Florida State Seminoles

[Jungle Rat]

IB needs to be shot & then hung.

[eCat]

Romney was not the first choice of most conservative voters. Its was a mixed bag as shown by the republican race. Perry, Cain, Santorum and Gingrich all led at some point in the polls and Romney had to dispatch each one thru a war of attrition (based on funding). The GOP base was more or less saying "ok, ok, its Romney" than being driven by any strong desire that he be their candidate.

The issue with Romney with most people as the article states is that he isn't a consistent conservative. Part of that is Romney had to be moderate to get elected in Mass, the other is he doesn't have a strong belief in the more extreme positions of the GOP, especially on the social side. He was damned if you do, damned if you don't - he had to hard core to get the GOP nomination and present himself as more right of McCain to appeal to the Tea Party Sara Palinites as well as a Reverand Falwelites but in doing so he turns off the moderates and independents, along with the Reagan democrats.

Because he wasn't truly all in on the GOP platform, he ended up being forced to address a basic message of spending big money on the war machine and cutting entitlements which further narrowed his appeal to the the possible voting public. To make matters worse, he couldn't keep up with what version of his positions he was presenting to who, and those pesky recording devices showed how inconsistent he was. We could talk his position on individual topics and on each one it wouldn't be hard to me to find a quote where Romney takes both sides of the position.

Whether its amnesty (I'm against it, no wait, I'm for it but they should go to the back of the line) to Libya - all you have to do is google Mitt Romney is inconsistent on <insert topic> to get several articles with direct quotes of him contradicting himself.

If Romney has any consistency its that his opinion is only voiced strongly after a conservative consensus is formed, and even then, he has to deal with someone digging up a soundbite of him taking the opposite position 4 - 10 years before.

I think its odd that your conclusion goes into a situation where the author must present a viable candidate that would beat Obama when the story is about the GOP being all in on Romney and Romney not have real conservative credentials. Romney was a formula, not a conservative.

This article is more about how the GOP is alienating potential voters by pushing Romney , expecting the public to buy in to what he is saying when Romney doesn't even believe what he is saying.

There are many reasons to be disgusted with the GOP. The problem with people who don't see it is they are too fixated on the notion that if they don't fully support the GOP, then somehow the liberals or Democrats or whoever is the current cause of the downfall of America will win. This is the Rush Limbaughs, the Sean Hannitys, the Ann Coulters and the Charles Krauthammer's of the world business model.

They're going to retire wealthy you know while the majority who go around quoting what they say will end up being the people they despise - dependent on government for retirement income and healthcare.

In the late 80's and early 90's when I coming into my own ideas politically, I was comfortable in saying that I was fiscally conservative and socially liberal. That fit neatly into the platform of the GOP. Somewhere along the way the GOP decided that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness had to be defined within their scope of morality. 9/11 turned a candidate who ran on a platform of compassionate conservatism with a more humble foreign policy into a war monger who introduced the Patriot Act. The one candidate who promoted the conservative values that inspired Ronald Reagan into running for President was a laughing stock because he promoted ideas such as sound fiscal policies, trading partners instead of allies and doing away with much of the industrial war machine that mandates a policy of imperialism. The GOP changed long standing rules just to insure a dissenting voice wasn't heard.

I'm done with the GOP because the GOP has told me in no uncertain terms they don't want my brand of conservatism in their party. And frankly I'm glad they lost the election. I hope the GOP implodes and goes away.

[Bklyn]

Not much I can add about the silliness of that article that hasn't been pointed out. However, I will simply add that Ann Coulter was famously anti-Romney (she was adamant that Christie needs to run or Romney will get the nod and lose to Obama...that was a quote). She only tried to clean that up once she had no choice. For the author to claim otherwise is either lazy or lying. Neither one are things that sit well with my ethic.

With all that said, bad article. Romney has no core beyond pure ambition, though. He is tofu. He will take on the flavor of whatever is in that wok. Obama was beatable, but not beatable by a GOP platform. No one was going to beat him that had to come out of that Primary. No one.

[Jungle Rat]

[Bklyn]

Wow, I'd hate to see the other guy.

[Jungle Rat]

The other guy is dead.

[innocentbystander]

Romney was not the first choice of most conservative voters.

Full stop. Stop right here and ready what you just typed. Now, read the next two paragraphs s-l-o-w-l-y so you'll understand how silly your point is.

There were 8 candidates at the beginning on the debate stage, 8. Not one of them (not one) was the first choice of most conservative voters. They had too many choices. When there was 8, no one candidate could have ever had the "most" first choice votes. Get it ecat?

Romney had the plurality of first choice votes among conservative voters. He always had the plurality. That was all that mattered when there was 8. When the field was reduced, he had the majority of first choice conservative voters. So please, lets not use that point anymore because your point is silly and meaningless.

Its was a mixed bag as shown by the republican race. Perry, Cain, Santorum and Gingrich all led at some point in the polls and Romney had to dispatch each one thru a war of attrition (based on funding). The GOP base was more or less saying "ok, ok, its Romney" than being driven by any strong desire that he be their candidate.

War of attrition, yes. Based on funding? No ecat. It was based on conservatism and common sense.

Governor Perry's supporters argument for him to be the GOP candidate for President was the same argument that Senator Dole's supporters made in 1996. That argument is simple: it doesn't matter that our candidate is a baffoon and doesn't know a damn thing about economics or the real world, what matters is that we don't think that any of the others are serious candidates and gosh.... look at our guy! That argument didn't help Dole in 1996, nor did it help McCain in 2008. The voting public (particularly the independants who play kingmaker) demand more of the GOP candidate than being a swell guy. They need a man with a brain. President Dubya was intelligent. What he wasn't was articulate. Perry was neither intelligent OR articulate. The debates (and common sense) instantly disqualified him.

Herman Cain turned out to be a sexual pervert. Woman after woman lined up to speak against this man's credibility. If these women were lying, then Cain would have sued them all. Instead, he dropped out of a race he never really intended to win. The GOP is the party of morality. It appears Herman Cain was lacking in that and that disqualified him.

Rick Santorum is a real nice guy just not a good Presidential candidate. He was the most serious challenger to Mitt Romney which is why he hung in there as long as he did and did as well as he did. Even when he was completely outfunded, he clobbered Mitt Romney in some of the Caucus states (3 in one day if I remember correctly.) He had great support among a very unified minority of GOP voters. Where he was lacking was in three big areas that mattered most to the majority of Conservatives in picking the candidate for the GOP nominee: understanding #1) Federalism, the #2) Constitution, and #3) Reality. What do I mean by that? Let me quote my first wife:

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-02-29.html

First Federalism and the Constitution...

In New York City, they can have live sex clubs and abortion on demand, but no salt or smoking sections. In Tennessee, they can ban abortion, but have salt, creches and 80 mph highways. At least that's how it's supposed to work.

And yet when Santorum tried to explain why states could ban contraception to Bill O'Reilly back in January, not once did he use the words "Constitution," "constitutionally," "federalism," their synonyms or derivatives. Lawyers who are well familiar with the Constitution had no idea what Santorum was talking about.

He genuinely does not seem to understand the Constitution's federalist framework, except as a brief talking point on the way to saying states can ban contraception. Otherwise, he wouldn't keep claiming, falsely, that Obamacare is the same as Romneycare.

Rick! We're conservatives! We believe the states can establish a religion -- and the federal government can't.

If he truly believed in the Constitution, Santorum wouldn't be promoting big social programs out of the federal government, such as tripling the child tax credit exemption and voting for "No Child Left Behind."

No federalist can support this man.

Now, reality (a world, Santorum did not live in...)

Most recently, Santorum assailed Obama for saying everyone should go to college by responding: "What a snob!"

No! No! No!

Santorum's response merely reinforces the insane liberal worldview that going to college is the preserve of our betters, a hoity-toity proof of social class, a desirable consumer product like a Louis Vuitton bag.

This isn't the '20s, when only the upper classes went to college. These days, every idiot who can scratch an "X" on his checkbook assumes hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to make himself less employable by taking college courses in -- for example -- "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" (University of South Carolina, Columbia), "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender and Identity" (University of Virginia), "Arguing With Judge Judy: Popular 'Logic' on TV Judge Shows" (University of California, Berkeley), "The Phallus" (Occidental College), "Zombies" (University of Baltimore), "Comics" (Oregon State University), "Harry Potter: Finding Your Patronus" (Oregon State University), and "Underwater Basket Weaving" (University of California at San Diego).

My fellow Americans, Meghan McCain has a bachelor's degree.

It's not snobbery that compels liberals to promote college for all; it's a scam to manufacture more Democratic voters, much like their immigration policies.

Is a Valley Girl who takes courses in Self-Esteem at Cal State Fresno (an actual course at an actual college) a finer class of person than a skilled plumber with approximately 1,000 times the earning capacity and social worth of the airhead?

No. But she is more likely to vote Democratic.

Encouraging everyone to go to college creates an all-new class of people entirely dependent on the government, which is to say: reliable Democratic voters.

First, the taxpayer subsidizes the wasted human space teaching these moronic courses (at prices far outpacing inflation), and then the taxpayer pays the incomes of the graduates who are resigned to filling ever-growing no-show, self-paced and self-evaluated government jobs.

Who else would employ a graduate with a degree in Women's Studies, Early Childhood Education, Physical Education , Sociology or Queer Studies but the government?

Santorum can't be the one arguing for our side.

Get it ecat? THAT is why Santorum lost, not money. Please tell me where my first wife is wrong in her argument because her argument looks flawless to me. And yes, Ann's argument matters. NO ONE has been able to defend Santorum for President once people began to understand that Rick Santorum didn't have a clue about reality.

And without further ado, lets deal with the last candidate you mentioned, the man who lived in the world of reality that included Moon Base Alpha: Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich was without a doubt, the smartest man on the GOP debate stage. If there was one better debator than Mitt Romney, it would have been Newt Gingrich. Alas, he was not a moral man, not Presidential AT ALL. A twice divorced, sexual pervert such as Newt Gingrich IS NOT PERMITTED TO WIN THE GOP NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT. EVER. NEVEREVER! Run as a Democrat you fucking sleezeball and hope and pray that God Almighty forgives you for what you did to your first two wives.

The GOP is the party of morality, not the party of men trading in wives and marrying women young enough to be their daughters. That is why Senator Fred Thompson tapped out so early in 2008 and why Newt never should have ran in 2012. He hurt Romney and did more damage to Mitt than Barack Obama or any of his PACs.

The issue with Romney with most people as the article states is that he isn't a consistent conservative. Part of that is Romney had to be moderate to get elected in Mass...

No. He was very conservative but he TRICKED Massachusetts voters into thinking he was a liberal on the one and only issue that matters to them (abortion) to get Massachusetts moderates to vote for him. I say, Kudos to Mitt Romney for pulling one over on my home state. And so should you....

...the other is he doesn't have a strong belief in the more extreme positions of the GOP, especially on the social side. He was damned if you do, damned if you don't - he had to hard core to get the GOP nomination and present himself as more right of McCain to appeal to the Tea Party Sara Palinites as well as a Reverand Falwelites but in doing so he turns off the moderates and independents, along with the Reagan democrats.

Because he wasn't truly all in on the GOP platform, he ended up being forced to address a basic message of spending big money on the war machine and cutting entitlements which further narrowed his appeal to the the possible voting public. To make matters worse, he couldn't keep up with what version of his positions he was presenting to who, and those pesky recording devices showed how inconsistent he was. We could talk his position on individual topics and on each one it wouldn't be hard to me to find a quote where Romney takes both sides of the position.

Whether its amnesty (I'm against it, no wait, I'm for it but they should go to the back of the line) to Libya - all you have to do is google Mitt Romney is inconsistent on <insert topic> to get several articles with direct quotes of him contradicting himself.

If Romney has any consistency its that his opinion is only voiced strongly after a conservative consensus is formed, and even then, he has to deal with someone digging up a soundbite of him taking the opposite position 4 - 10 years before.

Mitt Romney flip-flopped on abortion. THAT'S IT. And I would argue that he said what he said in 2002 (about abortion) just to TRICK Massachusetts voters. The man was never pro-choice. He could just sell it (in Massachusetts) to get elected. But that flip-flop (nor any of your other phantom flip-flops) were not the reason why Mitt Romney did not get elected. It is something far darker, sinister, and more damning for the future of our country (and the future of Republics in general.) I'll get to that shortly.

I think its odd that your conclusion goes into a situation where the author must present a viable candidate that would beat Obama when the story is about the GOP being all in on Romney and Romney not have real conservative credentials. Romney was a formula, not a conservative.

Because that is everything. I notice that you did not answer the two questions I posed earlier. You did not answer them because there was no answer (and you know it) thus discrediting the entire premise of that horseshit essay you quoted earlier.

This article is more about how the GOP is alienating potential voters by pushing Romney , expecting the public to buy in to what he is saying when Romney doesn't even believe what he is saying.

The GOP pushed Romney because the man actually lived in the world of reality, knew what he was talking about, was a moral man, who could communicate. That makes him a WINNER in 1980 by an ever bigger landslide than Reagan got. Alas, Romney lost for the same reason why Reagan would have been annialated if he ran in 2012. It has absolutely nothing to do with alienating potential voters. We'll get to the elephant in the room in a moment.

There are many reasons to be disgusted with the GOP. The problem with people who don't see it is they are too fixated on the notion that if they don't fully support the GOP, then somehow the liberals or Democrats or whoever is the current cause of the downfall of America will win. This is the Rush Limbaughs, the Sean Hannitys, the Ann Coulters and the Charles Krauthammer's of the world business model.

There are many reasons to be disgusted with the GOP, just none of the ones you are about to mention.

They're going to retire wealthy you know while the majority who go around quoting what they say will end up being the people they despise - dependent on government for retirement income and healthcare.

A GOP voter that actually believes in the GOP should not give a damn how rich Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh are. Now you are sounding like a liberal Democrat.

In the late 80's and early 90's when I coming into my own ideas politically, I was comfortable in saying that I was fiscally conservative and socially liberal. That fit neatly into the platform of the GOP.

No eCat.

You fit neatly as a Libertarian. A Republican is so much more.

A Republican understand the importance of MORALITY. A Libertarian does not. A Republican understands the importance of marriage and what is means to our country, our Constitution, and our Republicn. A Libertarian does not. A Republican understands the horror that is abortion and the damage (Hell on Earth) it has wrought for tens of millions of women over the last 39 years. A Libertarian does not.

Libertarianism is A-moral. That is not Republican. Part of being a Republican means that you are not totally FREE to do anything so long as it doesn't physically harm someone else because sometimes the things you do (even if you say it doesn't physically harm another human being) does in fact HARM this country and the people you live with. Marriage matters. And it matters that is must remain one man and one woman and until death do us part. It matters to the children. A Republican gets this. A Libertarian might not get that.

A Libertarian might think that being gay is just another lifestyle. That is not Republican. There are a lot people (myself being one of them) that actually believes that this whole nonsense about "sexulity" is just a concept created by homosexuals to mainstream a man sexualizing another man (or a woman another woman.) I believe that more than half of adult men who are gay were sexually molested as children. THAT is why they are GAY as adults. As a kid, some guy molested them, jerked them off, they came, and they thought (irrationally) that they were "gay." And that reality of the molestaion hits home for many of them (which is why "gay" men have 5 times the suicide rate of "straight" men.) They realize that the damage that was done to them when they were younger (because it wasn't treated) affected their entire adult life. What they needed when they were molested back when they were children was someone to sit them down and calmly explain to them that below the waist, everything is mechanical. That reality might have saved them. Instead, we gave them marriage and live in ignorance.

Our Constitution is NOT a living document. Our Constitution MUST CONSTITUTE (hence the name.) But it only works for a morally fit society because there are so few laws in there. It is intended for moral people who know right from wrong (people who knew how important PRIDE, INTEGRITY, and SHAMING wrongdoers was.)

Somewhere along the way the GOP decided that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness had to be defined within their scope of morality.

That is the Republican Party. That is why I am a member, morality. That is why you were NEVER a member (not if you didn't value morality.)

9/11 turned a candidate who ran on a platform of compassionate conservatism with a more humble foreign policy into a war monger who introduced the Patriot Act. The one candidate who promoted the conservative values that inspired Ronald Reagan into running for President was a laughing stock because he promoted ideas such as sound fiscal policies, trading partners instead of allies and doing away with much of the industrial war machine that mandates a policy of imperialism. The GOP changed long standing rules just to insure a dissenting voice wasn't heard.

9/11 proved to anyone with half a brain that the world is not big enough for the United States and Islamic Fundamentalism. President Bush got this. Governor Romney gets this. You don't get it because you haven't read the Koran. Read it and weep.

eCat, serious 9/11 question, do know what the difference is between Islam and Fundamental Islam?

I'm done with the GOP because the GOP has told me in no uncertain terms they don't want my brand of conservatism in their party. And frankly I'm glad they lost the election. I hope the GOP implodes and goes away.

The GOP lost the election (and will continue to lose elections) because of Demographics. The less people marry, the more immigrants we get (that want "things" from government) the less likely a GOP candidate will ever again win an election. A poor person who votes Democrat simply because they want "things" has no PRIDE. A single mom who votes Democrat to get "things" was not SHAMED into doing what was right, (giving her kids up for adoption.) A person voting Democrat because they welched on their mortgage and they want government to step in and make them whole means they have no INTEGRITY.

Pride.

Shame.

Integrity.

These things used to matter to Americans (or any culture, religion, or ethnic heritage) when we were a moral society. A poor person with pride, would not take welfare or anything the Democrats were offering. Shame kept people from having children out of wedlock. Integrity meant paying your debts and (if possible) not having ANY debt. Those things used to matter. These things matter less and less. And we are all FUCKED IN THE ASS because of it. Eventually eCat, we are Greece (and they know a thing or two about ass-fucking.)

[Jungle Rat]

Holy fuck.

[Jungle Rat]

You spent all night writing something no one will read.

[innocentbystander]

You spent all night writing something no one will read.

I think you read it. I know eCat will.

[Jungle Rat]

Nope. I scrolled. Your thoughts don't mean shit to me. Waste of time.

[innocentbystander]

Nope. I scrolled. Your thoughts don't mean shit to me. Waste of time.

And yet, I'm such a waste of time, you had to comment on my post not once, but twice.

Look rat, I know you don't care if I live or die. That is fine, you can't possibly ever hurt my feelings. But the thing is I DO care about our country. And our country is going to Hell in a handbasket because there are too many people (like you) that don't care to learn where we've gone wrong or what to do about fixing it.

It starts by repealing the 26th Amendment.

Then you need to follow up with ending Women's Suffrage.

[sardis]

Any conservative who took a hard line on immigration was destined to lose. The one positive thing about Rick Perry, and I do mean ONE, is that his position on this issue was spot on and the Republicans could have grasped this issue from Oprama before he capitalized this past summer with amnesty.

[Toemeesleather]

Romney was 30 times the candidate McCain was.

And Kerry was 50 times the candidate/senator Obammer was.

[eCat]

I can appreciate that you wrote a long response but I'm not interested in the debate to the detail you want to entertain it. We're so far off in what we see there is no common ground.

Romney was not a popular conservative candidate for the GOP. Just because he beat a field of flawed candidates does not mean he was the best candidate or one that the GOP fully supported. Because he wasn't able to articulate a consistent conservative message is why he lost and why he should have never been the nominee to begin with.Rominee won the nomination because he was better organized and had a larger number of feet on the ground than the other candidates . That is money. At one point Santorum was traveling around the country in a pickup truck, Pawlenty bowed out immediately, Gingrich lost funding as soon as he lost Super Tuesday. Romney had the organization in place to shut out any threat and he still barely pulled it off.

The GOP will never win the white house as long as morality issues are part of their platform. Until they either lose that part of their platform or run a single issue candidate on fiscal responsibility , they are going to continue to sit on the sidelines. Its really that simple. All the rationalization isn't going to change the reality that the majority of this country doesn't want some self righteous religious base telling them what they can and can't do. The minute the GOP starts telling us they have an opinion on something the federal government shouldn't be involved in, they lose because the rest of their message isn't strong enough to override their obsession with making rules for every American to conform to their value system. More importantly, until the GOP stops being self righteous about sitting in judgement of the Americans they have no interest in representing, they're going to not only never win, but they are going to go the way of the Whigs.

The libertarian philosophy is just the opposite of the GOP at this point. We represent everyone because we're about not telling people what to do, as long as what they do doesn't interfere with my individual rights.

For you to say that the constitution is not a living document and then proceed to tell me somewhere in there it gives the government the right to address how marriage is defined or a woman's right to contraception tells me everything I need to know. Your brand of conservatism just makes up the rules as they go.

[eCat]

Yet another example of why the GOP will never win. Old guard GOP is dumping candidates that were mandated by the voters to go to Washington because they don't fall in line with their vision of conservatism

"Speaker John A. Boehner initiated today a small purge of rebellious Republicans — mostly conservatives — from prominent committees; it’s the latest instance of the Ohio Republican’s clamping down on his fractious conference.

The decisions were made by the GOP Steering Committee at a Monday meeting, which reviewed a spreadsheet listing each GOP lawmaker and how often he or she had voted with leadership, three sources said.

Reps. David Schweikert of Arizona and Walter Jones of North Carolina were booted from the Financial Services Committee. Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas were removed from the Budget Committee.

According to a source, Schweikert was told that he was ousted in part because his “votes were not in lockstep with leadership.”

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, said, “The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors.”

One GOP leadership aide said, “Changes are made for a variety of reasons, most often at the request of committee chairs.”

Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, an outspoken conservative, was placed on the Financial Services Committee, something that a second leadership aide noted to demonstrate that voting record was not the only reason behind the changes.

All of the lawmakers other than Jones were rebellious right-wingers. Huelskamp and Amash, for instance, both voted against the budget proposed by Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin in committee and on the floor, because it did not cut spending fast enough. They also voted against the current continuing resolution that is funding the government through the end of March.

The moves sparked a quick backlash, with Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham calling Schweikert’s ouster “unthinkable.”

Schweikert defeated Rep. Ben Quayle in a contentious GOP primary and was not regarded as leadership’s first choice in that race. Schweikert’s tactics in the rough-and-tumble primary, according to several sources, rubbed leaders the wrong way.

A GOP lobbyist emailed about the Schweikert situation, “Wow. Don’t F w Jeb.” The reference was apparently to incoming Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the departing GOP Conference chairman.

The decisions came as a major surprise to Republican members. When first contacted about the changes, several of the lawmakers’ offices said they had not yet been notified.

The shuffling is the latest sign that Boehner is flexing his muscle with the right flank of his conference as he seeks a united front during tense fiscal cliff negotiations with President Barack Obama.

-------------

Again, I have serious issues with the Tea Party but what I don't have an issue with is their single issue mandate of fiscal responsibility - which for the most part they've stayed dedicated to.

[Bklyn]

The other guy is dead.

Exactly

IB

LOL @ Republicans understand the importance of morality.

I'm (still) laughing, not because GOPers don't understand the importance of morality, but that the statement leaves the impression that other political parties do not....and that all GOPers do. Liar. That's not very moral, IB. You will lose your Republican card, which would be ironic considering Gingrich still has his.

[hedge]

"This article is more about how the GOP is alienating potential voters by pushing Romney"

Yeah, but how many more would have been alienated by Gingrich (although he was the best of a sorry bunch) or, especially, that proto-nazi Santorum? The GOP needs to run somebody like Joe Scarborough, but he's making way too much money and has way too much autonomy working 4 hours a day on his morning show...

[eCat]

"This article is more about how the GOP is alienating potential voters by pushing Romney"

Yeah, but how many more would have been alienated by Gingrich (although he was the best of a sorry bunch) or, especially, that proto-nazi Santorum? The GOP needs to run somebody like Joe Scarborough, but he's making way too much money and has way too much autonomy working 4 hours a day on his morning show...

Scarborough would never be accepted by the base - and he'd end up looking just like Romney in order to win over the base.


That is the challenge of the GOP. They can rally behind a strong fiscal conservative but as soon as someone says "what is your position on abortion" or "will you attack Iran?" he has to play cat and mouse between what it takes to keep the base and what it takes to win the election. And then the base of GOP start yapping about the American work ethic and the downfall of American values when their guy loses.

[innocentbystander]

Any conservative who took a hard line on immigration was destined to lose.

You are advocating for pure anarchy.

Taking a hard line on immigration is the same thing as taking a hard line on crime. If you are an illegal immigrant and you are here in this country, you are a criminal. Period. End of story. Get the fuck out of my country or go to jail you law breaker. That is the GOP position. If that means they can neven win another Presidential election, then we are Greece and we are all already fucked.

Consider....

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-11-14.html

Republicans' low-tax, small-government philosophy will eventually become popular with today's struggling Hispanics, but not before America is ruined with socialist policies promoted by populist hucksters so strangely beguiling to poor people the world over.

It's not that poor immigrants think differently about most issues from the rest of us. Try asking a recent immigrant:

-- How do you feel about abortion?
It's taking a life.

-- What should we do about criminals?
Lock them up and throw away the key.

-- Do you support raising taxes?
No, the government takes too much already.

-- How do you feel about overpaid, well-pensioned government workers with no-show jobs?
It ticks me me off.

-- Do you support gay marriage?
Absolutely not.

-- How are you going to vote?
Democratic.

Most recent immigrants oppose abortion, gay marriage and big government. The problem is that poor, uneducated people -- the Democratic base -- are easily demagogued into voting tribally.

A white person can vote for a Republican or a Democrat without anyone saying to him, "HOW CAN YOU VOTE AGAINST YOUR RACE?" But that is exactly how poor Hispanics and blacks are pressured into voting Democratic.

Noticeably, the No. 1 issue Obama had in his favor this year was not his policies. It was that a majority of voters agreed with the statement: Obama "cares for people like me." That's how Hugo Chavez got elected.

Running Hispanics won't help Republicans. Ask Gary Franks, Lynn Swann or Michael Steele if being black won them the black vote.

Promoting amnesty won't help -- ask John McCain, who won about the same percentage of the Hispanic vote as Romney did.

Or ask California's Hispanics, only 4 percent of whom oppose Republican immigration policies. Their main beef with the GOP is that they think Republicans are "the rich."

The only hope is to run another appealing Republican candidate in four years -- when we're not up against an incumbent president -- and return our immigration policy to one that helps America and not just the Welfare Party.

Ann's logic here is unassailable. She is completely right. She has identified the problem for the GOP and its root is Demographics NOT immigration policy and insisting on enforcing the law. It is rich vs poor Sardis. (To an immigrant who wants the American Dream, you can't get rich mowing my lawn, cleaning my house, or watching my kids while the wife and I go out to earn our six-figure incomes.) Okay, so if you are a Republican and you believe in enforcing the law, how do you fix the problem of never again winning an election with Hispanics making up a larger percentage of the voting population? Well Victor Davis Hanson may have a solution:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson111512.html

The model for Republicans should be the Italian immigration experience. Italian-Americans were once a monolithic Democratic pool of millions. But, as immigration from Sicily and the rest of Italy greatly slowed down, and as the natural course of American capitalism brought Italian-Americans into the middle class and differentiated them into subclasses of higher and lower incomes, “Italian” ceased to be an ethnic straitjacket. Today, Italian-Americans may vote partly on the basis of tribal pride, but not in any predictable political pattern. Italian conservatives have no problem voting against Andrew Cuomo or Nancy Pelosi, while liberal Italians did not particularly rally to Rudy Giuliani. The 30 percent of Latinos who opposed Barack Obama may suggest that we are seeing the beginning of such a phenomenon.

What, then, should Republicans do? Stick to their melting-pot principles and apply them across the board, regardless of race and tribe, emphasizing the content of our characters rather than the color of our skins. Of course, avoid gratuitous polarization and loose talk. Close the border, and invest in the formidable powers of American assimilation, integration, and intermarriage to achieve for a soon-to-be-closed pool of Latinos what it has already done for Japanese and Italians. Consider the Dream Act only if it is coupled with deportation of many of those who do not meet its requirements and with employer sanctions and border enforcement. A particular Italian-American may sometimes be indistinguishable to the eye from a particular Mexican-American, but the former does not qualify for affirmative action, does not take Italian Studies courses, is not labeled a victimized minority because of ethnic affinity with millions of poor Sicilian newcomers — and is not beholden any longer to the Democratic party.

Italian-Americans (really there are no such things anymore, just Americans) have access to wealth/money. Maybe when the first generations got to this country you had to be of English descent to have wealth in America but Americans with Italian ancestry now know that is no longer the case. Hispanic Americans need to see a larger percentage of their population gaining access (and accumulating) wealth. That will transition them from voting Democrat to voting Republican.

The one positive thing about Rick Perry, and I do mean ONE, is that his position on this issue was spot on and the Republicans could have grasped this issue from Oprama before he capitalized this past summer with amnesty.

This has been addressed. It isn't amnesty that cost the GOP (and will continue to cost it). It is wealth vs poverty.