Elephant Becoming a Dinosaur

[babylonsister]

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/9/11/143219/941

Elephant Becoming a Dinosaur

by BooMan
Tue Sep 11th, 2012 at 02:32:19 PM EST

snip//


It may seem like this is a conservative country, but it's actually tilted to the left on the national level. There are areas that are stubbornly supportive of the Republican Party, so we will not see a Democrat win 49 states as both Nixon and Reagan were once able to do. But the Republicans are now at the point where cracking 300 electoral votes is nearly impossible, while the Democrats' ultimate best case scenario is closer to 400 votes.

What this means is that the Republicans really can't afford any more slippage. If even one more large state becomes safely blue, their maximum upside will fall below 270 and they won't be able to compete for the White House at all.

Because the Republicans have decided to brand themselves as the party of white conservative Christians, small business owners, and Wall Street fat cats, they have assured themselves more slippage.

What will be interesting to watch is how fast the big money donors figure out that the modern GOP isn't worth any investment (at least, in presidential elections) and how quickly the GOP changes in response. Notice that none other than Rupert Murdoch is pleading with Mitt Romney to stop pandering to the religious right and get after the middle. But both Romney and McCain analyzed their situation and decided they needed to stimulate the base more than they needed to pander to the middle. Why did they decide that? What were they seeing that I don't see and Mr. Murdoch doesn't see? Why does base turnout always seem to trump persuasion with the GOP presidential candidates?

I don't know the answer to that question. But, I wish I did, because knowing the answer would help me figure out how the GOP will respond to their coming irrelevancy. Will they listen to the big money folks who don't give a crap about abortion or will they continue to believe that only an energized army of crazies gives them any hope of success? And, if they get it wrong at first, how long will it take them to figure that out and remake themselves?

[Liberal Veteran]

1. You say you want some devolution?

Welllll, you know.

We all want to see them gone.

[Glorfindel]

4. When you talk about destruction, don't you know you can count me out (in)

(Destruction of the Repukes, of course!)

You know it's gonna be all right

[Arugula Latte]

2. But yet dozens & dozens of rural and suburban congressional districts remain dumber than cow patties

and the rest of us have to live with the products of these Republican idiocracies making bad legislation (or blocking good legislation) at the national level.

[lunatica]

3. The modern Republican Party

[Populist_Prole]

5. That is one great post. So succinctly nailed

[Warpy]

6. Big money has relied on the religious crazies for a long time

but the religious crazies are finally starting to realize they've been manipulated and used. After all, abortion is still legal, they're still losing suits over forced prayer and Christian symbols in government offices, and non Christians still have the right to be whoever they are.

The problem is that the crazies have tended to try out crazying each other to grab media attention, to the point that the party has pretty much lost the authoritarian mushy middle, leaving the authoritarians no one worth following since everybody at the top is pretending to be crazy in order to be elected.

The bottom line is that the Reagan coalition between the obscenely rich and the religiously insane is finally breaking down, and it's irrelevant which group will pull support first. It is going to happen, pushed along by demographics.

My own guess is that 2016 is going to be a bloodbath. Even if the party fields a nominee, he will be so badly bloodied by the nomination process that he won't have a chance, no matter who he panders to the most.

[hifiguy]

7. I think you are correct.

The plutocrats have the money but the lunatics have the numbers. Whoever emerges from the Hobbesian insanity of the 2016 Repuke presidential primary will probably be well to the right of Attila the Hun and get brutally curb-stomped in the general. My early bet would be FrothyMix or someone very much like him. Gads, that would be fun to watch.

[StrictlyRockers]

8. If we get to run against Santorum...

I will be doing the happy dance all summer long.