How a Romney Loss Would Impact the GOP

[ProSense]

By Reid Wilson

How a Romney Loss Would Impact the GOP

Look for a sharp right turn away from the party establishment and its chosen candidate.

Today, the media and their pollsters are to blame for Mitt Romney's political troubles, according to Romney's fans. But if Romney does lose this year, blame will quickly shift to the Republican presidential nominee himself, his shortcomings, and his ability to articulate a conservative vision for the country. And the fallout from a Romney loss has the potential to reverberate through the Republican Party for a decade.

Had you told any Democratic political strategist a year ago that the unemployment rate in September 2012 would stand at 8.1 percent, he or she would have thrown up their hands in despair. President Obama, conventional wisdom held, would be headed to certain defeat.

But six weeks from Election Day, the picture is very different. Obama's approval ratings are on the rise, positive economic news hints at a recovery in the housing market and a slightly brighter jobs picture, and state-by-state polling shows Obama ahead of Republican nominee Mitt Romney in virtually every battleground state by significant margins. Even the dreaded enthusiasm gap, which showed Republican voters more likely to head to the polls than Democrats this year, is fading as more Democrats tune in.

Conservative pundits have blamed a complicit media; even pollsters are suspect. Every poll's sample composition is scrutinized for the slightest perceived irregularity. But if Romney does lose, Republicans will be forced to contemplate how their candidate blew the best opportunity to defeat an incumbent president since 1980. And while anger focuses elsewhere now, the blame will surely shift to Romney himself, and his backers within the Washington

- more -

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/on-the-trail/how-a-romney-loss-would-impact-the-gop-20120927

Even though the polls are skewed, Republicans beg Mitt to change course
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021424272

[southernyankeebelle]

1. The republican party should look in the mirror. That is who to blame. Romney is doing

what the tea party wanted of him. They forced him to the extreme right and then said don't cross over that line. If he tried to move to the middle they will pull him back. How sad in a way because he really is more liberal then he acts. The country would have gotten a man who might have compromised. Instead he'll get the blame. He wasn't allow to be moderate. Not that I really care because I never vote for a republican, ever.

[randome]

2. They need an 'Obama' of their own. I don't see anyone on the horizon for them.

[southernyankeebelle]

19. Until the get rid of their tea party and religous right they may keep having problems.

The moderate and liberal republicans must fight to get their party back.

[Auntie Bush]

34. How about Mr. 999 ?

Wish they'd run him in 2016.

[Flashmann]

4. The republican party should look in the mirror.

That will happen when the billionaires who own them ALL,instruct them to do so......So.....Never...

[southernyankeebelle]

18. Well the 47% will help them look at themselves.

[ProSense]

6. Yeah, Romney is a tool

and a fool, and Republicans are reaping what they sowed.

[southernyankeebelle]

17. People finally have woken up and seeing that Mittens represents what all republicans think.

He just openned his mouth.

[Jessy169]

38. Republican voters have been duped

I don't know if it is the fault of so many Republicans that they just aren't very smart. Heredity and upbringing plays a big role. But whether it is their fault or not, they just aren't a very bright group. Their emotions are easily manipulated, they willingly believe lies when the lies reinforce what they already believe, objectivity is not their strong suit, at all. These are the morons who put Romney into the Republican candidacy. Will the right-wingers blame the morons who voted for Romney -- themselves in other words -- or Romney for being such a failure? I think the morons will not pause for self-reflection, they will eat Romney and curse him, then find another loser to lead them with the lies and hate that they thrive on. I think they will double-down on crazy.

[southernyankeebelle]

46. It's the Fox News Network. Listen I grew up in a dem family. We always voted our

pocketbook issues. All the social issues were a side issue for me. I am pro-choice but I wouldn't have an abortion for me. I have no right to tell others what to do. On gays I think they should have right everyone else have. Good made them that way. Besides that if they want to marry that doesn't effect my marriage. My parents had 2 children late in life. There is 12 yrs difference in age between my youngest sister and I. Our dad died when she was 11. Momma never remarried. She got all the benefits help her get through her young life. She is very intelligent and went to college and worked very hard to get through her education. I give her all the credit. She is a practicing dentist and she is a republican. It kills me. I always told her never forget your roots. My dad was a military soldier and retired. She came from a family of working lower middle income. Now she is different. So I make sure we never talk politics. Intelligent people also vote for idiots. I am dying to know what she thinks of Romney. I know she will vote for him.

[1-Old-Man]

3. Mitt Romney is not the one who destroyed the Republican Party, nor can he clean it up

It was the Koch Brothers and their initial formation of and complete funding of the Tea Party that was the beginning of the end of the Republican Party. Not even the Evangelicals could do as much damage as the misguided clan of the true flag.

Romney just walked into the mess at a time when there were nothing but nut cases to run against (if you ignore Huntsman, the only fellow on earth with an ego larger than Romney's). It is not in any way a leader of that Party, nor will he ever be. But somewhere down below the rabble there is a conservative bunch of people who are not idiots and not social ideologues either. They will eventually emerge and take that Party back over and that will be a good day for the nation. That day is no where near yet, and it won't happen until the Republicans suffer a stunning defeat, as may happen in November. They are sure to lose the Presidency, they are not likely to take the Senate, and if the Democrats can take the House back - unlikely at best - it very well may be the trigger that brings back an opposition Party, as opposed to the mess we have now.

Just one old man's opinion of course.

[Zalatix]

5. AWESOME! Democrats are coming out to fight.

Off to GOTV today.
Time to eat, sleep and drink GOTV. Hit 'em with everything we've got.

[lovemydog]

43. Thank you for helping

get out the vote!

[sadbear]

7. As long as Democrats don't take a sharp right turn, too.

When republicans move to the right, so does the center. We need to at least stand firm (although a move to the left would be preferred.)

[bluestate10]

22. Democrats need to stay where they are now, it's a winning position.

Even if republican's swing right, democrats must stay put because swinging right to the new center will take democrats to a toe into the crazy zone. Republicans have Jed Bush for 2016, some republicans say Christie, but Christie's star should be badly damaged by 2016.
I am concerned about the democrats bench. O'Malley is an early favorite, but his performance at the DNC is concerning. Can O'Malley stand up to a Jeb over a general campaign? Deval Patrick is an outstanding Governor, speaks and fights well, but his wife may pull him out of a national race, she is a highly competent professional woman, but she doesn't appear to relish the public spotlight. Kristen Gillibrand has the looks, pedigree and style to run, but she appears to be prone to small gaffes and has problems hitting talking points hard.

[sadbear]

23. I'm holding out hope for Dr. Dean.

[Th1onein]

39. I was just thinking the same thing! eom

[Volaris]

45. Agreed. Even if he decides NOT to take another run at the White House,

I want him back running the DNC, at least. He was REALLY good at that job, and gave the Dems the tentative majority they needed to get Obama elected, get ACA passed, and get DADT REPEALED. He might think he's done with electoral politics, but if I have anything to say about it, WE are not done with HIM. Not by a damn-sight.

Smile, Obama is getting Re-elected. Enjoy the FreeperTears.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Rmoney wouldn't care either way because

he's rich and he has LOTS of (other people's) money! Just like Adelson dropped $5,000,000 on the loser Gingrich, so too would Rmoney proclaim "you win some, you lose some".

[hifiguy]

9. When Willard loses - and I think he will lose big

absent some unforeseeable event between now and election day - there is going to be a bloodbath in the Republican party.

The old Reagan coalition of plutocrats, religulously insane and white working/middle-class bigots is coming unglued. The plutocrats got too greedy at the expense of much of the working and middle classes and the religulously insane warped off into a bizarro universe of their own. The growth in numbers of the Ayn Rand disciples only adds to the chaos. There ain't enough duct tape in the world to patch it back together.

The fundamental divide in the Repuke party now is between the plutocrats and the lunatic masses of religiously batshit dominionists, Ayn Rand disciples, xenophobic bigots and old-school John Birch Society paranoid crazies. The plutocrats have the money but the loonies have the numbers. There is no longer anything holding these groups together.

My guess is that, yes, there will be an even sharper turn to the right on the part of the loonies. There is no real Repuke "establishment" anymore and this campaign proves it. Rmoney was a perfect example of the old school plutocratic Establishment Republican. The only way he was able to secure the nomination was by pandering to the followers of the varied psychos (Bachmann, Santorum) on the far-right fringes. So expect the loonies to reject any attempt by the plutocrats to foist off a Jeb Bush on them in 2016. Jeb is a Bush and an epic asshole (I am here being redundant) but he's not a man bent on political suicide by pulling a Willard. By 2016 Bachmann and Santorum will represent the left edge of the Republican party base. They will go whole-hog in on Santorum or someone even more batshit insane that him. And if the economy is in anything resembling a decent state they will get crushed Goldwater or Mondale style.

The interesting question is whether the Repukes will ever be able to come back after such a curb-stomping. The plutocracy invented and ginned-up the baggers in a gamble, hoping that these orcs would let them reclaim a majority of the electorate. After Grampy tapped Princess Dumbass for the veep spot all of the real orcs and ogres came boiling down out of the attic William F. Buckley locked them in almost fifty years ago. They are now in the middle of the Repig dinner party scaring the cat half to death, taking bites out of the dog and dropping boot-sized turds on the Persian rug and no one knows how to get rid of them. As happened to Doctor Frankenstein the monster they created has turned on them. The choices confronting the Repuke establishment at this point are mutually destructive. The only way to kill the monster is to blow up the castle that is the Repuke party but then they go down with it. If they don't, the monster will take over the castle and probably blow it up anyway. They are epically fked.

[bluestate10]

24. Excellent analysis.

I don't agree with your summation on Jeb, but your reasoning on why he won't be the 2016 standard bearer for the crazy party does have merit. The rest of you analysis is spot on. If democrats win control of the Senate and House, they can't spend valuable energy fighting each other and come up with balanced legislation that solves the host of problems that still lay before us. If democrats succeed by 2014, republicans are fucked forever unless they nominate such a compelling candidate that they can overcome the democrat's competency advantage and win the White House in 2016.

[Populist_Prole]

41. Quotable, all of it.

If the Democratic party has moved right, due to the center moving right, and the DLC "third way" dynamic, is it all possible for the GOP to move left? I know it sounds crazy but as purely a desperate survival move, they might end up doing just that. I wonder though, what the GOP reciprocal of the Democratic party's "third way" might be? For sure they'll have one heck of a task putting all the nutjobs back in the attic, and it may well take another election cycle to lose; to fully make the fringe literally irrelevant.

This is what makes me the uneasiest because a more moderate fascia on the GOP would make them more electable but every bit as dangerous to the country.

[kysrsoze]

10. They'll react like they always do - by going further to the right

and sadly, at least 40% of voters will still be dumb enough to continue following them.

[1-Old-Man]

11. If they do that they will be come as irrelevant as the Green Party in 2016

[mick063]

12. In the long term they will become irrelevant.

Impending demographic changes guarantee this.

But it will take painfully longer than it would naturally occur because of Fox News.

I think of it like this. The GOP, suffering from a horrific traffic accident, is now in the hospital on life support. They are comatose and the life support machine is called Fox News.

Many people in such a dibilitating state, would simply prefer to have the doctor pull the plug, but as long as Murdoch is alive, the Fox News life support machine will keep running. There may come a time when the conservative base will turn on Fox News itself for leading them down this path and forcing them to endure such pain over multiple election cycles.

This will be a long, slow, agonizing death for the GOP because of the Fox life support machine.

[1-Old-Man]

13. I disagree, but only in part

You see, I don't think the thing you are describing is the GOP. I think out there somewhere, unheard from now days, there are still what I like to call Eisenhower Republicans. These are fiscal conservatives who couldn't give a hoot in hell about social issues, they care a great deal about the environment and mostly they care about fair business practices and stability. Interestingly enough they are not married to the Military Complex, and they are generally supporters of strong public education, mostly with a trade-school tradition. People like that bring important argument to the political discussion, and I miss them for the sobering they give those of us who are much more quick to jump.

The part you talk about is an upstart. They may have been raised on Ronnie Reagan but they don't actually use him for anything other than a misrepresented Icon. In truth they are overly pampered parasites, predators who feast on the toil of the nation. Many are just misguided and disgruntled clowns who in my experience are almost always poorly educated and, as you so clearly state, much effected by the propaganda of FOX and its likes. We won't be able to get rid of them until we've restored education in the country to its rightful place and then run at least one generation through it.

[mick063]

16. We are fairly close to agreement

But....

The GOP didn't co-opt the Teabillies and Fox News. Those extremists co-opted the GOP. A growing number of the people you described are closer to the new (moved to the right) Democratic Party than the new (moved extremely to the right) GOP.

Philosophically speaking, the Eisenhower Republicans are the right fringe of the Democratic Party. The old Democrats of the South (Dixiecrats) have fully embraced the GOP.

Constant political evolution makes comparison to the past difficult. I see the GOP in it's current state, as a wilde beast in the jaws of a lion. Kicking, struggling, and doomed. They must adapt or die. The 1% are really going to hate the direction they must go to politically survive. Americans will simply not tolerate oppressive plutocracy. Perhaps limited plutocracy, but not oppressive plutocracy.

[Blue_In_AK]

44. Alaska has several state Republican politicians who are as you describe,

people you can respect and who will listen to reason. We have some Republicans in our legislature who actually stand up to the oil companies and big resource extractors, who believe in science, who approve of expanding health insurance coverage and other social programs. Even Lisa Murkowski sometimes gets it right, as she did last week when she was one of the few Republicans to cross over on the veterans bill. And she did beat that asshat Miller.

There should be more Republicans like that. It's okay to have different policy approaches to society's problems, but compromise and a willingness to work together for the good of the citizenry is absolutely essential.

[bluestate10]

26. It won't be 40% by 2016, or even 2014.

The republican base that elected GW Bush is dying off fast. Take a look at Romney rallies, his supporters are in the late fall or winter of their lives. None of us know when we will die, but it is sure to guess that a larger percentage of the republican base will disappear compared to the democratic base. The challenge for democrats is to hold and increase the number of Independents that it picks up this year, if that is done, the republican party is gone.

[Mopar151]

14. There are quite a few good people who've been sucked into the RW/GOP/Xtian Vortex

And they're trying to come to grips with who they've just woken up in bed with.

[bluestate10]

27. I know people that are lifelong republicans that are remorseful now.

Their choice is to dishonor their political heritage or stay elbow to elbow with gonzo crazy assholes.

[marions ghost]

31. I don't feel sorry for them

they were fine with gonzo crazy support for awhile...they went along with all that Rethug family values crap for a LONG time...

[Arugula Latte]

32. Hopefully they'll start by at least just not voting.

[Bucky]

15. Shit like this makes me fear over confidence. This could all turn south.

Most of the big ad money hasn't hit the airwaves yet. And media outlets will be falling all over themselves to (1) revive the horse race and (2) ameliorate the crybaby Republicans who whine about media bias every time the real right wing agenda is exposed to the public.

I'll say it: this election is still Romney's to win. Never ever underestimate the power of Republican marketing nor the strength of their win-at-all-costs desperation.

[ProSense]

21. "Most of the big ad money hasn't hit the airwaves yet. "

Romney’s nightmare scenario
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021408282

With more control over campaign cash, Obama gets more discounts on advertising
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/obama-has-more-control-of-campaign-cash-and-with-it-an-edge-in-ad-rates/2012/09/26/c85304ea-03f9-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html

This isn't "over confidence." Mitt sucks, and he's running a campaign that sucks.

His big donors are maxed out. On the other hand, big donors to the Democratic Party are just getting started.

Soros Gives $1 Million to Democratic “Super PAC”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021426354

[bluestate10]

29. I completely disagree.

Romney's one option now is the equivalent of a bolo punch in the first debate that knocks President Obama out. If President Obama let's that happen, he deserves to lose. Romney will not land hard punches, I anticipate that President Obama will slice Romney up because of Romney's anxiousness to win and President Obama's cool when dealing with adversity. Romney won't make ground during the debate and if his history is any guide, Romney will become a bit unhinged and become fish food for President Obama.

[mstinamotorcity2]

20. Its their own Fault!!!!!!!

The Whole Damn GOP. They stood there and let those refined alley cats out in the General Public. They lost this thing during the Primary. It was over. I have talked to republicans since 2010 and they were more pissed off than I have ever seen them. I always knew that the problem was going to be among their own base. Listen with the first African American President in the White House It was like a Tupac Song "All Eyes on Me". This President has been watched since day one. Everyone was waiting for him to cause some type of Calamity. But what we got was People watching a Man who cared more about helping and turning around economic policies to help the people. When they started attacking firefighters,police,teachers,auto industry,postal workers,college kids,and any other profession or someone who earns a good wage because of a union, you were bound to piss off Their own Party. For Republicans belong to all these entities. Some of them are Extreme but most won't VOTE THEIR FOOD OFF THEIR TABLE. This may be one of the worst upsets in political History. I think our President is going to peel away a good and noticeable percentage of the Republican vote.

[bluestate10]

35. I think our President is going to peel away a good and noticeable percentage of the Republican vote

Right. Liberal and moderate and even some slightly right republicans have no where to go. If those republicans want to make a difference, the choices are stay home or vote for President Obama and select down ticket democrats. I have several acquaintances in those circumstances, their plight is not a happy one for them because they came from families that have deep republican roots.

[L0oniX]

25. Maybe the GOP should out source for their candidate!

[Permanut]

28. Does this mean we'll never see Romney again?

Ignored at the 2016 convention, like W pretty much was this year. Please let it be so.

[spanone]

30. k&r...

[davidn3600]

33. Rubio, Daniels, Ryan, Christie, Haley, etc.. those are who they will push for 2016

Guys like Santorum will try too, but he's not going to get anywhere.

There will probably be a dark horse or two that isnt on the scene yet. But those are the early favorites.

[bluestate10]

36. I guess that republicans will go with a downstream candidate,

likely a governor that does not have stench attached to him or her, or a stench free Senator. If republicans can collect a team of a stench free Presidential nominee and a stench free Vice Presidential nominee, republicans can win in 2016 if democrats don't put up a strong ticket. I don't see a Santorum, Rubio or Christie withstanding a national campaign. Ryan has been fatally wounded by his association with Romney. On the democratic side, a Clinton/O'Malley or Clinton/Patrick ticket would be formidable, I don't see O'Malley at the top of a ticket, I can see Patrick there, but Patrick may not want that spot.

[B Calm]

37. Finger pointing is one of the republicans

finest skills.

[Th1onein]

40. You don't threaten the social safety net when most Americans

either can see themselves falling into it, or are already in it. Simple as that.

[ribrepin]

42. I have a different theory

I think the stench of Bush is still attached to the party. The Republicans can't bring themselves to see that Bush was bad for the party and they are trying to reinstate Bush's policy of tax cuts and war. Unfortunately for the repubs there are enough people alive who remember the results of that. The repubs just want to relive their glory days of war and tax cuts. They don't remember the financial meltdown.