Dems risk 'rising tide' of libertarian GOP 'led by Sen. Rand Paul'

[radiofriendly]

MOD HELP: The article mentions Rand Paul but perhaps the general forums should see this too?

An article by Robert Kuttner has been causing a stir on the liberal blogs. Here’s a synopsis from the far-left website, DailyKos:

I’m sorry to say, but this cynical anti-government message is going to start resonating with more and more people, unless the Democratic Party boldly casts aside the center-right path of Barack Obama and embraces a new progressive revival. People want middle class jobs, not Big Brother listening to your phone calls and reading your emails. They want student loans, not bailouts for an obscenely wealthy investment banking industry. They want increased funding for health care and education, not cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Too many Democrats have a smug assurance that the younger generations will automatically keep voting Democratic; that “demographic change” will condemn the GOP to permanent minority status in just a couple decades...


The GOP is not stupid. There is a rising libertarian wing of that party, led by Sen. Rand Paul, which seeks to appeal to young voters who have given up on the promises of Democrats who talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk – young liberals who would seriously consider voting Republican if only the GOP would cut the military, end the domestic spying, the Wall Street bank bailouts, and the war on marijuana. Do you really think the Democrats have these pissed-off young voters locked in their column for life? Do you really think the Republicans are never going to try to rebrand their party to appeal to young Democrats who saw all their political hopes and dreams slip away under the weak, centrist, corporate-dominated, too-similar-to-Bush administration of Barack Obama? Think again...

Read more: http://iroots.org/2013/06/18/liberal-warns-obamas-hypocrisy-risks-youth-abandoning-big-government/

 

[YesI'mALiberal]

The picture says 23-3.

I don't think Democrats have anything to fear from "the rising tide" as long as women are half the electorate.

 

[AuH20]

Technically, the democrats have acquired a stranglehold on nearly every American institution via attrition, so it's only a matter of time before the youth revolts. Now the looming question that remains is, can the Republican Party position itself accordingly for the rebound?

 

[CableNewsJunkie]

Technically, the democrats have acquired a stranglehold on nearly every American institution via attrition, so it's only a matter of time before the youth revolts. Now the looming question that remains is, can the Republican Party position itself accordingly for the rebound?

I think these kids are coming our way no matter what, for the same reasons a lot of us came in the past six years. Moss-covered GOP leaders can be easily ridiculed and mocked for their incompetence and their stubborn, out-of-touch ways. The party is just begging for a glitzy, techno-savvy re-branding, and there's a big power vacuum.

Besides, it'll be fun.

 

[TheTexan]

"We dont want Fascism, we want Socialism!"

Fine, take California and be done with it. I'll even throw in New York (sorry upstaters)

 

[fisharmor]

Youth will absolutely continue to vote D for as long as the R happens to be people like Mittens or McCain.
Every presidential election I've ever voted in has been won by the team whose obvious muppet was less of an obvious muppet than the other team's obvious muppet.

When the R team comes up with a guy whose stick up his butt doesn't have a stick up its butt, who doesn't get spray-tans to try to appeal to dark people, and whose campaign message is a little more than "that other guy is a poopyhead", then they might win.

It'll be nice if it's Rand, but believe it or not, it doesn't have to be. We've kind of proved over and over that a president no longer has to do anything even close to approximating what he talked about on the campaign trail. He just has to not be as big a shitbag as the other guy.

 

[cero]

stopped reading at "They want student loans"
but I guess that's true now days

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

"We dont want Fascism, we want Socialism!"

Fine, take California and be done with it. I'll even throw in New York (sorry upstaters)

The problem is once they run those states into the ground they move onto other states and attempt to infect it with the same failed ideology.

 

[TheTexan]

The problem is once they run those states into the ground they move onto other states and attempt to infect it with the same failed ideology.

Thats true, but maybe it would buy us some time to set up a country that doesnt suck, and put some immigration controls in place

 

[ObiRandKenobi]

Running a 100 yr old Hillary won't help.

 

[ProvincialPeasant]

People read their own wishes into the voting behaviour of certain groups. For libertarians, it's the youth. No matter who the GOP nominates, the youth will vote Democratic. This is significantly due to the higher proportion of minorities amongst the youth than in the broader population. However, most young people are low-information voters. When they turn out, it'll be for the Democrat. Rand can do well with the youth at the moment, but if he won the nomination, the Democrats would absolutely savage him and the best the GOP can hope for is that the youth just stays home.

 

[Brett85]

People read their own wishes into the voting behaviour of certain groups. For libertarians, it's the youth. No matter who the GOP nominates, the youth will vote Democratic. This is significantly due to the higher proportion of minorities amongst the youth than in the broader population. However, most young people are low-information voters. When they turn out, it'll be for the Democrat. Rand can do well with the youth at the moment, but if he won the nomination, the Democrats would absolutely savage him and the best the GOP can hope for is that the youth just stays home.

I don't necessarily think that's true. Romney received about 39% of the youth vote in the last election, and if Rand could just increase that to 45%, he would likely win the Presidency. Rand wouldn't necessarily have to actually win the youth vote, but simply get a higher percentage of the youth vote than previous Republican nominees have received.

 

[ProvincialPeasant]

I don't necessarily think that's true. Romney received about 39% of the youth vote in the last election, and if Rand could just increase that to 45%, he would likely win the Presidency. Rand wouldn't necessarily have to actually win the youth vote, but simply get a higher percentage of the youth vote than previous Republican nominees have received.

I agree with this. The same holds true for Hispanics and blacks. Just eating at the edges of the Democrats' preponderance can lead to victory. The big problem though is Rand's weakness with women. If Hillary is the nominee, then the GOP might even lose white women.