Merica does it right!

[Robert_S]

I've been wondering why the Republicans self-harm, by banging on about god and abortion and stuff.
After all, they simply cannot lose in their banker states, they are just preaching to the converted.
You would think that they would keep quiet, and try harder to con the voters in the swing states.

Moderate Republicans don't do that. Just the Far Right/Fundamentalists. Therein lies the problem. You have a bifurcation of the party that will, I think, eventually split it into two different parties.

But I suppose, on an individual basis, they are competing for position in their own back yards. So to get on the ladder and stay there, they are constantly forced to charm the right wing with the hardest-right rhetoric.
So in effect, it's the right-wing nutters who lost it for Mitt.

That gives me a warm feeling inside.

Ed Zachery.

It's Ayn Christ Superstar verses people who want a little bit smaller, more sensible government and a bit more of a sense of personal responsibility.

There's so much more money to be made selling extreme ideology than there is a sensible solution, so outlets like Fox push further out to the fringe, milking the cash cow or First World Rage. Not entirely unlike the Ape Lusters.

[Gerald McGrew]

I've been wondering why the Republicans self-harm, by banging on about god and abortion and stuff.
After all, they simply cannot lose in their banker states, they are just preaching to the converted.
You would think that they would keep quiet, and try harder to con the voters in the swing states.

But I suppose, on an individual basis, they are competing for position in their own back yards. So to get on the ladder and stay there, they are constantly forced to charm the right wing with the hardest-right rhetoric.
So in effect, it's the right-wing nutters who lost it for Mitt.

That gives me a warm feeling inside.

It's an extension of the Karl Rove strategy he implemented under W. Bush. They play up the "culture war" issues (gays and abortion mostly) to the religious and cloak themselves in the garb of religious piety. Thus US Christians overwhelmingly support and vote for them.

Meanwhile, in the back rooms when actual policy is made and implemented, they invade other countries (thereby making their defense contractor buddies rich), put their oil partners in charge of gov't agencies that are supposed to be regulating energy development, cut taxes for billionaires, deregulate Wall St......all the while never doing a thing about gays or abortion.

Rove tried really, really hard to make voting Republican a default Christian duty, as much as going to church or taking communion. And he damn near pulled it off.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's an extension of the Karl Rove strategy he implemented under W. Bush. They play up the "culture war" issues (gays and abortion mostly) to the religious and cloak themselves in the garb of religious piety. Thus US Christians overwhelmingly support and vote for them

If US Christian overwhelmingly supported and voted for them the election would have gone differently.

[Tyrannical]

You hung a few negroes in premature celebration?

The KKK only lynched about 3500 niggers in it's history. And I'm sure the Negroes were glad to see them hanging because the condemned were brutal murders and rapists that primarily terrorized other Blacks. Over a period of eighty years, 3500 is a tiny number. Blacks murder many more Whites than that every single year, and 3500 is under ten years worth of Black on Black murder in the city of Chicago alone.

[Ian]

I love to see Tyrannical make posts like that. It undercuts whatever credibility he'd like to have when he tries to discuss other issues.

[Rum]

You hung a few negroes in premature celebration?

The KKK only lynched about 3500 niggers in it's history. And I'm sure the Negroes were glad to see them hanging because the condemned were brutal murders and rapists that primarily terrorized other Blacks. Over a period of eighty years, 3500 is a tiny number. Blacks murder many more Whites than that every single year, and 3500 is under ten years worth of Black on Black murder in the city of Chicago alone.

Can you explain clearly please why you use the word 'nigger' when pretty well everyone here finds it offensive?

I am genuinely interested, however as Ian suggest it won't make any real sense.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ty, I hope you stand trial for a capital crime and get a jury of YOUR peers. They'll be lynching you during the jury selection process.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/to ... 5466.story

[Gerald McGrew]

It's an extension of the Karl Rove strategy he implemented under W. Bush. They play up the "culture war" issues (gays and abortion mostly) to the religious and cloak themselves in the garb of religious piety. Thus US Christians overwhelmingly support and vote for them

If US Christian overwhelmingly supported and voted for them the election would have gone differently.

As I said, he damn near pulled it off. He didn't, but he came very close. The economic collapse shifted focus away from social issues, but don't be surprised when they resurface once the economy recovers.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's an extension of the Karl Rove strategy he implemented under W. Bush. They play up the "culture war" issues (gays and abortion mostly) to the religious and cloak themselves in the garb of religious piety. Thus US Christians overwhelmingly support and vote for them

If US Christian overwhelmingly supported and voted for them the election would have gone differently.

As I said, he damn near pulled it off. He didn't, but he came very close. The economic collapse shifted focus away from social issues, but don't be surprised when they resurface once the economy recovers.

Damn near is not overwhelmingly.

[Gerald McGrew]

Damn near is not overwhelmingly.

I think we're talking about two different time periods here. Rove and Bush utilized the culture wars to their advantage in 2000 and much more so in 2004. That's why Kerry kept having to insist "I'm a man of faith" over and over. It worked enough to give him the WH.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... lbank.html

"I don't think we can overstate this mobilization of the individual churches. Never happened before. Vast sort of untapped source of political energy in this country. The evangelicals didn't just come on board for him: They were campaigning; they were at the events; they were the poll volunteers; they were making the phone banks, the phone calls. You know, that's how you win elections. It was good old grassroots, door-knocking politics, but they tapped this group and organized it in a way that just had never been done to that extent before.

Religious conservatives, if they wanted to get into politics, [used to get] involved with Ralph Reed and his Christian Coalition. No more. You're doing it right through your church. The Christian Coalition had no important effect on this election at all. It was all about your local Christian church. That turned out to be the rallying point."

But by 2008, the economy had collapsed and the strategy of playing the culture wars to evangelicals couldn't work. The Republicans ended up with McCain and Palin--two non-fiscal people--trying to talk economics. The same held true this year, plus Romney isn't really a culture warrior (Ryan is OTOH) and he didn't want to go there lest it focus more attention on his Mormonism.

So IMO, had the Bush economic collapse not happened, Rove's strategy of paying lip-service to the Christians would still be a huge electoral factor.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I seldom do what-ifs.

[laklak]

Yeah, but what if you did?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, but what if you did?

Then I'd be right about everything.

[Jason]

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