53% of Americans Think Republicans are Too Extreme

[Toro]

We've been clobbered twice in a row now running moderates. GOP will not take another chance on a moderate.

I don't understand this logic. Why would the majority of voters support a highly conservative candidate when only a minority of Americans describe themselves as conservatives? The Republican party is already losing the majority of voters who aren't conservative, particularly moderates, whom they've lost in 5 of the past 6 Presidential elections. Republicans have lost four of the last six Presidential elections and 5 of the last 6 Presidential popular votes. Conservatives like to point to Reagan but conveniently forget that Goldwater was crushed.

To me, conservatives saying we need a more conservative candidate sounds an awful lot like a football team running the ball 40 times a game but getting 3.0 yards per carry saying the team needs to run the ball 60 times because "running the ball is how you win football games" in a pass-happy league. The Republican party doesn't need more conservative candidates. They need better candidates, period. The Republican party has all sorts of conservatives throwing themselves at the nomination but the party keeps refusing them. It's hard to believe that all these conservatives trying to take up the mantle of Reagan who can't get nominated by the Republican party would win the general election if they can't convince a group of like-minded people to vote for them in the first place.

As opposed to a radically liberal candidate? He's won twice In a row now. And you make my point. The party hasn't accepted the fringe conservative but they will next time. Besides, Santorum is next in line. I noticed a frightening pattern the other day about second place finishers in the republican nomination process.

"Radically liberal?" On what exactly? Center-left, perhaps, but hardly radical. Obamacare was a copy off what a Republicans did in MA and what conservative think tanks advocated at least in part during the 1990s. He had a guy from Wall Street as his Treasury Secretary. He kept Gitmo open and accelerated the drone program. He signed free trade agreements. He bombed Libya. The liberal wing of the Democrat party was unhappy with Obama through much of his first term.

Incompetent? I thought so. Divisive? Yup. Radically liberal? Most liberals would disagree.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I don't believe I'm extreme at all. Fighting for freedom and liberty is never wrong!

 

[Dragonlady]

I don't believe I'm extreme at all. Fighting for freedom and liberty is never wrong!

Fighting for freedom of liberty = yeah sure. You assert your patriotism but as Samuel Johnson said "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel", meaning that just saying you're fighting of freedom and liberty is no proof of same. Here is another quote from Johnson on patriotism:

"A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."

All of these accusationsthat Democrats are destroying the country, that Obama is a communist are opinions which are not propogated by reason, but caught by contagion.

I see of lot of posters here parrotting the lines from Fox News, Romney and the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh: That those who voted for the Democrats are only interested in free stuff, that they don't pay taxes, that they're irresponsible. All reasonable evidence says these are lies, and yet so many here parrot the lies.

 

[thereisnospoon]

I don't believe I'm extreme at all. Fighting for freedom and liberty is never wrong!

Fighting for freedom of liberty = yeah sure. You assert your patriotism but as Samuel Johnson said "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel", meaning that just saying you're fighting of freedom and liberty is no proof of same. Here is another quote from Johnson on patriotism:

"A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."

All of these accusationsthat Democrats are destroying the country, that Obama is a communist are opinions which are not propogated by reason, but caught by contagion.

I see of lot of posters here parrotting the lines from Fox News, Romney and the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh: That those who voted for the Democrats are only interested in free stuff, that they don't pay taxes, that they're irresponsible. All reasonable evidence says these are lies, and yet so many here parrot the lies.

That's YOUR opinion.
The fact is, people voted for Obama based on the availability and continued funding of entitlements.
Your side is unhappy over the blow back. You are programmed to ignore the unintended consequences due to the expansion of government.

 

[Plasmaball]

We've been clobbered twice in a row now running moderates. GOP will not take another chance on a moderate.

someone who supports 'personhood laws' and doesn't support equal pay for women; and doesn't withdraw his support from a senate candidate who says absurd and stupid things about rape victims, ISN'T a moderate. Someone who thinks if you vote democratic, that you're a moocher, isn't a moderate.

Your problem this time was your candidate... but not his moderation. it's that the 'base' forces your people so far to the right they can't move center during the general election. contrary to romney's campaign strategy, we have memories and you can't be an etch-a-sketch. And while McCain may have been a moderate in 2000, he wasn't in 2004. And both men picked far right VP candidates.

So i think you might want to reconsider.

Romney did what he could to get elected. It's a balancing act. And it's not like Obama isn't radical.

he isn't, stop using words that don't describe whats really happening.

 

[Plasmaball]

I don't believe I'm extreme at all. Fighting for freedom and liberty is never wrong!

Fighting for freedom of liberty = yeah sure. You assert your patriotism but as Samuel Johnson said "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel", meaning that just saying you're fighting of freedom and liberty is no proof of same. Here is another quote from Johnson on patriotism:

"A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."

All of these accusationsthat Democrats are destroying the country, that Obama is a communist are opinions which are not propogated by reason, but caught by contagion.

I see of lot of posters here parrotting the lines from Fox News, Romney and the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh: That those who voted for the Democrats are only interested in free stuff, that they don't pay taxes, that they're irresponsible. All reasonable evidence says these are lies, and yet so many here parrot the lies.

That's YOUR opinion.
The fact is, people voted for Obama based on the availability and continued funding of entitlements.
Your side is unhappy over the blow back. You are programmed to ignore the unintended consequences due to the expansion of government.

that is your opinion. People voted for Obama for a variety of reasons that you really don't know about. The reality is Obama just happened to get more people to like him over the lump of shit named Romney.

Blowback? what blowback? the hardcore righties who are doing nothing but whining because they lost?

 

[Dragonlady]

The fact is, people voted for Obama based on the availability and continued funding of entitlements.

40% of the people receiving government assistance, including Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, voted for Romney.

ElectoralVote

Although he didn't say it literally, Romney's audience of wealthy donors surely understood that "takers" were typically ethnic minorities on welfare and food stamps living in large cities in blue states in the North. It turns out that is not true, either. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation, which Romney has cited in the past as an objective source of information, wrote an article listing the percentage of people who paid federal income tax (the "makers") and who paid no federal income tax ("the takers"). It also produced a map (below) showing the top 10 "maker" states in blue and the top 10 "taker" states in red. Here is the map.

As can be easily seen, with a few exceptions, the "takers" form the base of the Republican Party and the "makers" are Democratic states. The reason is straightforward: the (Republican) South is poorer than the (Democratic) North and has many more people whose income is so low that they owe no federal income tax on it.

Your side is unhappy over the blow back. You are programmed to ignore the unintended consequences due to the expansion of government.

Blowback? Government is currently contracting, not expanding. I know you believe otherwise, but just turn off Fox and started reading websites that aren't based on conservative fictions.

You're talking like Romney won the election and the Republicans aren't about to commit political suicide by going over the fiscal cliff.

 

[Barb]

You're blithering idiocy has nothing to do with this.

I am neither blithering nor am I an idiot and it's beyond rude of you to say that. ..

Then attempt to reply topically and refrain from the obvious straw-men.

Who the fuck made you the social director around here, Samson? Nice how you cut the quoted material out that refuted your claim that she was off topic. Perhaps it is you who needs to look at the thread title.

 

[YoungRepublican]

Personally I think we'll look back some day and thank the republican party for NOT letting that selfserving, petty, tyranical little pisher have his way and run this country into the ground.
Stick to yer guns boys. Back that little twit right off that fiscal cliff!

That first part is right on the money. The second part is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Push him off of the fiscal clif? I do not want to see him get his way, but if we fall of the fiscal clif we will find oursleves without the proverbial river. This is the debt ceiling all over.. just a bunch of people who know nothing about economies telling our politicians to do something that will have devastating long term effects.

 

[HUGGY]

Personally I think we'll look back some day and thank the republican party for NOT letting that selfserving, petty, tyranical little pisher have his way and run this country into the ground.
Stick to yer guns boys. Back that little twit right off that fiscal cliff!

That first part is right on the money. The second part is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Push him off of the fiscal clif? I do not want to see him get his way, but if we fall of the fiscal clif we will find oursleves without the proverbial river. This is the debt ceiling all over.. just a bunch of people who know nothing about economies telling our politicians to do something that will have devastating long term effects.

Blah...Blah...Blah...Devistating? Being a republican "the dumbest thing you have ever heard" is a meaningless statement. In my lifetime..(I am not a YOUNG republican) I am an old one. "dumbest" is their mana and stock in trade. How can anyone filter through the vast catalog of republican dumbness to find THE dumbest..Impossible. You have signed on to be a deck hand on the Titanic. Good luck. I hope you can swim.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I'm NOT extreme, I'm JUST RIGHT!

 

[Mac1958]

I'm NOT extreme, I'm JUST RIGHT!

Yep, that's what I hear from both ends of the political spectrum. I also hear that from wild-eyed screamers in the streets of the Middle East.

How in the world have so many people become so radicalized?

.

 

[dblack]

I'm NOT extreme, I'm JUST RIGHT!

Yep, that's what I hear from both ends of the political spectrum. I also hear that from wild-eyed screamers in the streets of the Middle East.

How in the world have so many people become so radicalized?

.

There's also radicalism from 'moderates' supposedly in the 'center'. They can hide it there due to our preoccupation with cramming everything into the left/right artifice. Doing that somehow makes the 'middle' seems safe, but it's not. We really need to wake up to this. The corporatists pretending to be moderates aren't. They're proposing, and rapidly implementing, the most radical transformation in our country's history - from a nation founded on individual rights and rule of law, to one that functions by parsing out special privilege and penalty to organized interests.

 

[SniperFire]

'more Americans see the Democrats as being dominated by extremists than Republicans.'

The poll found that 44% of likely voters say the Dems are more dominated by its extremist elements while only 37% peg the GOP as more dominated by extremists'

Archived Blog: Which party is dominated by extremists?




Hope that helps.

 

[Jarhead]

So refusing to sign any deal that does not include cuts in spending is now deemed as being extreme?

Wasnt it Obama that refereed to deficit spending as "unpatriotic"?

Yes...it was.

So agreeing with Obama is now deemed as extreme far right?

Wow.

 

[turzovka]

And the other 47% are in a state of depression ---- realizing that 53% is the same majority commanding the ship towards a giant brick wall.

 

[Jarhead]

Personally I think we'll look back some day and thank the republican party for NOT letting that selfserving, petty, tyranical little pisher have his way and run this country into the ground.
Stick to yer guns boys. Back that little twit right off that fiscal cliff!

That first part is right on the money. The second part is probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Push him off of the fiscal clif? I do not want to see him get his way, but if we fall of the fiscal clif we will find oursleves without the proverbial river. This is the debt ceiling all over.. just a bunch of people who know nothing about economies telling our politicians to do something that will have devastating long term effects.

Blah...Blah...Blah...Devistating? Being a republican "the dumbest thing you have ever heard" is a meaningless statement. In my lifetime..(I am not a YOUNG republican) I am an old one. "dumbest" is their mana and stock in trade. How can anyone filter through the vast catalog of republican dumbness to find THE dumbest..Impossible. You have signed on to be a deck hand on the Titanic. Good luck. I hope you can swim.

Still hanging onto that lie that you are a republican.

LMAO....you have never said anything on this board that shows you to be anything but left of center.

For example.....what are your thoughts on deficit spending? A true republican would want to see legislation IMMEDIATELY that reduces government spending....increasing revenue by 100 billion will mean our deficit spending will still be 1 trillion a year.

What republican would agree to that?

 

[Dragonlady]

Still hanging onto that lie that you are a republican.

LMAO....you have never said anything on this board that shows you to be anything but left of center.

This is the biggest problem for Republicans right now. Everyone has to pass some sort of "purity" test. Republicans are so busy labelling everyone and threatening to punish Republicans at the polls if they get out of line. How dumb is that?

As long as Republicans are fighting amongst themselves and punishing each other, the Democrats having nothing to fear.

For example.....what are your thoughts on deficit spending? A true republican would want to see legislation IMMEDIATELY that reduces government spending....increasing revenue by 100 billion will mean our deficit spending will still be 1 trillion a year.

What republican would agree to that?

A smart one. ANY significant cuts to government spending will stall the recovery right in its tracks. Cuts do need to be made but they need to be made with a scappel not a hachet.

The easiest and most bloated area to be cut is military spending. The US currently spends more than the next 10 biggest military powers in the world combined. China is No. 2 on the list and they spend a little over half of what the US spends. Certainly military spending is coming down because the wars are ending/over, but that also means the the private corporations manufacturing weapons, vehicles and other equipment supplying those wars, are seeing those contracts end and they will be cutting employment. Cutting the numbers of those serving in the military puts those men and women out of work, further adding to the unemployment rolls.

It would be wiser for this year, at least, to wind down the wars which will result in a big cut in defense spending and let the military industrial complex adjust to peacetime levels of defense spending, and let the economy absorb the downturns in employment that result.

The private sector is currently creating jobs but the public sector is shedding them, which is why the overall unemployment rate has been so slow to come down. You would think that this is what conservatives would want, but they continue to believe the fiction that Obama is increasing the size of government.

If the government drastically cuts spending, the short term effect will be to plunge more people out of work which would force the government to INCREASE spending on social programs. Increased spending on social programs is not the CAUSE of poor economic policies, it's the EFFECT of poor economic policies.

Every time the Republicans have shifted wealth upward to the highest income earners, the size of government and spending on social programs for the poorest people in the US, has exploded. Expecting the working poor to continue to bear the brunt of these policies is not only morally wrong, but economically short-sighted.

I loathe deficit spending. Every time I think of what W did with a balanced budget and a strong economy, I weep. The economy has been through some brutal and devasting shocks. It doesn't need more of them, it needs to continue to have some stability for this year, especially.

 

[Barb]

I'm NOT extreme, I'm JUST RIGHT!

Yep, that's what I hear from both ends of the political spectrum. I also hear that from wild-eyed screamers in the streets of the Middle East.

How in the world have so many people become so radicalized?

.

remember in cartoons when you saw this:

you usually saw someone crawling away?

In today's world, they're political bag men. Follow the money - what profits from making us give each other the stink eye?

 

[dblack]

I'm NOT extreme, I'm JUST RIGHT!

Yep, that's what I hear from both ends of the political spectrum. I also hear that from wild-eyed screamers in the streets of the Middle East.

How in the world have so many people become so radicalized?

.

remember in cartoons when you saw this:

you usually saw someone crawling away?

In today's world, they're political bag men. Follow the money - what profits from making us give each other the stink eye?

Also, notice how often they're sitting comfortably in the 'middle' posing as moderates.