Comments

1
I heartily suggest they continue down this path.
2
Jack Kemp = Failed VP Candidate
Paul Ryan = Failed VP Candidate

Sounds like a fitting match!!
3
Rubio: “The answer is not to make rich people poorer. The answer is to make poor people richer."

*whispers to Rubio*

Psst... if you make poor people richer, then by definition, you're making rich people poorer.
4
90% of Latinos in the US hate Cubans, specifically Republican Cubans. The GOP is in for a shock if Rubio is their front man on this topic. But of course, he's not -- the GOP front man, as far as most people are concerned, is Joe Arpaio. Problem.
5
More hated than Sarah Palin?
6
Since 1970 we've been unable, as a country, to make rich people richer and poor people richer simultaneously. If the GOP has a legitimate plan to pull that off, I'd consider it. But if they trot out the policies of the last 40 years, which have made the rich richer at the expense ( or being generous, just stagnating the wages of) the middle/working classes, then they should just stop talking.
7
The young guns have all the same ideas as the old guard.
8
Palin, Edwards, Lieberman, Kemp, Quayle, Bentsen, Ferraro...being a VP candidate on a losing ticket pretty much assures future political impotence. I expect Paul Ryan to continue the trend.
9
They can't back away from tax cuts for the rich, because that is the party's actual platform. So they have no choice but to keep tinkering with the fairy tale that sells it.
10
Nobody hated Dan Quayle -- we just laughed at him. He was too dumb to hate.
11
I want to see more than just "fair" taxes. What about reparations?
12
@ 5, yes. There were polls taken. Palin may be down there now, but she wasn't in 2008.

@ 8, it wasn't being a failed VP candidate that ended Edwards' career. Remember, he was actually up there with Obama and HRC in the early stages of the Democratic nomination process. Also, Bentson was old and still got to be an important senator. Same with Lieberman, who was a major power in the Senate during most of the Bush years and who won re-election in 2006 after he lost the primary. So at least safely entrenched senators can continue to have a decent career if they lose.
13
Top Republicans tell us Ryan tried to push his ideas for a more creative “war on poverty” during the presidential campaign but was muzzled by nervous Nellies at Mitt Romney’s Boston headquarters who didn’t see an immediate political payoff. So Ryan seethed when the “47 percent” tape emerged, convinced that the impact was worse because the campaign had no record on issues relating to inclusion or poverty, exacerbating the out-of-touch image that the hidden camera cemented.


What an idiot.
14
Sorry: if a billionaire makes a few million less, the adjective "poorer" does not apply.
15
So Republicans want 100% of the Bush tax cut to survive while Democrats want 98% of the Bush tax cut to survive. Doesn't sound like a whole lot to sell.
16
I thought that Lieberman was the most hated VP candidate since Dan Quayle.
17
@3 See, that's the difference between conservative and liberal economics.

According to the conservatives if you grow the economy fast enough then rich people can be ridiculously rich and poor people can have enough that they won't die in the street(which is good enough because poor people are poor because they aren't virtuous enough). The thing is that conservatives have said this since at least Reagan.

According to liberal economists, otoh, no matter how fast you grow the pie capitalism naturally trends towards concentration of wealth. Rich people get richer and poor people get more poor.
18
Can we stop waging "war" on everything? This "war" on poverty has --just looking at the statistics over the last 40 years-- apparently enriched the wealthy and done nothing for anyone else. Not a very promising track record.

Maybe we should try fighting Eurasia instead.
19
@17 - I think your second paragraph is essentially correct, except that it's not capitalism that inexorably concentrates wealth, capitalism is the philosophy and practice of positive-interest currency. But in fact it is the mechanics of the currency itself that tends towards concentration of wealth. If you had a currency with negative-interest, or even "mutual credit"/no interest... money-wealth would not concentrate.
20
@19,

So how does that explain concentration of wealth in societies that used gold coins? And societies that outlawed usury?
21
Regrettably, I think that while the American people might be said in aggregate to be sick of hearing it, it is in fact probably only a slim majority who are sick of hearing it. Altogether too many Americans for comfort believe in Biblical creation, Reaganomics, and hell, probably astrology for good measure.
22
This is my proposed strategy for Republicans.

The best line of Mitt Romney's, one that should have been his major theme was "Republicans are the party for people who want to get rich".

If the Republicans could do that, for even a significant portion of Obama voters who really just want to climb the wealth and status ladder -- not merely get education credit voucher, we could easily retake majority status.
23
You were actually on to something until your last sentence there, bailo, but I think you overestimate the proportion of straight-up psychopaths in the electorate. Things would probably go easier on the GOP in a lot of ways if they were honest, but "Come all ye greedy fuckers" isn't going to net 50.1% of the vote.

Now, what probably would appeal strongly enough to the average, mostly decent but flawed individual's greed is if they announced a lottery in which one lucky Republican voter would win a billion dollars. That'd be a fucking landslide, because people are terrible at math.
24
#23

Take all the wanting to be upwardly mobile families in Renton, Kent, Auburn.

Give them a combination of tax breaks, business incentives, education grants, but also real stuff, like contracts, jobs, consultancies...the real meat of what the BigWigs get, but maybe on a reduced basis. Start awarding $50,000 contacts, buy more from small business.

Even if we could get 10% of the people onto the wealth track we'd get a majority.
25
@24, so you're going to hand out, what, 30 million $50,000 government contracts?

For what? To whom?

And with whose $1.5 trillion?

And... have you noticed that what you're describing is profoundly socialist?
26
Once again, the GOP convinces themselves that all Americans care about is money. I'm amazed that this tactic still works. I would think that the obvious patronizing inherent in "We're the party of the haves, and soon-to-haves" would be offensive in its obviousness, but then some people will convince themselves of anything, if the lie is comforting enough.
27
"improve socially"?
28
As a small business owner, who talks to other business owners. Most of the guys in Seattle who lean republican just want a reduction of paperwork. I do too. But I also have no qualms with my tax rate and I know it's important to the social environment that lets my business thrive.
The DNC needs to address our tax code and simplify it in a way that's more fair and easy enough that people aren't scared to start a business.
The GOP have been running on the fear that our current system is just to soak the little guy and then creates a narrative and twists it into a structure that benefits the rich.
The way the GOP have used social issues to get themselves in a corner, will allow them over time to come back with 'new ideas' to simplify the tax code. Which we all know what that means... Cato, kiss your SS goodbye.

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