Lets hear it from the gupshup pundits.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
one word: Bush
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
For one, it is highly unusual for any one party to dominate the House, Senate and White House for more than 6 years.
For a second, we have been at war in Iraq for three years.
Not hard to imagine some swing seats, and historically not unusual. The economy, and infact the stock market, actually perform better when Washington is in "Gridlock", and that is probably what we will see in the next two years.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
They need to show that they're willing to take a different approach on handling war on terror. People here desperately want to see a change.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
OG bhaijaan, you sound like the Democrats in 2004 
Just be bold and admit it that Bush screwed you guys over like Clinton did to Monica.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
The system works best when one party does not dominate both the legislative and executive branches....
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
They should cooperate with the forthcoming investigations. The Culture of Corruption that is the GOP will now be held accountable.
Hiding their snears from the camera that form in response to the forthcoming Democratic mandate would also be welcomed.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
they lost the credibility to push the war on Iran... the Demoncrats will pick up the agenda from where the Repubelicons left..
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
No, Historically it is very unusual to go though a period where one party controls both houses of the legislature, and the administration. Obviously with that control, they have the opportunity to reshape the Judicial too. The Republicans took good advantage of the opportunity to promote their agenda, but historical patterns show that the pendulum swings broadly every decade or so. This is not suprising nor abnormal. Two years of Bush as a lame duck will be fine. It is doubtful that the Dems can put forward an electable candidate in '08. Gridlock is good.
I was in DC the first year Reagan was elected, and I was about as liberal a Democratic supporter as you could imagine. Only after Reagan was gone did I appreciate him. At the time I thought he was a dim-witted moron. Sound familiar? The sky did not fall when Reagan came in, as most Dems were running around with their heads cut off. (Thanks to Iran.)
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
Just wait till u see the scenes of people on the street when Bush is leaving office...it is not going to be disappointment. Reagan did nothing by the way.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
OG, are you saying that you predicted this would happen in 2004? And that war, the ethic scandals have nothing to do with it?
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
I actually think that Bush considered the historical trends when he went to war with Iraq. I think ideally he would have waited a year or two, but so seldom does a president have the cover of a dominant majority in both the house and senate that that dictated his timing.
The "Ethics" scandals are business as usual in DC. There is always something going on. When I worked in DC, we had Garry Studds coming out of the closet, and Barney Franks living with a gay escort. What is happening on the fringe never really effects policy.
Everyone knows that Americans have the attention span of fleas. A war of attrition is a proven tactic, because it preys on the weakness of democracy, that is the ability to generate consistant policy over a decade or two. When the war in Iraq went from a quick win to a guerilla war, then politics were bound to come into play.
The reality though is that as we sit here today, the pendulum is moving more towards the center, but that pendulum moves very slowly and predictably. We have simply regressed to the mean, nothing more. It is like a sailboat tacking into the wind. The constant tacking left and right looks dramatic. But if you were to observe the sailboats course from space, it would look very linear. The older you get, the more you realize that in the long view democracy is a self correcting process. I trust any politician about as far as I can throw them. I trust the process implicitly.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
Yeah Democracy rules, good and dandy, I get that.
But that’s not what I was hearing in 2000 and then in 2004. At that time it was all about ‘the Republican Majority’ It was all about how Democrats lost etc. I can bet you, no one was predicting in 2004 when Bush was re-elected that his two years will be like they have been and how the Republicans will loose both house and the senate. So no matter how much we spin the results as being natural, I still believe that the current administrations incompetence has a LOT to do with it. If the Democrats had won back a few seats in the house and a couple in Senate, one can say its because of the natural trend to make everything balanced but losing both house and senate at the same time, :nono3:
And don’t get me started on what the war was supposedly about, what it is really about, what it should be about.
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
exit polls said the reasons people voted they way they did was because of these reasons in this order. this was on CNN
- corruption
- economy
- terrorism
- war on iraq
Re: Why Republicans lost and what they should do next?
Republicans lost because they did not change their tune. It was the wrong policy but also not being the shrewd politicians. I think American people had enough of their policies and world approach and knew that they are going no where with this ‘liberal’ and divide politics that is why they elected Democrats.
Democrats did nothing rather stay silent and make less mistakes, right now it is a real challenge for them to take away and shatter all the wrong perceptions about them from being flip flop on world politics, Iraq and other military matters. If they make a small effort in reaching to America and the world, they will restore their legacy as a mainstream party, which Republicans enjoyed for a long time.