on his behalf.

anti-gay, anti-minority, Fox "news" watchers -- the same people who are voting for Paul, Santorum and Gingrich. The crazies are the GOP now.

They are changing America into a patrician society as we discuss this. With great success. Our kids and grandkids will have to put up with what has been done and is being done daily. At some point, especially with the takeover of the public schools, no one will even know there was another way of thinking.

+1,000,000

repubs have gerrymandered the new maps so they will go before the court. so far, ours is not full of right wingers.

ellen fl

He'll still lose and it will have the bonus effect of postponing the republicon's inevitable catastrophic right-wing-nut-job flame-out by 4 years

It brought in or energized a lot of young conservatives, created the basis for Nixon's Southern Strategy four years later, and put the GOP on the road to Reagan.

I very much fear that rather than putting the moderates back in control, a Santorum candidacy would seal the deal on turning the GOP into a party of right-wing crazies. And given hour firmly our two-party system is locked in, that would be a very, very bad thing for the country.

If you step back and look at it objectively, even Romney is more to the right than Goldwater and Nixon ever were! Even Obama is to the right of an Eisenhower or Gerald Ford.

So it may appear that the crazies are going to take the party off the cliff, where in reality, they have already succeeded in moving BOTH parties so far to the right as to be unrecognizable from the parties 40 years ago.

Nowhere in the mainstream do you hear anybody complaining that the solutions require the parties to move left, or become more progressive.

America may recover, but it will be a long time coming.

Last edited Sat Mar 17, 2012, 02:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Let me see if I can count some states they would win, even with a Santorum/Cain ticket.

Utah (unless, ironically enough, there was a Mormon backlash to Santorum beating Romney, which is somewhat plausible), Wyoming, Idaho, ND, SD, Ks, Ok, Ak, Al, Ms

I think those ten states are a lock.

Then what about other states, like Tx, La, Ga, Ky, Tn, and SC. Is Obama really gonna take those states?

Okay, for Georgia, McCain's victory margin was only 5.2%
Obama took one electoral vote in Nebraska. Maybe he could swing two against Santorum, but the other three are going red.
SC was an 8.98% loss, Pa was a 10.31% victory. Could Santorum take his home state? Tn was a 15% loss. It's more of a lock than SD and ND which were both below 10%. Tx was a 11.76% loss. West Virginia was a 13% loss. Kentucky was a 16% loss. They are more of a lock for Republicans than a Kentucky appearance in the Final four, which, unfortunately, is probably gonna happen (again )

A prediction that Republicans will lose 40 states, should not be taken seriously.

And beyond that, the shellacking of Goldwater did not seem to cripple conservatives the way the shellackings of McGovern and Mondale and Dukakis did to liberals. And it took four drubbings in five elections before the Democratic party abandoned liberalism. A landslide now would just make them long for a Reagan even more.

It's a complete exaggeration.

and the republicans are, whether you can believe it or not, less divided than back then. Very few significant differences exist between the three main candidates. Romney is perceived to be a moderate, but that's relative. He's just another corporate hack like Santorum or Gingrich. Northern moderate and liberal republicans (yes, such a thing actually existed back then) really thought Goldwater was an extremist, which compared to Santorum, he was nothing. Most moderates and all liberals left the GOP, especially in its northeast and republican strongholds over the last several decades as the GOP shifted farther right, became the Democrat's base. Santorum is Goldwater on steroids, with a crazy religious streak to boot. Goldwater never was particularly religious in the crazy Santorum vein. Another thing to remember is there was sympathy for democrats and the Kennedy agenda in the wake of the assassination the previous year before.

The country's politics have significantly shifted to the right. Even Obama, for all this screaming about socialism, is more aligned with Eisenhower than say FDR or even LBJ.

The GOP base is much larger now - it encompasses most mountain states, the deep south, and most of Appalachia. It would be very foolish to discount the still relatively narrow margins this election could come down to. Demographics definitely favor democrats winning this election. CO is a great example of a state that has shifted considerably away from the GOP over the last several election cycles. VA is another. A large influx from more traditionally liberal states is one major reason as well as growing number of Latinos. Santorum's Catholicism could very well draw some voters (especially older ones) in WI, IA, and OH, not to mention PA. The election still comes down to likely five key states (six if you're generous to the GOP and include PA) - OH, FL, CO, VA, NC. Obama has the edge in all of them and has more realistic paths to victory.

Still, I unfortunately don't see any red states he has a strong chance of flipping. Some mention GA, but I'm very skeptical. Will Obama really be able to get more white voters coming his way? Maybe among women. He would also need to increase Latino participation. I don't see how he will be able to increase AA coverage from last time. It was already very high. MO is the only state I see some chance of flipping, since it was so close. But I don't see any chance in TN, KY, WV, AR, LA, MS, AL, SC, ID, UT, TX (maybe eventually but not quite yet), AZ (still not there), KS, NE, WY, OK. That's their core base. I don't it changing this election or even the next .