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Featured Tonight’s Republican Debate Is the Party’s Worst Nightmare

Discussion in 'Political Debate & Discussion' started by Crabtownboy, Aug 6, 2015.

  1. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    Well before Republicans officially lost the 2012 election, leaders of the party, along with Mitt Romney’s campaign strategists and countless conservative opinion-makers, understood just how damaging the presidential nominating process had been for them. The gravest damage came from an unconstrained series of 20 debates, which pit candidates against each other in a madcap dash to win the hearts of audiences that booed gay soldiers and cheered at the notion that society should allow uninsured citizens to die.

    Along the way, the eventual nominee gained notoriety for an agenda that included privatizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, squeezing unauthorized immigrants into discomfort until they self-deported, and for offering an underdog a $10,000 bet.

    After the election, the Republican National Committee set about sanding off the party’s rough edges. It encouraged Republicans to pass immigration reform and soften their rhetorical tropes, and in so doing repair the party’s relationship with a younger, more diverse segment of the electorate. It also set about tightening the rules governing primary debates—to limit the total number of them, exclude certain networks and moderators, and penalize candidates for circumventing the process. By doing so, the RNC hoped the party could escape its own primary without incurring the self-inflicted wounds it suffered in 2012.

    Thursday’s Fox News debate represents the failure of that effort. The RNC, led by Reince Priebus, succeeded only in holding the number of debates to seven, which is still enough exposure time to wash out the kinder, gentler image he wants the party to project.

    The complete explanation for the failure is complex, but it stems from the fact that the GOP (partially by design) has become dominated by reactionaries and ideologues, rather than by allied factions amenable to compromise. That explains both Donald Trump’s emergence as a towering Republican figure, and the influence Fox News has over the party. Both of those factors, in turn, explain why Thursday’s debate, and perhaps debates to come, will bear so much resemblance to the 2012 debates Priebus hoped to vanquish.

    Fox’s influence has been particularly devastating. Trump isn’t the first flash-in-the-pan candidate to illuminate a party’s dark underbelly. But Fox amplified the incentives he created for other candidates to jockey for attention.

    http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122478/tonights-republican-debate-partys-worst-nightmare

     
  2. church mouse guy

    church mouse guy Well-Known Member
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    Don't worry, be happy, Crabtown. There won't be so many debates this year and tonight the GOP is using as moderator Bret Baier, who is fair and balanced and unafraid.

    [​IMG]
     
  3. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    They are in trouble CTB and they know it. Donald Trump has exposed the underbelly of the beast and the world has seen it. He's taken the "family's dirty secret feelings" and aired them to the world.

    How can Jeb or Rubio or any GOP'er court the Hispanic vote after what Trump has made clear? The Black vote was already off the table and that's why they are just trying everything to disenfranchise them.

    They are floundering and now Bush is going off on Trump.

     
  4. Calypsis4

    Calypsis4 Member

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    I intend to vote as always but I long ago lost any hope that any candidate of any party will change the direction of our country or that the USA will ever be again what it once was. Without a true revival of biblical proportions (i.e. - Nineveh) then it makes no difference who sits in the White House.
     
  5. wpe3bql

    wpe3bql Member

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    One debate, 13 mos. before the general election probably won't stir much hoopla after all the pundits have spun all the candidates ad nauseum.

    Some may be a momentary flash in the pan, some may be doomed to premature political death. Both have happened before, and I imagine the same will hold true as a result of tonight's (08/06) debate.

    Some politicians just aren't very good debaters. They may have good ideas, but just don't have the ability to present their ideas, much less have some snappy comebacks on hand. Very few have both readily available at a second's notice.

    One person in the past 30+ years who did was Reagan: "I paid for that mike! You didn't! Let me do some of the the talking!" and he won big time in 1980. OTOH, Mondale tried with his "Where's the beef" in 1984, and he lost big time.

    I'll probably watch some of the debate, but I doubt whether it'll change my mind in a big way.

    It'll probably be sometime next year before I make up my mind regarding for whom I'll vote.

    FWIW, in Metro Nashville we voted to select a new mayor, vice mayor, an entire city council, and 3 different amendments to Metro's city charter. Hopefully at least some of those for whom I voted will wind up winning. I guess I'll find out in a few hours how that turned out.

    Some local political pundits are saying that the mayoral race may not be determined tonight because there's so many candidates (6 or more) who've been saying the same thing, every time a mike is put in front of them, for the last 3-4 months, that none of them will gain at least 51% of the votes. :BangHead:

    If so, it'll be some 5 additional weeks of the same old, same old until Nashville finally finds out who'll replace outgoing mayor Karl Dean.

    Yippee! :smilewinkgrin:
     
  6. Revmitchell

    Revmitchell Well-Known Member
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    The op is one of the most inept pieces of opinion I have seen in a while.
     
  7. Lewis

    Lewis Active Member
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    Oh, I was under the impression that Black people carry ID with them, just like Whites do.
     
  8. wpe3bql

    wpe3bql Member

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    It'd be great if the US had a true revival "of biblical proportions" like the one that occurred in Jonah's day; but lest we forget, that one only lasted some 60 years.

    I don't want to rain on anybody's parade when it comes to revivals, but unless today's trends dramatically change very quickly, it's going to take a very deeply, multi-generational revival for the US to truly become completely spiritually revived.

    And, don't forget, revival doesn't begin when lost people get right with the Lord.

    You can't revive someone who never had something to revive in the first place (Eph. 2:1-6). True revival begins with those who've already trusted and received Christ in their hearts and life.

    The verse in 2 Chron. 7:14 that most people rightfully claim is God's basis for revival states this: "If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves, .... then shall I hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land."

    God's formula for true, long-lasting revival hasn't changed from what He demanded some 3,000 years ago.

    He's the same yesterday, today, and forever!

    "Even so, come Lord Jesus!"
     
  9. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    Statistically speaking, that's not the case. If it were the case, there would have been no reason to push for the Voter ID laws.
     
  10. OldRegular

    OldRegular Well-Known Member

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    We have had a long 6.5 year devastating nightmare with 1.5 more years to endure this nightmare and Mr. C worries about a debate!
     
    #10 OldRegular, Aug 6, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 6, 2015
  11. Lewis

    Lewis Active Member
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    I'd like to see those statistics. Every black person I've ever known carried ID.

    Voter ID check is to prevent illegal aliens from voting.
     
  12. carpro

    carpro Well-Known Member
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    Funny , really.

    With democrats being so afraid of public debates with republicans that they insist on biased moderators. Can anyone say Candy?
     
  13. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    Nope. Voter ID is for the same reason as was Jim Crow except this is viewed as a legal obstacle that does the same thing as Jim Crow.

    The folks who passed the law knew that it would disenfranchise Black voters who overwhelmingly have fewer IDs.

    You do not have to be living underneath a shoe to know that Blacks and Hispanics are overwhelmingly poor when compared to white voters.

    As such a lot of them don't drive because they cannot afford a car so there's no need for a license.

    Not to mention all of the racial discrimination involved in stop and frisk and racial profiling that causes poor people to rack up fines they can't pay and thus losing their valid licenses.

    And poor people aren't getting passports.

    These are just all around bad laws.
     
  14. Lewis

    Lewis Active Member
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    Well this is opinion, and of course is the standard party line.

    Notably though, President Obama does not agree with this line.
    He has said, "Most of these laws are not preventing the overwhelming majority of folks who don't vote from voting," Obama said during an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton. "Most people do have an ID. Most people do have a driver's license. Most people can get to the polls. It may not be as convenient' it may be a little more difficult. The bottom line is, if less than half of our folks vote, these laws aren't preventing the other half from not voting," Obama said. "The reason we don't vote is because people have been fed this notion that somehow it's not going to make a difference."
     
  15. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    The studies are out there. Look em up if you like. And President Obama would be correct if he said that.

    Nobody is talking about it keeping folks from voting who don't vote. It's keeping the black folks who were voting from voting because they don't have a state issued id.

    And that's exactly what it was designed to do is cut into the number of Blacks who vote for Democrats. Since the GOP wasn't winning Black voters over with their loving demeanor, they set out to just keep a large chunk from voting.

    Disparate impact.

    Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
     
  16. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
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    Why force people to go anywhere to register to vote?

    In my state a person can do everything online and receive a voter registration card.

    I expect this is true in many states.

     
  17. Lewis

    Lewis Active Member
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    Nah. "Of course, minority voters aren’t the only group likely to be disenfranchised. Seniors, for example, are also less likely to drive. Academic studies suggest that voter ID laws do probably reduce turnout, both among Democrats and Republicans, but not by more than about 2 percent." - Slate
     
  18. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely. As well as a lot of students.

    Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
     
  19. Lewis

    Lewis Active Member
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    The point being that voter ID laws are not targeted at Blacks. Our own black president said they are not the problem.
     
  20. Zaac

    Zaac Well-Known Member

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    That's not what the Black President said. He said, according to your post
    That doesn't say that there isn't a disparate impact on black voters when it comes to voter ID laws. And the case can be made that if there is a disparate impact in race or age based upon the practice, that there might be lots of federal law suits jut waiting.
     
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