Is anyone else bothered by this whole concept? To me it sounds ridiculous. You have people like Meghan McCain (who is awesome, btw) and Colon Powell and others talking about changing the Republican party to "include more people" and such, explicitly for the purpose of restoring the Republican party to power. And the notion of "taking back the Republican party" thoroughly confuses me; who took it in the first place, and how is changing it to something it's never been equate to taking it back?

And more importantly, since when is it more important that whatever "party" you belong to be #1 rather than simply promoting what's good and right? Shouldn't the concepts of smaller government and more social freedom be enough on their own? And why is it so critical that it be the Republicans in charge? Granted, the Democrats are basically one big shitpile of proven terrible ideas, but we're pretty much fucked right now anyway. It's like some sort of ratings battle between the WWF and WCW or something (whatever the appropriate acronyms would be), and here I am hoping for some good, solid MMA instead.


The idealist in me says eff all that noise, let's just create a third party and leave the jackasses behind to continue to wave their Republican flag rather than Old Glory. We can invite in all those people in the center who have been stuck with a menu of only two choices, Shit Sandwich Left and Shit Sandwich Right, people who just want to be left alone, who are more concerned with a flailing economy and the Democrats continued efforts to hold its head underwater in the name of socialism and less concerned with their neighbor's sexuality. People who are more concerned with decreases in the quality of our kids' educations and less concerned with whether a woman who gets herself knocked up chooses to abort her kid who'd receive an exorbitantly overpriced public education anyway. People who are more concerned continued increases in crime and decreases in our rights to defend ourselves from that crime and less concerned with bringing democracy to sandy hellholes full of jerks who don't want it. People who are more concerned with the Republicans passing on the Dumbass Baton to the Democrats who have since proudly made impending inflation and even higher taxes even worse and less concerned with spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don't have to build an entirely worthless and useless wall on our Mexican border.

The pragmatist in me realizes that our current system is too hostile to 3rd parties and that there are too many of these stupid people we call The Voting Public who'll cling to their party affiliation as though it were more important than actual thought and cold realizations, so maybe trying to "convert" the Republican party to this new and different ideal is a higher-percentage shot and thus the right idea. I don't know if we'll ever get to all the airheads in this country who vote Democrat either to be fashionable or because that's what they've been told to do by their teachers and the TV personalities ever since they were little.

Hear, hear, dude. The really sad thing is, if such a party were allowed to exist, 80% or more of people in the country would probably find their ideals more aligned with it than with that of the right or the left - but they're too entrenched in the sports-team rivalry to realize it and pull themselves out of it.

I've been saying for weeks now, though, that if the Republicans actually did what their conservative nature implied, I'd be all in support of them. Who doesn't agree that smaller government is ideal? The party SAYS it's for "staying out of your business", but the problem is that they are now SO entangled with the religious right that they are a walking contradiction. How can you be in favor of smaller government that stays out of your business and in the same breath actively fight against gay marriage, abortion, and all sorts of other religious-backed social movements? If they'd just step away from the religious associations and get back to their core values (and not what the insane guys like Limbaugh think of as their core values) I'd be much more likely to be a part of them.

That said, chalk up one more independent when the time comes to register here in the next couple months. I'm not going to give either side the satisfaction of counting on my vote, dammit.

OK this might sound strange to anyone who isn't a graphic designer or marketing guru... but I think what they're intending is a "rebranding" of the Republican Party. The Democrats had more support this year because of A) the Republicans in power really screwed things up last few terms and B) they put out a more youthful persona that was attractive to the younger voters (age 45 and lower). The Republicans still come across as a the stodgy, old men who have lost touch with the people. We're a digital world now and most of those guys have never even sat infront of a computer before.

So it's simply a rebranding.

Now, as a marketing person... I think this is a really important step to take. It's not changing the party, but making it seem like a more attractive and welcoming party that knows what their talking about. Afterall, politics will be 90% perception as long as 90% of the people in the country pay no attention to the actual issues.

As a human being, I feel as though the Republicans really need to go back to their roots and return to the basic principles that Republicans originally stood for. They need to remember that they like to hold tight budgets with little spending, and other values that make the Republicans what they are. If they went back to basic principles and let go of their attachment to religion (among other things) then I think they'd start to see respect and loyalty again.

But when you boil it down to the nitty-gritty. the brand loyalty for the Republican brand is extremely low right now. Companies that screw up their branding that much tend to either go extinct or they catch it in time and rebrand to make themselves seem new and different. They're being smart and seeing that they need to do that.

Deacon wrote:Granted, the Democrats are basically one big shitpile of proven terrible ideas, but we're pretty much fucked right now anyway.

BTW, I'm going to pretend you didn't say that. I was able to display my point without being childish and putting-down the Republicans. You know where I stand on things... so you should watch it. I know you're a big boy, so I just ask that you act like one.

I don't take your meaning on that. I said the Democratic party is a shit sandwich, which it most certainly is. I can't and won't apologize for that. There are a couple of edible parts near the crust of its moldy bread, but precious few, and the rotten part is pretty aggressive about taking over what's left. And I also said so about the Republican party, which I thought I made abundantly clear. In fact, the entire post was pretty much "Screw the Republican party." There are no sacred cows, here, despite of what Peta would have you believe.

This is EXACTLY what Washington feared would happen if a party system were to be put in place. ( even though he was a Whig) The party system is tearing this country apart, its become more integrated than it should be. Parties used to rise and fall all the time, and parties usually would be formed to support one or few ideas. ( Did you know the Republican party was formed ONLY as an abolitionist party?) Now they are household names, even the truly different parties are just off shoots of the party. Liberal is different than Democrat.( no insight to be posted here) So no matter what happens these parties will stay and just change out names from time to time. Mainly because they have been boiled down to two main categories, in my opinion, logic and emotion.

While the conservative party ( in mechanics not in practice) works more on the logical basis of do what is best, where as the liberal party focuses on do what is good. It can be boiled down to the old adage of Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish feed him for life. While it seems simple enoough to choose the latter instead of the former, put it in different terms and you get a different impact. Liberal tends to give the fish helping the immediate, whilst conservative focuses on the more long term goals. Both can be utilized respectively, but seldom go hand in hand. While it seems simple to choose to teach the man to fish, what if instead of a hungry man, it was a mother desperately trying to tend to her sick children in a war torn country? What would you do in this scenario?

This is why the current political party system wont go away ( much to my disappointment) because its boiled down to two different and simple trains of thought, logic vs emotion, with admixture of other things of course. Even if we could achieve the monumentus task of getting rid of the party system, they would rise up again, because you can't get rid of human nature. People strive to be with like minded people, its nature. Its self preservation. Since the concept exists of a party for emotion or logic they wont go away.

This is why when ever someone asks me what my political affiliation is I say " I'm American"

Liz, if you could market that for the RNC, you'd have a lot of Republicans very happy.

I am a Republican (seemingly the only one here) and I am damned sick and tired of these RINOs (Republican In Name Only) parading themselves around like they're the message the party wants to convey. These include Gov. Arnold, Michael Steele, Colin Powell, etc, etc, etc. Dubya started out fairly conservative then totally threw everything out the window post 9/11. And now these pearls of wisdom from Colin Powell stating that Americans want MORE government in their lives? That's why McCain bombed out hard. We knew from the moment he voted for TARP that it was going to be more government expansion despite what his ads said. There were a lot of Republicans who just didn't have a candidate to vote for, so didn't. They'd alienated their base, the conservative independents, and blue-collar Democrats.

I want a party who will stand up and say "We're going to get the federal budget to $500B". And someone needs to muzzle Powell. No one has any illusions that this man is a true Republican.

JermCool wrote:Liz, if you could market that for the RNC, you'd have a lot of Republicans very happy.

If the Democrats do it, it's young, it's fresh, it's hip, it's smart, it's savvy, it's smooth and connected and plugged in. If Republicans do it, it's desperate, it's halting, it's manipulative, it's evil, it's condescending, it's aloof, it's gasping and grasping and gh3y.

I want a party who will stand up and say "We're going to get the federal budget to $500B".

Holy shit. First I want to know how. Then I want to know where to sign. Honestly, you don't sound like a Republican. You sound a helluvalot more like a fairly strong Libertarian.

And someone needs to muzzle Powell. No one has any illusions that this man is a true Republican.

I'm not sure what the deal is with him, but somehow I think it's partly that he feels he has something important to say and partly that he's enjoying all the favorable press he's getting now that he's going along with what they want people to think.

I want a party who will stand up and say "We're going to get the federal budget to $500B".

Using what years dollar value? I can see several things that make that difficult if not impossible to do. Use this and get back to me on it.

...I just don't get it.

I don't get why it has to be this way. And I probably never will. I've used the phrase before and I'll use it again here: we're in a Civil Cold War now. It's Red vs. Blue and if you don't like those choices you might want to move to a land that embraces choice.

Deacon wrote:The pragmatist in me realizes that our current system is too hostile to 3rd parties and that there are too many of these stupid people we call The Voting Public who'll cling to their party affiliation as though it were more important than actual thought and cold realizations, so maybe trying to "convert" the Republican party to this new and different ideal is a higher-percentage shot and thus the right idea. I don't know if we'll ever get to all the airheads in this country who vote Democrat either to be fashionable or because that's what they've been told to do by their teachers and the TV personalities ever since they were little.

The pessimist in me sees this very mentality tearing our country into little pieces within our lifetimes. The longer we go, the more divided we become. Imagine it getting worse than this. How much longer can we go until political rallies start turning violent? Have you heard some of these people lately Deacon? There are extremists on both sides that are getting scarier and scarier by the day.

Take back the Republican Party? Shit Deacon, what about the rest of the country?

How much longer can we go until political rallies start turning violent?

How old are you? They've turned violent before, including every time there is a G8 meeting. Then there was 1968...

I see most of this as being for deciding what the purpose of the Federal Government is. Some want the Federal Government to be some all encompassing government replacing what the states do. Some what it to do only a few small things and to not really pass any laws at all.

Again, there may be more than two possible answers to that issue. (Blasphemy! Everything has only two possible solutions and that's it! Just like a flip of the political coin!)

adciv wrote:How old are you? They've turned violent before, including every time there is a G8 meeting. Then there was 1968...

I stick by what I said. We haven't seen anything yet. I'm not being sarcastic (for once). I honestly believe we're in for some really scary stuff, the way this road has been going. It could get very, very bad.

Do you mean 1861 bad or Bleeding Kansas bad or Russian Civil War bad or Spanish Civil War bad or Here Come the Nukes bad?

Something we've never seen before, Adciv. I don't know what happens when you split three hundred million people further into "us and them" mentalities that have them believing nastier things about the other side every week. It just seems like these heated political rallies are going to turn into deadly riots before too long. Regularly.

Eihger wrote:The party system is tearing this country apart, its become more integrated than it should be.

In what sense are you using the word 'integrated'?

Even if we could achieve the monumentus task of getting rid of the party system, they would rise up again, because you can't get rid of human nature. People strive to be with like minded people, its nature. Its self preservation. Since the concept exists of a party for emotion or logic they wont go away.

Well - you could try to re-write a bit of the constitution. I mean, other democratic nations have more than two major parties. There ARE systematic factors in our electoral process that push us towards having only two major parties at any one time, namely that a vote for X is also a vote NOT for Y and Z, and so candidates X, without broad appeal don't get people voting for him because people also 'kinda' like Y, and see Y as having MORE support, and really don't want Z to win - meanwhile, Z might win, if too many people split of from Y and vote for X, even though fewer people want Z to be an office holder than they want Y to be.

JermCool wrote:I am a Republican (seemingly the only one here) and I am damned sick and tired of these RINOs (Republican In Name Only) parading themselves around like they're the message the party wants to convey.

Out of curiosity, what's the difference between a RINO and a True Scotsman?

And now these pearls of wisdom from Colin Powell stating that Americans want MORE government in their lives?

...Maybe they do.

That's why McCain bombed out hard. We knew from the moment he voted for TARP that it was going to be more government expansion despite what his ads said. There were a lot of Republicans who just didn't have a candidate to vote for, so didn't. They'd alienated their base, the conservative independents, and blue-collar Democrats.

That and they're doing a worse job of pandering to multiple "bases" than the democrats.