What's Ahead For The Republican Party
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-11-08/whats-ahead-republican-party
Since Tuesday's election, many Republicans have called for a frank reassessment of what it means to be a member of the GOP. As one Republican strategist put it, "Our party needs to realize that it's too old and too white and too male and it needs to figure out how to catch up with the demographics of the country before it's too late." Diane and Republican analysts discuss the identity and future of the GOP.
Guests
Henry Olsen
vice president of the American Enterprise Institute.
Matt Kibbe
president and CEO of FreedomWorks, and author of "Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government's Stranglehold on America."
Leslie Sanchez
Republican-affiliated consultant, founder and CEO of Impacto Group LLC, and author of "Los Republicanos: Why Hispanics and Republicans Need Each Other.”
David Winston
Republican strategist, president of the Winston Group and CBS News consultant. He has served as an adviser to the House and Senate Republican leadership for more than a decade.
Comments
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I find the religious bent of the Republican Party offensive and exclusive. I'm a blue blood and am religious, but I and many Americans do not wear their religion on their sleeve as Republicans do and make the rest of us feel inferior or un religious.
Religion is personal and not public as the Republicans continue to throw in our faces.
Actually they embarrass me with this dogma.
Peace,
Ted
Your panelists continue to speak of the loss of the election as resulting from the mis-branding of their party. The loss resulted not from branding--a term I hate--but from the general rejection of the beliefs of party leaders and candidates. Any party that generally accepts outright racists, mysogenists, of outright fools such as the birther Donald Trump, cannot be seen as viable.
How can the Republicans negotiate problems fully when they have signed Grover Norquist's no-taxes pledge? Taxation is one of the few tools available to those who govern and they have set it aside. They are Grover Norquist's puppets, not fully present and available to make compromises.
It's clear from listening to these republican men that they don't have a clue why they lost the election. Yes, Todd Akin's speech was unfortunate. Yes, Richard Mourdock's speech was unfortunate. However, what they said reflects what the republican party believes. The republican party believes it is appropriate to force its narrow religious beliefs on all American citizens. Until the republican party removes religion from its platform, it will fail. And I am a republican (who does not and will not vote republican anymore).
Yesterday on Nov 7th on CSPAN the Tea Party spoke and said that they are creating a list for the Republicans to sign called, "No Excuses". What is on the list? They went on to say that their goal was to take over the Republican Party - 40,000,000 people strong. It was so scary!
What you and others characterize as "ignorance about women" in some of the candidates is actually something else. What we have now is reporters and others constantly pumping candidates for answers to certain questions, and if a candidate mis-speaks or stumbles over his answer, the answers are instantly tweeted on posted online and there is no balance or consideration about what the candidate was trying to say, but rather a blood-lust that the reporter has some juicy quote that can be used to destroy the candidate.
When you think about the Democrats being able to frame Romney as "not caring about people like me", remember that Romney himself said he did not care about 47% of the Amercan people. What a gift he gave to the Democrats.
Your guest is absolutely correct! No one on capitol hill is interested in governing for all citizens of this country, they just want to win and stay in power. And this election was in no way a referendum on Republicans being done as a party. The actual popular vote was very close which should tell any reasonable person that we are pretty evenly divided in this country. Republicans have got to stop putting up candidates who delve into issues that have nothing to do with the mandate of federal government and should be left to the individual. And the Democrats?...they only got a little over half of the votes. And many of those probably came because republicans took the bait on arguing things that are none of their business. Democrats are no better, by constantly promising people that they are going to magically have an easy, middle class life if they vote democratic. By even putting out a topic such as this you are improperly swinging listeners' views by assuming the GOP is broken just because they lost a very close election. Actually, I am hearing that, if they had not gotten off track and had a few candidates say idiotic things, they would have won! Sounds to me like they really just need to get rid of the fringe fools and get back to convincing citizens that they can govern well.
I am not an expert, only know my own mind. As long as bigoted people identify themselves as Republicans, I believe that the Republican Party is foolish to think they will ever attract the affintiy of the people they (the bigots) are bigoted towards. I speak of racial bigotry, gender bigotry (read, misogyny), sexual preference bigotry, religious choice/affiliation bigotry; all forms of bigotry, which I define as harboring ill-will towards those groups of people solely because of their affiliation with the groups.
The Republican Party will only be able to attract their affinity if the party divorces it itself from the bigots, in a very open, frequent, and concerted manner. I do not beleive that all Republicans are bigots. It certainly appears from past performance that many, not most people who identify themselves as Republican are bigots, and this "divorce" will cost the Republicans some support. So be it, if they really want to attract the affinity of the targets of the bigotry.
As a 65 year old white woman, the Republican Party will never win me over. Women's rights shouldn't even be a talking point. Listening to your guests Diane...they just don't get it. I don't allow my husband to tell me what to do, why on earth would I listen to other old white men.
If David Brooks is not a conservative, whom do you consider to be conservative? I don't think appearing on PBS means you are liberal.
Re: women, it's not simply about wierd comments from off the wall candidates. It's about the 90+ bills introduced into the House by the right wing that attempted to suppress decisions that women should be able to make about their own bodies. Rhetoric about liberty does not seem to extend to this area critical to women.
Agree with the theocratic remark from e-mail earlier. Didn't hear anyone answer that.
Republicans want to force their religious beliefs on this country through government.
It's not their business,.
Unless the GOP adjusts their attitude on immigration policy they're doomed. I notice how the guests seem to be dancing around the issue but it's not fooling
me.
I find it troubling that your Republican guests keep referring to the election results as "a narrow win" by the President and Democrats.
President Obama won the popular vote by a larger margin than did George W. Bush in 2004, after which he (George W.) said that he had "a mandate" for his conservative agenda. In terms of the electoral vote, the election was a blowout for the President.
Regarding the Congressional races: (1) Democrats won many more races than Republicans in the Senate despite massive political advertising on the part of conservative groups, (2) Democrats would have gained more seats in the House but for significant gerrymandering in 2010 which was primarily engineered by a Republican majority.
Your discussion is still patronizing to women indicating that they are interested in "home economics" and that they need a special message. We are equals and can handle complicated issues.
Please answer this question: Does the Republican party regard the use of ALEC which is supported by wealth and corporations as an honest representation of its constituents and a democratic way to govern?
They avoided how closely tied the GOP is with the evangelicals. .....that in essence the GOP has been co-opted by the radical christian right.
When accountant says he believes in fiscal responsibility what does he mean? It's OK if he means that he pays his bills promptly and tries to plan ahead but it is stupid if he believes we all must go a-holes and elbows paying tribute too the wealthy for bogus debts they have trumped up on us in a rigged system.
If accountant accepts the national debt at face value he might have made a great sharecropper for my landowner grandpa, who issued scrip he could only spend at Granddaddy's general store with it's inflated prices and compounding interest on accounts.
If being a Democrat (or Republican) means accepting fraud and injustice and paying tribute to the super-rich then we need an alternative.
Speaking of alternatives: The Republican Party is about to fragment into corporatists, fascists and superstitious religionists... leaving its few well-meaning members to find another home. Angus King (I-Maine) leads the way.
Why do we not hear this kind of measured discussions from the Republicans anywhere else?
Agree with you totally, except you said it better than I could.
I am listening to the guests and what they say about women's issues, Hispanic issues, etc completely contradicts what the published party platform stated. Why would anyone trust what these folks say when they publish one set of positions and then suggest that those positions don't have effect on groups like women, Hispanics, gays? There seems to be a great disconnect. I would never vote for a Repulican even if I agreed with that candidate's economic message because I think, if elected, that person would set about to undo Roe, restrict immigration, etc. Don't those folks see the problem, the contradiction, the bitter irony? Do they think that voters are blind to the filp-flopping.
Spinning the "47%" comment?!! Really? Yeah, that's what he meant. Please.
In this campaign cycle the Republican Party became a party for those who identify as conservative Christians. Religion has always been excluded from our political system as a governing ideology and many many people fear the intrusion of a religious party in our political process. How does the party plan to address their ongoing relationship with the Tea Party and the religious right?
Until this is clear they will inspire fear in voters rather than belief.
Easy access to contraception and access to abortion ARE economic considerations to young women. Careers and education can be interrupted by an unwanted pregnancy and throw a woman's life off course. This is something men have to understand.
I accept David Brooks' description of himself as in the "conservative tradition."
The Republican Party has engaged in policies and laws at both State and Federal levels since the 2010 midterm elections that were in fact the bases for woman and others feelings. The words and dialogue were merely reflecting the laws that were passed.
The entire party maintains views that are not what the majority or Americans want.
Look at the number of laws and attempts to place laws in States and Federal (Congressional level) since 2010 that were aimed at woman and immigration to merely name a few.
The republican Tax policies have been in effect both directly and indirectly since Regan and the country has not seen the results the Republicans claim.
It's time to move toward new solutions vs cut, cut, cut and don't raise taxes. It hasn't worked and won't work when the numbers don't add up.
People did not hear what they wanted to hear from either major party.
Ask yourself this: Where would these pro-corporate monstosities be without their Oligarch money?
I wish these speakers had the guts to discuss the "theocracy" question. The Republicans want the government to get out of the way of business, but yet they are very happy to have government dictate how individuals should lead their lives. They consistently make the mistake that economics trumps personal freedoms. As long as they rely on narrow religious principles to define their social agenda and candidate selection, nothing else they espouse matters.
I feel that the response to the email regarding the theocracy the Republican Party has become was completely skipped over by the panelists. I hope this issue is pressed, because it is very important to creating the choice that the Republican Party needs to create.