Jason Rees wrote:
Also, we tried moderate candidates twice now. Fool them once, shame on you, and so forth... I don't think you're going to get another moderate to pull the football away from at the last second again... no, it wasn't moderates that 'sat out.' It was the base. Romney didn't inspire the base, and his ground game was jacked up by experimental, untested software. Obama tended his base very well, and his ground game was superb.
No, no, a hundred times no. You won't see a 'moderate' candidate next time 'because he's the only one who can win.' Sorry. Been down that road twice now, and that car just won't drive. Lucy won't be holding the ball next time.
Looks like
Republican leaders disagree with your assessment Jason. Emphasis added is mine.
Top Republicans say Romney didn't offer specifics
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press
November 15, 2012
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Top Republicans meeting for the first time since Election Day say the party lost its bid to unseat President Barack Obama because nominee Mitt Romney did not respond to criticism strongly enough or outline a specific agenda with a broad appeal.
In conversations at the Republican Governors Association confab in Las Vegas, a half dozen party leaders predicted the GOP will lose again if it keeps running the same playbook based on platitudes in place of detailed policies. Instead, they asserted, the party needs to learn the lessons from its loss, respect voters' savvy and put forward an agenda that appeals beyond the white, male voters who are its base.
"We need to acknowledge the fact that we got beat," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in an interview. "We clearly got beat and we need to recognize that."
Little more than a week after Romney came up short in his presidential bid, the party elders were looking at his errors and peering ahead to 2016's race. Some of the contenders eying a White House run of their own were on hand and quietly considering their chances. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie scheduled a private meeting on the sidelines with Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor who is widely seen as one of the GOP's sharpest political operatives.
"We need to have a brutal, brutally honest assessment of everything we did," Barbour said. "We need to take everything apart ... and determine what we did that worked and what we did that didn't work."
Other potential White House contenders such as Jindal, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker were outlining a vision for the party in coming elections.
"We need to figure out what we did right and what we did wrong, how we can improve our tone, our message, our technology, our turnout — all the things that are required to win elections," McDonnell said. "We are disappointed, but we are not discouraged."
With polls in hand and shifting demographic trends in mind, these Republicans are looking at how best to position the party to make inroads with growing numbers of Hispanic, black and young voters who overwhelmingly voted Democratic last week.
The rest of the article details their perception about how Obama successfully portrayed Romney in a certain light and what they see as the latter's ineffective response in countering that.
That they are finally acknowledging these realities is a good sign for the party in my view. Let's face it, a party that can only capture the declining rural and small-town vote is doomed to 3rd party status in the long run, the party has to start appealing to the diversity of cities if it is to survive.
Obama vs Romney vote by settlement sector, with each sector's percentage of the total vote at the left:
The country was 74% urban when Reagan was first elected in 1980, 79% urban when Bush Jr was first elected in 2000, and 81% urban in 2010, and that growth trend is expected to continue. The Republican Party is doomed to lose the geodemographic war if it does not change it's platform.
And then there is
Republicans are reconsidering their stance on immigration reform following the presidential election, in which 71 percent of Latinos voted for President Obama. The Census Bureau estimated there were more than 10.8 million undocumented immigrants living in the country in 2010, and more than half of those were Mexican. The push for reform is in part being driven by the farm lobby, many of whose members rely on immigrant workers.
American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman, right, said immigration-reform talks between congressional leaders and the Obama administration could provide a "'crack in the window of opportunity' for ag worker programs and other reforms the farm lobby wants," Agri-Pulse reports. The AFBF opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants, but supports giving some undocumented people who've worked in agriculture an avenue toward legal status. It also wants Congress to improve the federal H-2A visa program for foreign workers, heavily used by agriculture.
Republican leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, are taking note of the farm lobby's call to action, and of the fact that Hispanics are the fastest-growing minority in the U.S. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he and Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., are trying to continue a compromise on immigration reform, noting the importance of a strong guest-worker program. Graham said the immigration debate within the Republican Party has alienated Hispanic voters "because of tone and rhetoric," and it's "an odd formula for a party to adopt," since the party is losing votes every election cycle because of it. "It has to stop. It’s one thing to shoot yourself in the foot; just don’t reload the gun," Graham said.
So yes Jason, we may see a
more moderate candidate from the Republican Party in 2016, unless they forget these lessons in the next three years. There are hints in these quotes that we may even start seeing some multi-dimensionality from the Republican Party platform, to tie in part of Bill's and my discussion.
Best quote of the day from these: "It’s one thing to shoot yourself in the foot; just don’t reload the gun"
, and so he didn't go to gaol 
.............anyways what I see is that the US is so badly in debt that there is no way that she can get out of it, and at sometime there must be some kind of collapse,that is not unthinkable just look at the former USSR.personnally I bought some gold ( admittedly for other reasons as well which I won't go into).but it has no counter party risk, it can't be printed out of existance and I can keep it in my hand....I am seriously concerned about the way things are panning out. Germany has asked for her Gold, kept in the US to be returned ( could be a couple of reasons for that,she doesn't trust the Fed, or she is thinking about exiting the Euro and wants a gold backed currency) also the Chinese and Indians are also buying lots of gols......as are all the central banks.Me,I've got a little, and wonder if I should buy a lot more , any thoughts gentlemen?
