What will improve Republicans chances next time?

Vanadium 50

Historically, one party gains power when the other either overreaches, or there is a strong negative event. For example, suppose we finally maxed out our national credit card and interest rates looked like 1981's in a year. Then the interest on the debt would move from 6% of the budget to 12% in the first year and 25% by election day. That would cause either massive service cuts, tax increases, or more likely both. That would cause a sea change.

CAC1001

In 1982, Reagan signed a tax increase with a promise from Tip O'Neil that they'd reduce spending by $3 for every $1 of increased revenue. One week later Congress passed a supplemental appropriations bill that reneged on this promise and increased spending. Reagan vetoed it and the Congress over-rode his veto.

Yes, but the spending cuts themselves never materialized (unless I am looking at the data wrong, but if you go to usgovernmentspending.com and look at the chart of U.S. government spending from 1990 on, spending continued going up and the deficit increased from 1990 to 1992). Although from my understanding, making any serious cuts would have been very difficult to do anyway as most of the easy cuts had already been made in the Reagan years. The Republicans should not have ended pay-as-you-go.

Trains, bicycles, smart cars, and vespa scooters are not what I'd call viable replacements for the internal combustion engine, they are what happens when you do not yet have a viable replacement, and thus people must then sacrifice.

Also, you're missing the point about electrical cars: it's not just that they are too costly, it's that they're not viable period. They have too small a range and take hours to charge. The current hybrid electirc cars that have a small engine in them have a problem with catching fire when they get submerged in water. If electric cars get where hte charge will take you the same distance and/or last as long as a conventional engine will, and you can also charge it up in five minutes or less, then they will start to be viable.

Things like turning off the lights at night and high-efficiency appliances are small changes. Also high-efficiency appliances tend to cost more, so you are increasing the cost of energy for people and then forcing them to buy more costly appliances. Plus our energy needs are continually increasing as the economy grows.

CAC1001

Because they don't naturally produce light of equal quality with incandescents and have their own share of problems that incandescents do not have. With CFLs, you have the problem of mercury in them, and also that they take awhile to light up and produce a harsh quality of light. They have ones with a soft quality of light that are very close to incandescents and which light up instantly, but those cost a lot more (and regular CFLs cost a lot more than incandescents).

LED lamps produce directional, very white light. An incandescent scatters the light naturally and produces light of the appropriate color naturally. To get an LED to do so requires a lot of complicated engineering and manufacturing. Since LED light is directional, they have to array individual LED lights within the LED "bulb" (as LEDs are technically electronics) in a circular fashion. But then there's the problem of getting the light to scatter up and down, which requires further engineering. Then there's the problem of the color. For this, they coat the interior of the light "bulb" covering with a material that, when it interacts with the LED light, produces a softer quality of light.

Point is, none of that is an improvement over a regular incandescent. It would be like saying a diesel-electric hybrid car that gets 100+ mpg (which I think they can make) would be an improvement in vehicle technology. If it costs the same as Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, and gets that, then sure, but right now, it's so costly, it wouldn't be a viable alternative. Or televisions. A television that was more (supposedly) energy-efficient, but got worse picture-quality than any modern TV and cost 4X as much I wouldn't call an improvement. With the light bulbs, not only is it questionable if they are even as energy-efficient as claimed, but their light-quality doesn't match that of a very cheap, simple incandescent.

A real improvement is something like modern computers over older computers: cheaper, much more powerful, and more and more energy-efficient.

ParticleGrl

You have to remember there was a recession at the end of the H.W. Bush's presidency. Recessions cause automatic stabilizers (unemployment, medicaid,etc) cost to go up. You need to unentangle the recession from the data to make ajudgement.

I think you are misunderstanding what viable means. For some people, replacing your car with a bike is viable, so SOME people do it given the incentive. For others, downsizing to a smart car might be viable, etc. The increased cost of the car lead people to find other solutions for transportation. Because there is no invention that is EXACTLY THE SAME as a car, people didn't switch cars for this new invention. But instead, lots of niches open up. The short range car replacement, the low-horsepower/high-gas mileage car, the long range transportation option, etc.

If the replacement weren't 'viable' people wouldn't do it, and they'd be left with no transportation. If you live in Europe, it can be annoying that gas is more expensive but it rarely limits your ability to actually travel.

A tax on gas or automobiles reshapes how people travel in Europe, and probably increases some hard-to-measure "annoyance" index at the margin, but it hasn't eliminated people's ability to travel to work, or vacation, or wherever.

They're viable for some people, and not for others. I live in a city and bike to work- for me that was viable. I have a job near enough to where I live, and the weather here is about 70 degrees F all year long, so I'm not going to be freezing or covered in sweat.

The overwhelming majority of my car use is driving to the grocery store and back- if the cost of car ownership went up (lets say cost to park increased, or gas keeps going up), I'd consider taking the bus, or just using one of those Go-Car things I keep seeing around. For me personally, an electric car is very viable, but its too expensive. I know lots of people just like me who could make the transition pretty easily.

Should everybody switch? Of course not, but we should incentives switching at the margin. Thats how technology matures. At the start, niche technology is aimed at niche consumers, and the profit from that gets reinvested in to making a better product. As the technology gets better, it makes more sense for people to adopt.

The whole point of cap-and-trade is to encourage those people who can switch to switch, while those can't won't. A lot of small changes can supply a steady stream of carbon credits to necessary industry. I trust a market to effectively distribute "carbon credits" to those with the highest need to emit.

Anyway, I think I'm repeating myself. I'm not going to respond again unless you have a new argument. You're just reiterating rephrased versions "markets can't work well enough to distribute carbon emissions.", and the thread is getting off-topic. Either way, I think we can agree cap-and-trade is a potential free-market attempt at managing global warming, and the Republican party should be big enough to include policy makers who believe that- as it was < 20 years ago.

Containment

I'v come to the conclusion that the republican party does not really even "want" to win the presidency. It's actually a smart move if you think about it and probably their best shot at keeping control of congress.

Ryan_m_b

Relevant to this is the fact that in 2000 80% of muslims in America voted republican yet only four years later it was 4% and nothing much has changed since. An interesting account of one muslim republican's experience
http://www.ranyontheroyals.com/2012/...op-and-me.html

MarneMath

Interesting read, and I think that blog sums up why it's so hard for the Republican party to be relevant. I can't cast a vote for a party that excludes people for religion or race. Even if I find I'm more inclined to agree with their economic policies, the social constraint and the ignorance bothers me. I guess it would bother me so much more because there exist no leader in the party who will say, 'NO, these people are Americans, different than the mainstream sure why not, but we have a common goal and common values.' Sadly, this rationalizism is sorely missing.

m k

Is it all over if Texas turns blue?

russ_watters

Would I like to see my party divorced from the religious right? Sure. But this election was so close that I don't think major changes are necessary. If Romney were a millionaire instead of a billionaire, with identical ideas, he probably would have won. I think people are focusing on their own personal wishlists instead of what is actually needed.

That said, there are two potential long-term troule areas:
-Women
-Latinas

People will vote on issues they are passionate about, even if those issues are irrelevant, like abortion. I think that's a mistake, but it is a reality the GOP will probably want to deal with. The best way is probably just to ignore it.

Latinas are a growing segment of the population. There are palteable compromises to be made there.

AlephZero

Actually, you could reduce that to one trouble area: white males. There ain't enough of them any more, and the population trend is not going to change that any time soon.

Based on what happens in UK politics I would expect the GOP to spend the next 8 or 12 years reinventing itself as something completely different, and then returning into power. Both the main UK parties have done that within the last 30 years.

Paradoxically, Obama could probably speed up the process by being merciless with them over the "fiscal cliff". If they want to jump off the edge, let them, and spend the next 4 years hammering home the message that it wasn't the Democrats who wrecked the ecomony - again. Or if they want to tear themselves apart coming to some sort of compromise (entirely on Obama's terms) that would kick start the re-invention process.

But I suspect Obama is fundamentally too much of a "nice guy" to go down that road.

russ_watters

Perception issues like this are baffling to me. Obama was viewed as strong terrorism in this election because he did virtually nothing different from Bush. Was the lip service he paid to closing 'Gitmo all it took to create this perception? Or was it his muslim background? If it is the latter, that advantage might disappear in 4 yrs.

russ_watters

Regarding cap and trade: most people didn't notice, but carbon emission reduced itself, so this issue is pretty much irrelevant for right now, until people absorb that and reformulate their goals.

russ_watters

Re: white males. Pundits label white males as if they are a monolithic voting bloc, but the reality is that they are probably the most diverse, ideologically. So it is completely backwards to say the Republican party focuses too much on white males.

That's just a biased liberal media characterization people fall for.

aquitaine

Given their small numbers I really doubt most people would view that as a significant loss, especially after Obama's mealy mouthed response to the Libya attacks.

D H

5) Ban cell phones and recording devices from those private fund raisers. Keep those 47% remarks private.
6) Stop holding so many primary debates. These debates provide yet another source of statements that Democrats can turn into anti-Republican commercials. It's best if the general public doesn't know the true nature of the candidates put forth by the party. (Yes, this is a serious proposal by some in the Republican establishment.)
7) Move even further to the right. Get rid of those last few RINOs, and get rid of that big tent philosophy.
8) Make sure the 2016 presidential candidate makes Paul Ryan and Ronald Reagan look like members of the far left. The Goldwater-style spanking that will inevitably result may finally make the Republican Party see the light of day.

lisab

Don't you mean Latinos, i.e. both males and females of Latin American decent?

And for people who have a uterus, abortion is far from irrelevant, IMO.

russ_watters

I canot spel....in any language.

How many people with uteruses (uteri?) have abortions? How much about the legal issues surrounding abortion changed while Bush was in office? The issue is only relevant in that people with uteruses are passionate about it. It is not relevant insofar as affecting many peoples' lives or our vote affecting the issue.