I don't think the Republican Party wants to win the White House in 2016.

[yardwork]

It's too convenient to blame everything on a Democratic president.

I was thinking about my state, which has been messed up by the tea party Republicans who took over in 2010. We even have a Republican governor now. You'd think that people here would, like, blame the Republicans for all the harm they've done. Nope. It's all Obama's fault.

All over the country Republicans are in control of states, and Republicans are in control of Congress. These are the people who make the laws! This is the army that has taken over the U.S., to the benefit of a few insanely wealthy individuals.

As long as the Republicans can blame a Democrat in the White House for all the harm they're doing, why give up that convenient scapegoat?

This explains why the Republican slate of presidential nominees is the way it is. The party doesn't care. Let Trump and Cruz and Carson rile up the crazies - the voters will easily be coerced into voting crazies into office in their states.

[Sherman A1]

1. They might want to do so, however

they don't have anyone among the group currently being offered up that will win. At this point the Democrats can run a cardboard box and win in 2016.

[yardwork]

2. I'm thinking that that might be somewhat deliberate on the part of RNC.

If winning the White House was essential to their overall plan, they would have better candidates now. Money talks.

[Sherman A1]

3. Possibly

I believe it certainly was in 2012 but beating an incumbent is pretty difficult so Romeny was the chosen "throw away" candidate. I am not sure that it is the case this time, however the results will be the same.

[yardwork]

4. Having the presidential scapegoat is so convenient for them.

I mean, Obama is blamed for everything.

The Republicans are selling the country for chump change and yet the Democrat in the White House takes all the blame. So people just keep voting in Republicans at the state level, where all the deals get made.

[Johonny]

42. The general argument is that the RNC has lost power and is not a national party.

Citizen united killed the RNC. The candidates now go directly to the big money men and more importantly running for office is seen as a money making/vanity affair. Grifting is the new normal at the national level. The local level is separated into fiefdoms who hold allegiance to regional billionaires.

Without a national identity and with so many candidates on the grift, there is essentially no national party to want to win or lose the presidency. They ran the last speaker of the house out of the position. They ran their majority leader out of office. This is a collection of fiefdoms and not a party. No one is in charge. Into that vacuum people like Cruz, Trump Fiorina thrive. They're the maggots feasting on the dead carcass of the RNC.

[yardwork]

49. Well, the Republicans have my state by the throat.

And they have a lot other states by the throat. They've gerrymandered so well, they hold power in NC even when a majority of Democrats vote.

[ileus]

5. They couldn't win even if they wanted to.

Never again will they ever have the votes to win nationally. We've got a permanent lock on the highest office.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. Slow down

I don't think they're going to win in 2016- not with this bunch. But never say never. I thought that Gore would easily win in 2000 (I know he technically won but he didn't get to take the office) and I thought that W would be a one-term POTUS.

[Sherman A1]

7. Agreed

Never say never. You are absolutely correct !

[Mike Nelson]

8. I think many do...

...and are worried. They see ending abortion as within reach, and wish to ramp up the War machine. The Republican President will simply blame any malady on Obama, in or out of office.

[yardwork]

19. the people who run the party don't care about abortion except as a wedge issue.

[randome]

21. Who is running the party? No one's in charge. There is a definite leadership vacuum in the GOP.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[yardwork]

25. I doubt that. There are people in charge.

The Kochs, the Saudis, a few others who have control of an incredible amount of money.

[randome]

31. They have money but where is their control?

The GOP is flailing around like a corpse with a trillion volts through it.

Shadowy cabals may exist in real life but I don't see one behind the GOP. They are falling apart. Now is the time to trumpet this, not help prop them up with whispers of evil machinations.

They are evil, yes. But they are also incompetent.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[yardwork]

33. The Republicans are taking over the states, one by one.

They have firm control of Congress.

[eridani]

9. Do Republicans Really Want the Black and Latino Vote?

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34056-do-republicans-really-want-the-black-and-latino-vote

From the campaign of Barry Goldwater in 1964 to the antics of Donald Trump today, all signs point to “not really.”
et him the hell out of here,” said Donald Trump. Later, Trump’s supporters shouted, “Go home, n--ger.”

That’s the claim by Mercutio Southall, co-founder of the Birmingham, Ala., chapter of Black Lives Matter. Video footage of the incident, which has gone viral, shows white Trump supporters shoving, punching and kicking the black activist in response to Southall’s protest amid a Trump political rally.

Trump—the leading candidate in national polls for the Republican presidential primary—would double down the next day on Fox & Friends and say that Southall deserved to be “roughed up.” Trump’s retort stood in stark contrast with his campaign’s public statement distancing itself from the incident, but it is clear that this is who Donald Trump is: The same candidate had a rally where Latino protesters were kicked and beaten, called Mexicans “rapists,” retweeted racist statistics on crime, and most recently called for barring Muslims from entering the U.S.

At a moment when the nation’s racial crises continue to be headline news, encounters such as these still manage to be stunning. They’re also alienating, placing the GOP at odds with some of the very groups that Republicans hope to win over, including black and Latino voters.

This spectacle of racial, reactionary populism, rhetoric and political protest is not a concept that is new to the theater of American politics. Comparisons abound between Trump and segregationist Democrat George Wallace or, better yet, Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

But a nuanced comparison also finds fertile ground in the Republican Party’s 1964 presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, whose brand of right-wing conservatism alienated almost all nonwhite voters from the GOP.

[yardwork]

18. Bingo! But this sets the stage for white voter turnout on the state level.

[NYCButterfinger]

10. They could win if they run Kasich/Rubio, or

Fiorina. Yes, Fiorina is very aggressive, but she has that warrior mentality that people like. See GWB in 2000 and 2004.

[yardwork]

16. There are dozens of better candidates that this slate.

[BlueStater]

11. They're being fucked over by their own dumbass voters.

And it's a mess they created themselves. For years, they've emboldened these wackos. While Trump was doing his dipshit birther routine against the president back in 2011, they sat on their hands and said nothing. Now, this same goofball is running away with the party nomination and the establishment is completely unable to do anything about it. Whenever it is that Trump finally makes his exit from public life, the damage he'll have done to the Republican party will be insurmountable and they'll have no one to blame but themselves for it.

[yardwork]

17. That's the conventional wisdom but I don't know....

[pnwmom]

12. They didn't much want to in 2008, when things were much worse than now.

But they were shocked when they lost in 2012.

I really don't think they want that to happen again.

[yardwork]

14. I'm talking about the people who run the party, not the voters.

I think they've figured out that they like having a scapegoat. It works for them.

[951-Riverside]

13. There was a right wing talk show host who pretty much hinted at the same thing...

and when you think about it, the Obama Presidency has made a lot of gun manufacturers, gun shops and right wing groups very wealthy. They've sold millions of flags, pins, tee-shirts, guns, ammo, fear, NRA memberships then there are all of the right wing websites who have made a killing in ADS.

Guns in particular arent exactly cheap but the people who buy them have disposable income due to either being wealthy business owners, retired police or military, etc and this has made the gun industry unbelievably rich.

If there is a republican presidency, all of that goes away so it might not be in big business interest to have a republican in the White House and if you remember, other than cheap Chinese made American flags and bumper stickers, right wing groups werent making much money during the Bush administration.

All of this makes me wonder about what Trump is truly up to since he is a big business guy.

As long as the Republicans can blame a Democrat in the White House for all the harm they're doing, why give up that convenient scapegoat?

Exactly.

[yardwork]

15. You get it. And it's more than guns.

The RNC plan is to take over the states, and it's working. But they need to blame somebody else.

[Township75]

20. I think their corporate and 1% masters have told them to throw the race

Because they prefer the likely Dem nominee.

[pampango]

44. "... their corporate and 1% masters ... prefer the likely Dem nominee."?

Their "corporate and 1% masters" would prefer one of the Democrats to any of the 9 bozos on the stage in Las Vegas?

I think their "corporate and 1% masters" salivate at the prospect of a republican president to go along with the republican congress. No more veto threats from the White House. Easier negotiations to cut taxes and regulations. Reverse the climate commitments we made in Paris. Gut or repeal health care reform. And a host of other policies (privatize Medicare, build the military, bomb some people) that republicans would love to pursue.

[drray23]

22. I think its more like they lost control

of their party. It has been taking over by tea party types and extreme rw. The electorate has been brainwashed by decades of fox news and other rw pundits radio. There is no coming back.

[kairos12]

23. They want it because of SCOTUS.

[yardwork]

24. They already have Citizens United.

It's all about the money.

[Fumesucker]

26. Neither party is acting like they really want the Presidency

Hillary wants it in the worst way but the Democratic party as a whole seems as if they couldn't care less about it, look at the scheduling of the Democratic debates.

[Agnosticsherbet]

27. I think the Republian party is fractured along along the boundries of it's various cadres.

so that each has their favorite candidate. The RNC has been unable to pull the party together around their typical corporate candidate because it is broken. The Right Wing Populist Trump, has taken advantage of the fracture. The winner will probably be the individual that appeals to the broadest number of cadres, though it is still possible that an acceptable corporate candidate like Rubio will pull it together.

The Republican party is not a single mind, and are close leaderless. But it isn't a living thing and so can not want anything.

[yardwork]

29. I think that the people who pull the strings would get rid of Trump quick enough if they wanted.

[Agnosticsherbet]

30. Trump is too popular to get rid of.

If the party continue us to be fractured, it will be a brokered convention. But wait until Super Tuesday to see what happens.

[yardwork]

37. Nobody is too popular to be destroyed when its strategic.

The folks in charge would take Trump out tomorrow if they wanted.

[Agnosticsherbet]

39. They would have already done that, if they could.

they can't because Trump is exactly what they have said is the ideal Republican candidate.

Attacks on him have hurt his opponents.
His most outrageous comments just gets him labeled as a forthright and honest spokesperson to power.
They are openly hoping for a brokered convention so they can put someone in they think can win the national election.
They have nothing to hurt him with.

It just occurred to me that you may be speaking about the "Powers that be." If that is true, I am an agnostic when it comes to Illuminati conspiracy theories.

[yardwork]

40. I'm not into the illuminati type conspiracy theories.

I'm saying that the billionaires who fund the Republican Party are mostly interested in deregulation. They want to protect their business interests.

[Agnosticsherbet]

41. As long as Republicans control Congress, President The Donald will sign what they send to him.

He can hold a pen.

Deregulation happens in Congress, not in the oval Office. Billionaires know that quite well.
The Donald will be happy to sign anything sent his way.

The problem the Republican elite have with The Donald is that even they think he can not possibly win. If he can not win, then he can not hold the pen.

Worse, because he has alienated women and every ethnic group but racist white rednecks, even their hold on Congress could be threatened.

If they lose Congress, then they lose the ability to hold back regulation.

[yardwork]

50. They show no signs of losing Congress but we can hope!

[Thinkingabout]

28. I thought last night I was listening to a Democratic debate, I heard Obama and Hillary names

so many times. They are blaming Obama for the problems in the ME. It has been two Bushes meddling in the ME but neither are at fault. Does not compute. But Obama and Hillary are great but not the problem here.

[yardwork]

38. Exactly.

[Tab]

32. I disagree

I think they seriously want to win. It'd be a repudiation in their eyes. Although Obama may be a convenient scapegoat, I doubt there's one of them that thinks that's preferable over occupying the office themselves. They'll certainly be able to invent other scapegoats - they have no shortage of that ability. Will it be Democrats, the Supreme Court, the liberal media, or other countries? No idea, but I doubt that's holding them back.

In fact, speaking of the Supreme Court, I suspect they're salivating to get into the SCOTUS and badly want the Presidency for that reason.

The bigger problem, as I see it, and why we think "they don't want it" is because they're so badly in need of leadership and guidance that they're hurting themselves. That doesn't mean they don't want it, simply that they're not organized enough to have an "adult" party.

p.s.: I know Republicans have had "adult parties" before, but I'm not talking about that kind of thing.

[yardwork]

36. I'm talking about the people who control the money, not the rank and file.

The focus of the Republican Party right now is overturning as many regulations as they can. That gets done in Congress and state assemblies.

[AZ Progressive]

34. Having a Democrat as President gives Democrats / liberals the appearance that they are in power

When in fact the Republicans who control congress and state governments have the real power.

And the Democrats / liberals don't feel like overturning the status quo because a Democrat is president.

[yardwork]

35. I think that's it. Exactly.

We focus too much on the White House and not enough on what is going on in the legislative bodies, where laws are passed and regulations overturned.

Overturning regulations is the main purpose of the Republican Party right now.

[cyberswede]

45. Well, it's different because Bush actually fucked things up.

[cyberswede]

47. What did Obama fuck up, specifically?

I'll even start:
attempted to find common ground with Republicans who had no intention of negotiating in good faith
failure to regulate big banks
unwillingness to push for single payer health care
TPP

OTOH, here's Bush:

Pulled the United States out of the Kyoto protocol
Ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden
Escalated the war on drugs
Squandered international goodwill after the 9/11 attacks
Lied us into war (from connecting 9/11 to Iraq to lying about WMDs to giving away millions of taxpayer $ to war profiteers)
Squandered the budget surplus he inherited from Clinton & created a huge deficit
Disastrous tax cuts
Blocked stem cell research
Reduced environmental protections
Destroyed the American middle-class
Caused the 2007 recession
NCLB

To imply both "sides" are equally egregious is utter bullshit.

[stevenleser]

48. They do want to win but they have screwed themselves. More in an article soon. nt

[randys1]

51. A lot of wisdom in this thought. You are talking about establishment GOP, not teaparty crazies

The teaparty crazies want the WH, Senate, House and SC and they have some horrible ideas in store for the rest of us.

Establishment GOP will be happy with a Clinton presidency if they have to be, and to some extent even Bernie, given the clusterfuck they know they can count on in the House and Senate.

[yardwork]

52. Yes.