Are you sure? I am not American so I probably don't know enough of what goes on at the grassroots level, but Bobby Jindal (first Indian-American governor in the US), Susana Martinez (first female governor of New Mexico and first female hispanic governor in the US), and Nikky Haley (first female governor of South Carolina, second Indian-American governor in the US) are all Republicans.So is Dinesh D'Souza. What's your point? The comment was about the party's base, not a broad statement about every single one of its members.
Institutionalized tokenism is not a broad demographic base of support.You know, that's some BS right there. Sure, the GOP doesn't do much to actively pursue the Latino or black votes, but it can appeal to those groups through means other than identity politics.
Yes, it looks likely they'll lose the next one, but even with a nominee with unusually high negatives, they're still running a close campaignThere's no nice way of saying this so I'll just come out and say it. They're still running a close campaign against a black man. If everything was the same except Obama's skin was white he'd be looking at polling leads in the 20s and 30s. There is an enormous section of the Republican vote which is just straight up racist and if you took that away Romney would probably be sat at home right now because campaigning would be a waste of time.
Since 1972, white men have voted roughly 60-40 percent in favor of the Republican Party in presidential elections.posted by XMLicious at 5:45 AM on September 27, 2012
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For Romney, experts say, holding onto close to 60 percent of the white male vote is particularly critical because he has fewer options to fill in the void with other demographics. He is not doing well with white women and he is unlikely to attract sizable numbers of African-Americans and Latinos.
The period in which this has happened corresponds to a historic resurgence of the GOP in Congress and at the state level. There’s an intuitive connection. Significantly fewer people vote in state and congressional elections than presidential elections. The GOP base is better organized and more engaged locally than Democrats are. But this actually undercuts the party at the national level. So well organized are the GOP’s ideological constituencies that they prevail in legislative primaries and push the party’s overall identity to the right. (That’s not the same as making it more “conservative,” as I’ll explain in a minute.) These ideological groups also have a great deal of muscle at the presidential primary or caucus level, but even beyond that, their success at the legislative level means that a presidential contender’s loyalty to the GOP brand — proof that he’s not a RINO — has to be demonstrated by professions of fealty to what is an essentially regional identity, not a national one.That's the gist-- the idea is to reconcile two curious facts -- the GOP is killing it at the State level, but struggles to field a national candidate who can win.
[Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan] didn’t pretend they were going to abolish the welfare state — often, they didn’t even pretend they would cut the welfare state — unlike so many of today’s Republicans, who don’t follow through but do use their rhetoric to polarize. That gives us the worst of both worlds: big government plus the delusional sense within one party that it represents the antithesis of big government and may freely hate other Americans who don’t mouth the mantra.posted by gaspode at 6:01 AM on September 27, 2012 [4 favorites]
The only Dem candidate to jump to mind is Hilary, and the prejudice against a female President in the US is even higher than a black man.
On the same coin, the GOP might be able to convince Condoleeza Rice to run. No idea if she's actually electable or even wants to run, though.
deathpanels: There's no nice way of saying this so I'll just come out and say it. They're still running a close campaign against a black man... who is presiding over a historic recession, with large unemployment numbers.
kirkaracha:None of which makes her unsuitable to run for POTUS, given the US voters' history knowledge... especially as a Republican.On the same coin, the GOP might be able to convince Condoleeza Rice to run. No idea if she's actually electable or even wants to run, though.
Condoleeza Rice was incompetent as National Security Advisor, blowing off warnings about Al Qaeda from Sandy Berger, the outgoing National Security Advisor. She was also one of the main advocates of invading Iraq, with her lie that aluminum tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."
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posted by KokuRyu at 10:56 PM on September 26, 2012 [4 favorites]