I have to agree with Neil. If for no other reason, I believe the Tea Party was not launched inside the Republican Party. It is a nonpartisan group that supports a platform that
neither of the major parties are willing to fully adopt at this time. The apparent coalition
between the Tea Party and the Republican Party, at the moment, is one of at best temporary expediency. That said, it is valid to consider whether, as a political movement, the Tea Party can genuinely compete for enough voters without forming a coalition with one of the other two major parties. That remains to be seen.

I believe that the Republicans would be better served if they could somehow figure out who those voters are that didn’t vote at all this time but did go to the polls to vote for McCain. I have to wonder if most of those aren’t Ron Paul supporters.

As a TEA Party associate, I have absolutely nothing in common with the Democratic Party. I cannot imagine a coalition with the Democrats. It seems more likely to me that all the other conservatives that have left the GOP due to its loss of core values might do better as a coalition than to consider caucusing with the Democrats. I still hold out hope that the TEA Party will ascend in the GOP and purge the elephant herd of RINOs. Otherwise, the TEA Party will have to start from scratch and become attractive enough as to pull the real conservatives out of the GOP, leaving it a shell of a party, itself nothing but a third party.

If Boehner is retained as Speaker of the House, I will cut myself free from the GOP. I had been hoping that true conservatives could purge the RINOs from the herd, but if they hold onto power during Obama’s second term, there will be no effective opposition to him. If left in power, the RINOs will destroy the GOP and, in the process, allow the Democrats to destroy the nation.

“Conservatives have to stop allowing the Left to frame the argument” And select our Candidate! We need to nominate Conservatives – Period!!!

The ones we need to purge are the ones who keep proposing we abandon social issues.

Here is our biggest problem, to paraphrase a known known: Conservatism hasn’t been tried and found wanting, it has been tried and found difficult.

Unless the electorate either gets educated or apathetic, I don’t see how a conservative is going to win…

The choice between the two candidates should have been a no-brainer. It shouldn’t have even been close. Even if you weren’t enamored with Romney, how could you possibly think that 4 more years of Obama was going to be any better than the first 4? He has by all historic measures been an absolute failure, but the sheep went blindly to their Sheppard.

If the GOP can’t win against such an inept president, then how will they run against someone who has a ‘clean slate’ and doesn’t even have a miserable record to defend? They’ll only have to spout the days talking points or whatever political ‘hopey/changey’ jargon of 2016 will be.

The electorate has proven that they’ve no interest in personal responsibility, just their ‘obamaphones’. They can’t be bothered to learn any facts or understand any consequences when the ‘X-factor’ just got them some new judges.

We’re going down the crapper just as we deserve to. It’ll be hard to sell the conservative message when a majority of the electorate is standing there with their hands open waiting for their handout. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but that’s the way I see it. I think the Monday morning quarter backing is sort of a waste of time. There are more and more takers than makers. The beauty of their life is that we makers put in 45+ hours/week, while they just have to put in maybe 2 hours/4 years to take our earnings. Can’t beat that with a stick or a Ronald Reagan.

236 years has been a good run and we probably have a few more before we go completely down the tubes. I’m glad I don’t have kids to explain all this to.

OK – I’ll start, here is my list of potential candidates, both Potus and Vpotus:

Jim DeMint
Marco Rubio
Rand Paul
Bob McDonnell
Scott Walker
Allen West
Nikki Haley
Bobby Jindal
Susanna Martinez

That was off the top of my head in 30 seconds. Anyone got others.

Heck with it. 2012 is over. On to 2016. I am going to do a little researching on Bobby Jindal. Is he hype or a real conservative? Seems to be an effective Governor, but need more information.

Carl Rove is out of touch with the “little people” of America. He, and other so called GOP Leaders think all they have to do is select the person THEY want for President and the “little people” will follow. It didn’t work with McCain and it didn’t work with Romney. Both are good men but not what was needed or wanted. That, among other things, was why millions did not turn out to vote. We do not like to have Rove stick his finger up our nose and try to pull us along WE ARE NOT LIKE THE DEMOCRATS. We like to think for ourselves. We want to select our own candidate. We do not want Rove trying to scare the base into voting for the one he chose by blathering all over Fox, like he did the last time and denies, that Romney is the only one electable.
Rove disses candidates in other Congressional elections. He seems to think he’s the big cheese and knows everything.
This election has turned me against the Republican so called Leaders. I am a Conservative and I like Goldwater and Reagan Conservatism. I’m not dumb. I have the intelligence to vote for the best person on the slate that speaks my language and for America. Fie on Rove. He and the other AH’s lost the election for the last 2 years.

errata: “We should realize we know what the unknowns are and need to now learn them.” probably should read “We should realize we don’t know what the unknowns are and need to now learn them.”

On election night, it was clear to me that Obama’s class warfare campaign worked.

The problem with this sort of thinking is that the last 2 60+ Republicans were not Conservatives. Neither one even had a “small c conservative” record. And the latest 60+ Republican candidate was a really nice guy – and in politics really nice guys finish last when faced with an opponent who dwells in the gutter (along with most all of his party). Mittens didn’t try to overcome the nasty campaign of Dear Leader, and couldn’t attack on Obamacare, one of the biggest negatives Dear leader had with the public – if he even wanted to attack on any issue.

Couple all that with a non-existent GOTV effort and you have a recipe for failure. Age had little to nothing to do with it.

2014 comes first. Let’s work on increasing our seats in the House and taking the Senate in 2014.

You do understand that the Constitution Party is not a national party (i.e. it is not on the ballots of all 50 states, in all, or most all, races – national, state and local)?

Your dismissive attitude toward the voting choices of Black voters is disgusting, and is part of the reason why it will take a long time before Black voters ever seriously consider voting Republican. Instead of demonizing them, give them a reason to vote Republican. And no, they all don’t just “want free stuff,” which is a stupid argument. It’s not as if providing serious solutions to urban poverty and black unemployment (not just giving them janitorial jobs), aren’t issus they don’t care about if the GOP could would learn to find a sensible way to talk to them instead of always coming off as the patronizing party of white men. Most of the things the GOP says to Blacks, they would never say to poor white rural workers who depend on government aid like food stamps, medicare, unemployment, section 8, just like their Black counter parts, and in many cases, higher numbers. No, to the GOP, that “real America.” Right, I’m sure. This is one of the main reasons why this party has trouble attracting minority votes (And don’t think Latinos aren’t too far from Blacks on this) in the first place, condescending attitudes like this, and will continue to do so in the future. Continue to ignore the Black vote (and Latino vote), and it will continue to ignore you. It may not be a fast growing voting block like the Latino vote, but it becomes increasingly hard to win states like Florida, Ohio, and Virginia when, from the outset, you ignore the folks that actually come out to vote. Let’s tone down the rhetoric and leave the dog whistle remarks and the Southern Strategy in the 20th Century.

Romney lost the downscale / working class white voters – indies – who voted Obama in ’08 but might have flipped. Obama’s negative ads and Romney’s poor attempt to reach out to them had many of them staying home.

The idea that hard-core Republicans stayed home in large numbers is bunk.
I am sure some Ron Paul types went 3rd party or stayed home, but you can tell their real numbers by looking at Gary Johnson’s vote. 1%

This is the same thing Democrats were saying in 2004 after they lost to Bush, but look what happened, they got a guy they really wanted in 2008.

If Kerry beat Bush, democrats would have never got Obama in 2008, they would have had Kerry running for re-election in a major recession with the vice president cheating on his dying wife.
That would have meant a Republican winner in 2008.
I don’t know if Romney losing was a bad thing.

Remember we are conservatives because conservatism works, conservatives is what makes society stable. Epicurean liberalism will collapse every time, it does not work. Obama will own the next four years, he will do terrible, not because that is what we hope, but because what he will do will hurt the country, because he does not understand how societies function. That is why Bill Clinton governed as a fiscal moderate, because moon eyed liberal fiscal policies do not work (And he got slammed in 1994 and learned his lesson).

We will get a chance to run someone that we like in 2016, and we just need to make sure we get a guy who is a real conservative.

Wow. Interesting. So black men were 85/15 for Obama?

Honestly, when we see these numbers it is crystal clear that we would get a lot of traction working out how to win more minority votes.

Wow … talk about learning the wrong lessons from history.

Yes, the Democrats were too far left. Yes, they got beaten up for it. So … they moved right. The DLC folded up shop, NOT because they had failed, but because they had succeeded: the moderates had become the core of the party. The best evidence of this is Barack Obama, who, I’m sorry, is no leftist. He’s a centrist.

I imagine most Red Staters are foaming at the mouth by now. Obama, a centrist?? Um … yes.

If the right wing is to regain a grip on empirical reality, you need to understand this: while the Republicans have sprinted to the right in recent decades, the Democrats have strolled to the right. If Barack Obama had run for office 25 years ago, he could have run as a moderate Republican! The only reason he seems far left TO YOU is that you are so far right.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Wherever you are on the ideological spectrum — fine. Embrace it! Fight for it! But please recognize where you are on the spectrum, instead of acting like you’re the norm and everyone else should adjust accordingly.

Which position of Barack Obama’s is centrist? By the normal definition, *not* the New York Times of San Francisco Castro District definition.

did you have an urge to run out and buy a 40-lb bag of Oreo cookies after writing that? Because I know there was good dope involved.

obama knows when you destroy the economy and create more dependents on govt, they will vote for benefits, rather than an “opportunity”. obama’s economic disaster has caused people to focus on survival on a daily basis. It’s going to be tough to break that. Desperate people are happy to receive a govt “fish” rather than be taught to, or fish themselves.

perception is reality. The dem propaganda media is enemy #1. The propaganda media is the supply line/life line for the left. It must be severed. And we have not even begun to discuss even discussing the problem, let alone craft a strategy and execute it. It wouldn’t take much tho and would reap tremendous rewards.

I agree with this and a few other comments. Whitetop and Libertynugget are both very much on target, and Ausonius’ reply to Libertynugget also rings clearly.

I think that, as Ausonius at least implied, the US is a nation in decline. As a nation is composed of the people living in it–otherwise, it’s just so much soil–the responsibility for the decline and fall of the United States of America rests solidly on the shoulders of its citizens.

That happened back in Roman times, too, as I recall.

Whitetop, Libertynuggest and other posters have mentioned one manifestation: too many people voting for whoever will do the most for them, personally, rather than the candidate who can best run the country.

This includes good, old-fashioned, red-blooded, honest, hard-working Americans who eagerly hold out their hands for money from “the government” even though they don’t need it. (Without getting too personal: I know of at least one retirement center populated with very wealthy older people who don’t need medicare, medicaid or social security but will fiercely oppose anybody who says they shouldn’t take it because, by golly, they earned and are entitled to it.) People used to shun “government handouts.” Now they think they’re stupid if they turn them down, even if they don’t need the money. Grab it. Grab it all.

I’m hearing another manifestation today in the news: story after story, in growing and increasingly lurid detail, about Petraeus’, and now General Allen’s, sordid personal affairs. Meanwhile, all I’ve heard about the President of the United States is that he’s “meeting with top business leaders to discuss the ‘fiscal cliff’.”

An aside: this is classic Obama-administration politics. It throws the media, and the public, garbage to smear its opponents, and the media–including the so-called “conservative” media–run with it, and the public immerses itself in it. Meanwhile, Obama is in a “meeting with top business leaders to discuss the ‘fiscal cliff’.” THAT’S what should be capturing headlines. THAT’S what we need to hear about. THAT’S what we should be discussing.

But, no: we–steered by the media, which obediently takes its cues from Obama’s slimy administration–are more concerned about garbage: who cheated on who, and what she said, and what he said.

It sickens me.

These are the manifestations of a nation in decline, and its decline, like most of those in history, are due–at least in my opinion–to a dramatic disintegration of the nation’s–its citizens’–character. The majority of us are more interested in slimy garbage than in the president’s meeting with top business leaders. More than that, the majority of us want something for nothing, and the majority of us will gladly surrender our God-given right and duty to be responsible for ourselves; we will eagerly follow the candidate who promises to take care of us.

Obama has spotted this and exploited it to the hilt. He’s won nearly every election he’s been in by feeding the media garbage about his opponents, and it’s worked, just as he knows it would. He’s promised voters everything for nothing: free money, free health care, the cessation of climate change, the elimination of the national debt, hope, change, utopia. He can’t deliver on any of it; any run-of-the-mill fool can see that. But in a nation of fools, foolishness sells.

His contempt for America is palpable: lie to them and feed them garbage, and they’ll follow you anywhere. They’re a people without character or morality, and they’ll savagely rebel against anybody who tries to instill these qualities in them, or who even suggests that they’re lacking these qualities.

Did Romney lose? No, Romney didn’t lose. Romney’s fine. He’s lost nothing.

He made America an offer. “My opponent will give you what he’s shown, and what we all know, doesn’t work. I will give you what will work: what will make this country strong again, or at least get it on the right track.” Americans rejected his offer.

Did Romney fail to “get out the vote”? No. It’s not his job to get out the vote. It’s never been any presidential candidate’s job to get out the vote. People in a free republic are supposed to get off their lazy duffs by their own selves and vote. Romney made a solid offer and waited for responsible Americans to accept it, and they didn’t.

Obama offered nothing, but he did take responsibility for voters. He sent out vans to bring them to the polls. He told them for whom to vote. He held their hands as they voted. He did everything–so far as I know–but promise to wipe their butts and change their diapers for them.

When Obama slung his customary trash at Romney, should Romney have defended himself?

No; that’s not Romney’s style. He has too much class for that: too much class, as it turns out, to be the President of the United States.

Moreover–and Eastwood noted this during his convention speech–it’s not the way conservatives act, by their nature. His exact words were, “they don’t go hot-dogging it.” Political leftists scream and yell and stoop to cheap, parlor dramatics and dime-store talk. Conservatives–again, by nature–shun that kind of behavior.

(Take heed, conservative media. You’re exposing yourselves as run-of-the-mill journalists who write anything for a buck.)

Romney is a conservative, by nature. He has class, as a man. He stayed true to himself and, more emphatically, to the best part of America. He conducted himself and his campaign with dignity, and for that I have undying respect for him and am disappointed America will not have him as president. He offered Americans a quality president with the plan, the will and, most of all, the character to make this a better nation, and America turned him down.

Americans–a nation, a people, in decline–chose the trash-slinging liar who can’t lead and who has clearly demonstrated his contempt for them.

Romney wasn’t going to fight on those terms: no way. He appealed to America’s better nature. Obama appealed to America’s worse nature. Obama won.

It also bears mentioning that the most of the media are solidly leftist. They, as much as any entity, have put Obama in public office time and time again, both by what they’ve broadcasted about him and what they’ve refused to broadcast.

It also bears mentioning that while Bill Clinton appeared to be stumping for Obama, he wasn’t. He was stumping for his wife in 2016. Look for Obama to return the favor by catapulting Hillary into office four years from now. (For all of that, look for Obama–the quintessentially slimy, Soviet-style backstabber–to betray the Clintons, too.)

But a lot can and will happen between now and then. Obama will likely continue to fail at being president because he knows how to win elections–the “campaigner in chief” moniker fits him well–but he can’t lead. But he’s a genuine loose canon and is likely to do anything, including–but not limited to–start a war or some other crisis as an excuse to suspend the 2016 presidential elections and crown himself king of America, and then send tanks and soldiers into our neighborhoods to quell the riots and take total control: something like that.

But a description of America’s really big problem was circulated in a viral email that purportedly quoted a Czech newspaper columnist, who asserted that Obama’s foolhardiness can be undone relatively easily, but nothing can be done for America–nothing will stop its decline–if it comprises a nation of fools who will vote for the likes of him.

Erick, you make me very angry with this type of article, only because I know that I’m right about the fact that Newt Gingrich should have been the nominee. Sometimes I just hate being right.

Huh. Stating a fact about black voters is demonizing. Leftist much?

Eric is absolutely right! First, he is right on not abandoning our conservative principles by acknowledging that talking heads are anything but paid political mercenaries out to make a buck. I have never liked or trusted Carl Rove for one and I don’t know why he is foisted upon our party as if he is our spokesperson and he is just one example. Bill Crystal is another, conservative as long as you by his magazine and don’t disagree with his massive ego. The list goes on until you finally reach the left side of the spectrum that is always willing to define who we are but have never met us. They are former Democrats who have acted as advisors for Democrat administrations and now are considered “trusted journalists and commentaries because they were hired by the leftist media. (By the way according to them John Huntsman would have beaten Obama.)

Second, comments about the Tea Party are off base. The tea party is the best thing that happened to the Republicans but similarly to the leftists who define who the Republicans are the moderate and liberal Republicans who try to define the tea party have never met us. One problem with the tea party is that they have a tendency to accept anyone who claims the tea party mantle without vetting their qualifications. The end result is that we get well meaning people as candidates who are unprepared to handle the media attacks and personal denigration launched against them.

FInally, Eric is correct that the issues support who we are. The issues did not defeat us a finely tuned and focused Obama campaign defeated us. I will give you an example. In Florida (and I am sure in other states) early voting was important to Obama. This used to be a Republican tactic but they have now turned it against us. Her’s how they did it. About a month before the election I was in the Supervisor of elections office and met a kid, (18 years old, that’s a kid to me) who was from San Francisco. He was applying for absentee ballots for about thirty people whose names and cards he had gotten from get out the vote canvassers. These people have never voted before and I doubt whether they have actually voted or just had someone fill out their ballot request cards, and then their absentee ballots. I am sure these tactics are illegal but this is Chicago politics on a national scale and it cost us the election. Another tactic was the driving to the polls people who are not super voters but one time voters. I saw the vans driving in and out of the early voting places loaded with people who quite frankly don’t have any idea who the Secretary of State is or where Bengazi is. It is scary but it is the new reality.

You might as well have voted for Obama! Bad argument!

You must be replying to shadowmane and not me. Either that or you don’t know how to read.

Spoken like a true ? I’m a member of the Tea Party and definitely not a follower of Rove or the Libertarians. I think that you need to widen the scope of your ‘research’.

The Constitution party is full of crazy people and morons. No educated, reasonable TEA partier with a love for American values should have anything to do with it.

Thank you, for stating the simple truth…

Why is this guy still here?

We see the tea party had taken over the Utah state party and put in Mike Lee after removing Bob Bennett as Senator 2010. Activists have said they used the Replucans out of survival not as a first choice. Voters know the big names well and seldom support a third as much as the two big parties.
it is almost impossible to win a partisan election at any level unless as a D or P.

I disagree with the dismissal of the auto bailouts as a major factor in Ohio. They were a centerpiece of not only Obama’s campaign, but also in prominent ($$$$$) down-ticket races (read: thousands of ads on the Dem side saying the auto bailouts saved the world as we know it). Sen. Sherrod Brown ran on the auto bailouts almost exclusively. And the numbers they used (number of jobs saved, improving the state’s unemployment rate, etc.) were completely fraudulent http://www.redstate.com/paulkib/2012/10/30/ohio-fake-auto-bailout-numbers/ Not a single Republican (except for Gov. Kasich) bothered to refute their claims.

While there were certainly other factors that contributed to Obama’s win, there were certainly many, many voters who voted based on the perception of the improved economy in Ohio, giving credit to Obama rather than GOP leaders in the state. Were there 100K? IDK, but flip those votes from Obama to Romney and we may have had a different outcome.

Newt needs to teach some classes on media-handling. If everyone treated the media like he does, they’d be more afraid of trying their tricks.

One way you can address posters and hold attention is to read and read what we say and approach a conversation form the view we mean well and want all the votes we can get.
Look at our strong points and then find common ground. Conservatives value private sector jobs and work, all of us need jobs, Can you see plans or policies by conservatives you approve for growth of jobs and elimintaing the Large unemployment?
For example you might decide that lowering taxes for small business is a good idea and should be used in outreach. That lower taxes policy makes sense to conservatives.

I had a personal experience yesterday with a cab driver. She drove me from clinic to drug store for eye drops for today”s surgery. She is short of funds and not enough business. I brough up the news and that it was full of Petraeus and a scandal. She prays for them. She said she prayed today as always for she voted for Obama and that was a big problem for her. She has doubts but she would not vote Romney. His faith.

She had some experiences praying with Mormon missionaries years ago and they said when Bible and Book of Mormon conflict stick with Book. I said they do deviate from the Bible and I stick with Bible. She reads it daily. What she knows of LDS kept her from a Romney vote My few comments that Romney was more pro Christian and pro life did not budge her; she knew she voted for a man lesser of two evils. Obama
. I see that as an old fashioned but not so common now conscience of faith vote. I just finished a novel where such a faith conscience vote is prominent in an election in 1863 England.

Evangelicals carried KY, SC most of Romney vote. We can do better with outreach but no one faith slacked. Still short three mil is a lot of awol.

While you certainly seem to have your Libertarian ducks in a row here at home. How are you with defending the rights of our friends and allies abroad? You know those countries of which I speak, Israel and all. And out of curiousity, what would a Libertarian do after the american consulate was bombed and lives were lost in Benghazi. Or would you have removed all ambassadors from all countries everywhere to begin with so there would be no american presence anywhere but here? Just curious. The libertarian heart seems firmly planted in conservative soil here at home, but its the foreign affairs aspect of your party that is hard to embrace.

Greed is deeply embedded on the democrat side. Envy is deeply embedded on the democrat side. Racism and corruption is deeply embedded on the democrat side. But the democrats are also very, very good at exploiting all of this to their favor.
So any “analysis” that doesn’t include how significantly the Mourdock and Akin statements affected the Romney/Ryan election as well as their own is just plain useless.

71% of black babies are born out of wedlock. The Democrats have done everything they can to encourage this, because without actual families, they have to have government support just to survive. Every black ghetto in the country has something in common…. a history of Democratic leadership. American blacks are conditioned to believe the deck is stacked against them, and the only way they have anything approaching a level playing field is with Democrats running interference for them.

Blacks from other countries come here, don’t have that outlook, and do just as well as any other immigrant…. which is to say by the second generation are usually appreciably well-off. American blacks are all too often into their third or fourth generation of total dependency.

The conservative message is that there is only ONE way to get ahead…. and that’s to be self-sufficient. Democrats tell them they say that because they don’t care about them, are racist, etc., etc., etc. We keep trying to tell them how to succeed. They choose not to believe us, and instead keep going back to a system and culture of dependency that leaves them with the highest unemployment rates and greatest poverty rates AS A GROUP of any in the country.

You would think after half a century of entitlement society living… with no appreciable improvement in their status, that they’d get a clue that maybe they are barking up the wrong tree.

But no, it easier, I guess, to just blame their troubles on a Republican racist boogy man and cast their votes once again for the party that is going to work harder than ever to make them dependent on that party, rather than on themselves. And if we try to deliver the message that they’re screwing up….. well… we’re just not reaching out to them.

Re-posting the same discredited post later under the name cfc1 as you did under “guest’ an hour ago doesn’t suddenly make you right. It just makes you a troll.