Three different ways to look at the 2012 campaign

[Geee]

Human Events:

Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.

 

But I said there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three.

 

The 1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were idealistic, intelligent senators who took positions on issues that made them unacceptable to most voters in years favorable to incumbents.

 

This could happen to Mitt Romney this year. And it might well have happened if some of his primary opponents had won the nomination. But he doesn't seem to be the kind of candidate who would disqualify himself. Chances for this scenario: less than 5 percent.

 

The 1988 scenario: Affluent voters break strongly Republican. Vice President George Bush was 17 points behind Michael Dukakis after the Democratic National Convention. But he came back to win by a 53 to 46 percent margin.

 

One reason is that his "read my lips, no new taxes" promise solidified his support among affluent suburbanites. His margins in suburbs enabled him to carry metro Philadelphia, metro Baltimore, metro Detroit, metro Chicago, metro Los Angeles and the surrounding states.

 

Since then, affluent non-Southern suburbanites have trended Democratic. And big city crime and welfare rolls -- cause for complaint in 1988 -- have declined.

 

Republicans' conservative stands on cultural issues and the increasing Southern influence in the party repelled suburbanites. Barack Obama carried most affluent non-Southern suburbs handily in 2008.

 

But Romney showed particular appeal to this constituency in the primaries. Without big margins in affluent suburbs, he would have lost Michigan, Ohio and Illinois to Rick Santorum.

[Pepper]

@Geee, At the end of the article, Barone's quietly and out of public view scenario appeals to me.

[Draggingtree]

Truth Before Dishonor

Conservatives, Social Media, And Returning The GOP To Its Base

 

Posted by John Hitchcock on 2012/05/14

Legal Insurrection has a recent article mainly concerning how the grass-roots Conservative re-awakening is beginning to show dominance on Twitter to reformulate the Republican Party back to its former ideals, to the dismay of Democrats and Ruling Class inside-the-beltway Republicans alike. (Hello, Dick Lugar.)

After watching the Democrats’ sheer dominance over social media forums during the 2008 Presidential election, it is doubtful that anyone could have predicted the conservative base would supplant them so quickly.

But beginning with the midterm elections of 2010, conservatives have been on a path to claim outright dominance over the medium altogether in a way comparable to that of the Talk Radio industry. This effort is taking its toll not just on the Democrats, but also on entrenched Republicans who, in the eyes of the GOP base, have lost their way.

Conservatives have long been upset with the direction their party was headed. One need look no further than the last 5 Presidential candidates the party has put forward, each one more typical and predictable than the last. It tends to share more in common with a Royal line of succession, than a series of democratically elected candidates.

Social Media was used very effectively by Liberals during the 2008 election cycle. Social Media was instrumental in bringing down the Egyptian government, and very useful in helping to bring down the Libyan government. Social Media bypasses the Ruling Class filtration systems. And the grass-roots Conservative movement has begun working very hard, using Social Media to clean up the Republican Party from the inside out.

It’s not just Twitter. It’s FaceBook. It’s micro-blogs like Truth Before Dishonor, with its couple thousand views a month (17 percent of which are represented by over 150 countries outside the US). And it’s bringing down Ruling Class Republicans and replacing them with actual Conservatives. Read More http://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/conservatives-social-media-and-returning-the-gop-to-its-base/