On honeymoon in Vegas, Republican governors seek couples counseling with America

[RobinStarwing]

Source because I can't have enough over their loss.

LAS VEGAS—Throughout history, the desert has been a place for personal reflection and self-discovery, where holy men retreat to seek insights into life's deepest questions.
For example, if you're a Republican in 2012, why your party couldn't get its act together and beat President Barack Obama.
America's Republican governors made a pilgrimage here this week in search of answers. Why did their party lose a contest they were told would be a cakewalk? For two days at the Encore resort and casino, the members of the Republican Governors Association met to lick their postelection wounds and mull over what went wrong. By week's end, there seemed to be more questions than answers: Was it Mitt Romney's fault? Are the Republican Party's ideas outdated? Why did Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock talk about rape so much? What can we do to make minorities like us more? Where's the craps table?

To help guide the beleaguered Republicans, there was no shortage of party brainpower on hand. In attendance was former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the wise grandfather figure who offered comfort to the afflicted, but not without forcing everyone to swallow a bitter pill first. "We've got to give our political organizational activity a very serious proctology exam," Barbour told the governors Wednesday. (Perhaps the pill was a bit too much to take orally.)

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, the outgoing leader of the association, beamed like a proud father passing on his legacy to a golden son, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who became the group's chairman on Thursday. Under McDonnell's leadership, the number of Republican governors swelled to 30, making the office one of the few bright lights of an election in which Democrats dominated almost everywhere else.

Jindal, who will lead the organization until New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie takes over in two years, took on an active campaign to assert his place as a national party leader. One of the most visible governors during the confab, he led discussion sessions about the election, blasted Romney for the way he ran his presidential campaign, and outlined his vision for the future to anyone who would listen.

Not playing a major public role this year was Christie, a governor burdened by the devastating hurricane that hit his state just two weeks ago. Flanked on all sides by an entourage of bodyguards, Christie walked the halls of the hotel unmolested by reporters. Looking exhausted from sleepless nights handling the relief effort, Christie was in no mood to talk. When one reporter tried to ask him a question after he said he wouldn't answer any, Christie glared at him with tired eyes and boomed, "What part of 'I'm not taking any questions' don't you understand?" Word spread, and few dared ask him anything after that.

During the conference, the governors engaged in an ongoing discussion about the party's need to reach "new constituencies." (Also known as "minorities.") Republicans have long struggled to compete for votes from Hispanic and black voters, but the election was particularly brutal this year on the party of Lincoln. Obama was able to extend his lead among all minority groups. To win in the next cycle, Republicans must recoup the losses. Problem is, they don't seem quite sure how to make this happen.

"We've got to do a much better job of reaching out to the minority community," Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said in an interview near the end of the conference, echoing a line heard dozens of times in the preceding two days. "Democrats ran a very effective campaign and they did a very effective job motivating interest groups and different people in their base they needed to get out."

Republicans who examined exit poll data after the election were shocked at how much voting demographics had changed. They could hardly believe that Romney won a majority of independent voters but somehow managed to lose the election. The makeup of the nation is changing fast, they found, and the old rule that a candidate just needs to win independents no longer applies.
"There's too many damn Democrats out there," Republican pollster Glen Bolger complained.

The most astute proposal came from New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Latina Republican with a record of bringing traditionally Democratic voters into the fold. In 2010, she ran as a conservative in a state where a majority of voters have supported a Republican presidential candidate only once in the past 20 years. She won by more than 6 percentage points.

"Republicans need to stop making assumptions, and they need to start talking to younger people, people of color, and ask them—not talk to them—ask them, 'What is it that we can do better? How do we earn your vote?'"

Martinez said. "We have to start electing people who look like their communities all the way from city council to county commissioners to county clerks all the way through the state and up into national politics."

Of course, reaching minority voters wasn't the only problem the Republican governors felt the party needed to deal with. Many believed that the party has propped up some embarrassingly bad candidates for Congress in recent years, a series of mistakes that helped bolster the Democratic minority in the House and may have cost the Republicans a majority in the Senate. Two Senate candidates this election, Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri, lost easily winnable elections in part because they couldn't explain their opposition to abortion in a way that didn't turn off swaths of voters.
"We ought to have some rule where if you start talking about 'legitimate rape,' you're out," Bolger said.

If pressed on social issues, they were told to find a way to pivot back to the economy whenever possible. During a meeting Wednesday, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert warned that he saw the country turning "center-left" on issues like gay marriage, and asked what Republicans could do to survive the shift without violating their principles. The answer: If you must discuss it, stand by your beliefs, but please, for the good of the party, try not to sound like a jerk.

"You can articulate your opposition for example to same-sex marriage," advised Bill Bennett, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan. "But you can do it in a dignified way, in the right language, in a forceful way that shows you're not a bigot or intolerant."

While much of the conference focused on how to bounce back, this was, after all, the gathering for Republican winners, not losers. The governors were optimistic about what they can accomplish at the state level, even if the feds in Washington can't balance a budget or name a post office without some bickering.

"There is a brand, there is a set of ideas that Republican governors are offering that stands in fairly stark contrast to what Washington is offering," McDonnell said Thursday. "Washington is broken."

Did it ever occur to them they are the broken ones?

Also, if how you argue being against gay marriage and birth control is based in any part on religious doctrine, you are a bigot in my book.

But yeah, I like this is the winners conference and they are trying to figure out what went wrong. How about instead of blaming just Romney and a few, realize that you all share the blame with propping up asshole mysognists and focusing on social issues rather then your jobs.

[Sithdarth]

Also, if how you argue being against gay marriage and birth control is based in any part on religious doctrine, you are a bigot in my book.

Sorry but no it doesn't matter one bit what your argument is based on at all. Any argument against gay marriage and birth control is bigoted. There is literally no way to make those arguments that isn't indicative of bigotry. Republican's need to figure this out pretty darn quick because changing the subject is just going to make them look even more shifty and untrustworthy and certainly isn't going to win elections.

Beyond that, when it becomes clear that the opposing party as so much more declared supporters that winning the independent vote isn't enough it is a sign that your political party is dead, or rapidly declining. At some point you just have to accept that you are not the majority and get out of the way of progress.

[Magus]

WAIT I HAVE ARGUMENTS

Birth control is too important to allow government interference in it.

Gay marriage is just setting gays up for the inevitable disappointment that has faced straight people for centuries.

MAGUS 2016

EDIT: What Republicans need to realize is that 2010 was a hallmark year for Republicans because it was an off-year combined with the tea party movement, a movement which would have failed in 2008 or this year. The only explanation for why my state has a Republican governor yet went for Obama in this year's election is that people who voted in 2008 didn't vote in 2010 and then voted again in 2012.

People need to learn that off-year elections (and primaries, too) matter. Not just presidential elections.

[RobinStarwing]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

Sorry but no it doesn't matter one bit what your argument is based on at all. Any argument against gay marriage and birth control is bigoted. There is literally no way to make those arguments that isn't indicative of bigotry. Republican's need to figure this out pretty darn quick because changing the subject is just going to make them look even more shifty and untrustworthy and certainly isn't going to win elections.

Beyond that, when it becomes clear that the opposing party as so much more declared supporters that winning the independent vote isn't enough it is a sign that your political party is dead, or rapidly declining. At some point you just have to accept that you are not the majority and get out of the way of progress.

Well duh. It's just that all the arguments against Gay Marriage and Birth Control stem mostly from religion and Patriarchal Religion at that.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Magus

Gay marriage is just setting gays up for the inevitable disappointment that has faced straight people for centuries.

I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

[Hatake Kakashi]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

On topic: Of course the voting demographic has changed. When a political party begins throwing the worst possible candidates with the worst possible ideas and no filter between pre-brain and mouth out for us to consider as prospects for a public office, is it any wonder the general public begins to shy away from them? I set fire to my republican card when I heard they wanted to ban college student voting due to the tendencies of college students to vote Democrat.

I might want to mention here that if you must prevent people from voting because they don't like your ideas, your ideas probably suck.

This past election season has only proven to me that the GOP doesn't learn a damn thing from its mistakes, and that any reversion to even an illusion that they are, as a whole, respectable people is a long way off.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Professor Smarmiarty

I really wish people would stop making variations of this joke. Marriage is a patently evil institution and people all being like "Ohhoho we are going to pretend its bad for silly reasons" just takes away from the legitimate problems with it.

You're just mad you didn't get to make the joke first.

[Kim]

Originally Posted by Hatake Kakashi

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

Well, it did straight-up start off as nothing more than a contract by which women were traded like property.

[pochercoaster]

Originally Posted by Hatake Kakashi

As I am to be married in a little over two years from now, I'm rather curious about the reasoning that marriage is evil.

Ever heard of arranged marriages and child marriages?

[Hatake Kakashi]

Originally Posted by Kim

Well, it did straight-up start off as nothing more than a contract by which women were traded like property.

I'll give you that. And in some cases, it's still very much like that today in both the "modern" and "third-world" (fuck, I hate using those terms) countries. That aside, I tend to think whether or not a marriage represents an evil institution would largely be dependent upon the individual parties involved. Those of us not interested in human enslavement, for example, tend to view our future spouses as equals, or in my case, our "how the hell did I get so lucky?!" life partners. I've made it a point to never allow one day to pass without finding some way to let my bride to be know that I love her more than life itself. The best part about it is that she reciprocates my actions and thoughts. When you have people who do their absolute best to put their spouses first, it is a blessed marriage regardless of genders involved.