Tax cuts, abortion, homesekshal conspiracies and military spending just isn't winning it anymore. What's the one or two big ideas that would reinvigorate the party and make them attractive to younger voters? What would really get me looking at the Republican party is tax reform. A serious, thoughtful approach to doing away with the current tax code and the IRS and coming up with a quasi-flat tax ("quasi" in that it'd have progressive vouchers for those not making much money) would do it for me. I don't mean yet another massive tax cut for the rich, but a revenue neutral plan that might be even more progressive than the current system, but without all the hassles and overhead. I'm a big fan of "green" tax breaks, but I'd even be willing to concede these if it meant I could do my personal taxes without an accountant on a single sheet of paper.
There needs to be a party that really believes in limited government. Low taxes are part of it, but the real issue needs to not be making government work better, but reducing the impact of it on our lives. National defense, infrastructure and a safety net for people who REALLY can't take care of themselves.
www.fairtax.org Also, the party needs to focus on more self-reliance and more hard work as a core value rather than the government taking care of everyone. Personally, a lot of the conservative core prinicples kind of annoy me or I don't care about them that much. I want the party to stress individual success through one's own means..not having the government take care of everything or fund bullshit.
The moralist wing of the party and the libertarian/survivalist wing of the party really don't have anything in common. They should get a divorce. barfo
I voted 3rd party. and if they are going to put shills in there, I'm not voting republican. the bible thumper fucks really annoy me to no end. I fucking hate them.
That's what really blows about a two party system. It creates the most absurd bedfellows. Democrats have similar problems with their own social and economic issues. People who are pro-choice or pro-gay rights or pro-affirmative action aren't necessarily pro big-government spending. It's just that it's their only option. You don't notice these internal conflicts on the Dems' side because it's just a mushier party. Republicans are like two loud opinionated people shouting different things at everyone else, and they realize they can be heard more if they shout at the same time. Democrats are like three or four mumblers who are just as opinionated, but rely more on their numbers than any coherent plan. Neither is any way to run a party.
We need a voting system that will break up the two-party system, so there's no feeling or accusations of "wasted votes". And hopefully a grand redistribution of politicians over the course of several years to other parties.
We need a party that will actually reduce the size of the government. Cut spending. Make individuals accountable and responsible for themselves. Hammering those issues is the most important to me. I would love to get rid of party associations. There are way too many Americans that simply vote for the D or the R that comes up next to a name on the news. Once those biases are formed, what the candidate says doesn't really matter much anymore.
Another thing is rebublicans need to get their message across. Democrats are very adept at the sound bite and relating their core values. Republicans do a fairly poor job of that. Granted, some of that is due to poor mainstream media coverage, but there are other ways to get the message across. I also agree with replacing our tax system with a dramatically simpler one. As to an issue, I'd like to see the national debt paid off and our countrry to be solvent. It can be done. It would take 10-15 years, but it's not very hard.
I actually am not sure I would like to see somebody running on this platform. I believe there is such thing as "good debt". So I do not necessarily agree with paying off all of our debt. That said, I am very much in favor of making sure than any debt we have is "good debt", meaning that we are leveraging it well.
How about "we suck, but they suck worse" ? The latter will be proven true before Obama's term is over.
I don't think there is an issue the Rebulicans could have raised that would have overcome the Bush era. Maybe next election . . . in fact don't use all your bullets on a hopeless fight (good they didn't raise this for the latest election). Save them for when you have a chance of winning . . .
I won't go that far, but that's my beef with the GOP. Crazy secularists run the left, and crazy religious freaks run the right.
When you have a two party system, that's always the default option for one party. Yet another flaw. It encourages the party out of power to be only slightly less crappy than the party in power.
