Conversations / Live Q&A

You are not alone.  This is where the GOP faces a fundamental conflict between appealing to moderate swing voters like yourself and energizing its conservative base.  But in the primaries, the base carries the day.

I doubt if the Republican Party will die out any time soon.  In our two-party system, the party out of power can count on the voters getting disenchanted with the governing (presidential) party sooner or later.  I also expect the GOP eventually to adapt to a changing political environment including a rising minority vote, but that may take some time.

Over the past 30-40 years the GOP have become an increasingly conservative party.  Reagan was actually one of the most important leaders pushing for this shift, although the party has gone even further to the right since his time.  The goal, largely successful, was to appeal to white conservative voters in the South and elsewhere who had remained loyal to the Democrats through the 1960s and 1970s.

There are differences of emphasis and style, but you are correct that there is little difference on substantive issues in today's GOP.  I think that's largely a reflection of the growing conservatism of the party's electoral base.

There is no doubt that attempts to appeal to social conservatives alienate some moderate voters who might otherwise consider supporting the GOP.  But religious conservatives are now a key part of the GOP coalition and one not easily ignored by the party's candidates.

You make a valid point--the 1992 Democratic race is a great example of this phenomenon.  However, there are times when a party ends up with a nominee who has difficulty uniting all factions within the party and appealing beyond the base and this could end up being such an election, depending on who wins the nomination and how.

It is definitely a risk that you run by relying on primaries and caucuses to nominate the candidate, but what's the alternative?  I don't think anyone wants to bring back the old days when a closed group of party bosses and insiders chose the nominees.  And that didn't always work very well either.

They will try to appeal to Hispanics with conservative views on major issues, especially social issues, but I don't think this approach will be very successful as long as the party is viewed as hostile to Hispanic concerns about immigration.  And Hispanics also tend to be liberal on issues of government spending so the Tea Party influence on the GOP is making it difficult for the party to reach out to Hispanics.

There are going to be tensions within each coalition due to budget pressures and conflict between groups with different priorities.  Some shifts may take place but I expect both coalitions to hold together pretty well for the next few election cycles because the differences between the parties are so much greater than the differences within each party.

I don't think Lugar has ever run for president.  He's  up for reelection to the Senate this year, though, and is likely to face a strong challenge from a Tea Party candidate in the GOP primary.

There was never a real chance that he would be the nominee, let alone win the presidency.  This was a publicity stunt pure and simple.

We'll see what happens in next year's presidential and congressional elections.  Certainly some of the positions advocated by Tea Party candidates and office-holders could hurt the GOP in the general elections but the outcome will also depend on the state of the economy and other factors.

Nice extended metaphor.  There's definitely a lot of nervousness within the GOP right now over the Ryan plan and especially the proposed changes to Medicare.  I think we're likely to see more Republican candidates in marginal states and districts trying to distance themselves from it.

The GOP base will almost certainly rally around the eventual nominee because of their intense dislike of Obama.  The problem is that a fringe nominee would also unify the Democratic base and pull a majority of swing voters into the Democratic camp.

I can't speak to the issue of what can be done about the Israeli soldier but I doubt that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a major issue in the U.S. elections unless there is a major crisis in the region.

Well in 2008 the contest between Obama and Clinton went down to the final primaries and caucuses.  That could happen again next year although the GOP's winner-take-all rules make it less likely. 

Proposals to cut government spending are popular until the discussion gets down to which programs are going to be slashed and then support diminishes drastically, especially when it comes to the big entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.  As for Ron Paul, he's not going anywhere.  He has a small, dedicated following and can raise some money but he won't win many delegates and he'd be an absolutely disastrous general election candidate.

He's made it pretty clear that he's not interested in running this year.  Like some others, he'll wait for 2016 when there will be an open seat.  He'd be appealing to the same voters as Daniels.

He won't do that either--would conflict with his TV show.  Hopefully he'll stop getting covered by the media now that it's clear that he was never serious about running.  One can hope anyway.