Tag: GOP in Trouble

GOP Conservative Base Is Shrinking

Buck Banks

42%

The percentage of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who describe themselves as both social and economic conservatives, the lowest level Gallup has measured since 2005. The second-largest group of Republicans (24%) see themselves as moderate or liberal on both social and economic issues, while 20% of all Republicans are moderate or liberal on social issues but conservative on economic ones.

The GOP’s Math Problem Will Only Get Worse

Buck Banks

If the 2016 GOP nominee gets no better than Romney’s 17 percent of the nonwhite vote, he or she would need 65 percent of the white vote to win, a level achieved in modern times only by Ronald Reagan in his 1984 landslide. Bush’s 2004 winning formula — 26 percent of the nonwhite vote and 58 percent of the white vote — would be a losing formula in 2016, given population changes. … The 2016 electorate, demographically speaking, will be worse for Republicans than 2012. And unless Republicans can begin winning more of the nonwhite vote, the 2020 election will be worse for the party than the 2016 election. And 2024 will be worse than, well, you get the idea.

— The Fix

Pope Francis Is a Democrat!

Buck Banks

Catholic Republicans are developing a pope problem. Earlier this month, Francis recognized Palestinian statehood. This summer, he’s going to issue an encyclical condemning environmental degradation. And in September, just as the GOP primary race heats up, Francis will travel to Washington to address Congress on climate change. … Francis may be popular with the general public, but key Republican primary constituencies — hawks, climate-change skeptics and religious conservatives, including some Catholics, are wary of the pope’s progressivism.

— Politico

Obama Regains His Relevance, Sticks It to GOP

Buck Banks

Less than a month after suffering an electoral drubbing, President Obama has succeeded in placing the majority of the internal party angst back in the other camp. The president’s move on immigration has made that the overriding issue as Republicans face down a government funding deadline of next Friday. In fact, it now looks likely to become the overriding issue when Republicans try to do much of anything, in the current Congress and the new Congress, for the next few months at least. GOP leaders’ early plans of avoiding shutdown talk have already been forced into rewrite. It’s now clear that Republicans will have to work through their internal party discord – yes, again – even as they reconvene in Washington in substantially greater numbers.

— Rick Klein, on ABC’s “The Note” blog.

Maybe Republicans Really AREN’T People, Too

Buck Banks
It is a newspaper, but it ain't the Times.
It is a newspaper, but it ain’t the Times.

In its new “Republicans Are People, Too” advertising campaign, the GOP is going to some lengths to show that party members are, variously, guys with beards and tattoos, young black women, Prius drivers and young dudes who read the New York Times.

But according to TPM, the images used in the ads are all stock photos that have been used in other campaigns or, more egregiously, show a young man holding the Wall Street Journal who is, the ad alleges, reading the New York Times. Whoops!

The Republican Party’s ad agency really is clueless, too. Really.

Kind of reminds me of a little limerick I wrote.

Obama Tells Republicans to Lighten Up

Buck Banks

Stop being mad all the time. Stop. Stop just hating all the time. C’mon … I know they’re not happy that I’m president but that’s okay. I got a couple of years left. C’mon … then you can be mad at the next president.

— President Obama, asking Republicans to stop “hating” and “being mad all the time” during a Wednesday speech, The Hill reports.