)
Posts: 2808 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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