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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[werty892]

First of all, to all you southern hipsters a couple pages back stealing my Cole slaw and NPR, whining about our aggressive driving habits while outside its -10 degrees,how to pronounce Massachusetts.

In other news, LAWMAKERS COMPRIMISE??? AH HA HA HA HA HA HA Friday deadline, we are fucked.

[FearfulJesuit]

Blue Texas 2016?

And, several GOP members have signed a petition in favor of marriage equality, in case you'd thought the party's civil war had gone away, or something. If you're out of a job and a moralless, slimy weasel, these folks will drop you a cool five hundred grand to run against it. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of primary challenges in the midterms, folks.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Blue Texas 2016?

Well, if Rick Perry thinks it is stupid, there has to be something to it.

[FearfulJesuit]

In terms of states flipping, 2016 will be kind of an interesting landmark. Forty years before the next presidential Election Day, the electoral map looked like this, and Carter won:



It'll be interesting to see just how much of the "big flip" of the South to the Republicans after the Dixiecrats switched sides in the late '60s will be permanent. I think the massive amount of polarization recently has blinded us to how much can change in just a few decades. It seems inconceivable that a Republican could win Washington but lose the election itself (Washington hasn't gone red in those circumstances since '76, or at all since '84), or that a Democrat could win Mississippi at all (hasn't happened since '76). But on the time scale of decades rather than years, that's not inconceivable at all.

(Interestingly, Mississippi probably will become a swing state within a couple of decades; it's one of the youngest and blackest states in the Union, demographically, and middle- and upper-class whites keep moving out of the state because it's...Mississippi.)

[Strife26]

I fully predict that Mississippi will continue to become more Mississippish, necessitating increasing amounts of emigrations, to such a point where it's demoted to territory to allow Puerto Rico in as the 50th State.



Now, Texas becoming a swing state is a heck of an interesting idea, I think. I'm not sure if a Blue Texas will be happening anytime soon, but assuming that the Hispanic vote continues to favor the Democratic party (and, let's be honest here, the Reps really don't have the political will to make themselves all that palatable to them), and with Austin as the ever present crunch liberal center, it might end up being a very interesting campaign there. And if the Democrats could actually get Texas to be a blue leaning swing? Hell, that'd basically end the Republican party on the presidential level, I'd say.

[misko27]

The problem is there really isn't any party infrastructure there. The republican party in the state is huge, that's obvious, but there IS no democratic party there, essentially. The strength of the actual party in a state is not usually important, but if you don't even really have one, it's a serious disadvantage.


EDIT: Breaking news, yet another republican Governor has agreed to expand medicaid, making it 8. Chris Christie.

[Descan]

I think that's what this is about, actually. Trying to build up the Texan Democratic party, to take advantage of the demographics.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The problem is there really isn't any party infrastructure there. The republican party in the state is huge, that's obvious, but there IS no democratic party there, essentially.

Sure there is. They win local stuff and occasionally state stuff all the time.

Even so, this article is talking about an initiative to mobilize the Texas Democrats, which would solve this problem.

And yes, Texas going Blue is going to murder the GOP. It's probably the only thing that can shock the Triple-Gs out of their downward spiral, but even that might not do it.

[FearfulJesuit]

The problem is there really isn't any party infrastructure there. The republican party in the state is huge, that's obvious, but there IS no democratic party there, essentially.

Sure there is. They win local stuff and occasionally state stuff all the time.

Even so, this article is talking about an initiative to mobilize the Texas Democrats, which would solve this problem.

And yes, Texas going Blue is going to murder the GOP. It's probably the only thing that can shock the Triple-Gs out of their downward spiral, but even that might not do it.

D'you think they'll be able to get the gay and scary brown people paranoia out of their system by '16?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Maybe. It'll take a massive un-Reganization for that to happen. There are elements in the GOP trying to do this, but their own rhetoric is tying them down now.

[FearfulJesuit]

Maybe. It'll take a massive un-Reganization for that to happen. There are elements in the GOP trying to do this, but their own rhetoric is tying them down now.

I think what the problem is is that nobody can actually offer any coherent package to move away from the Reagan coalition. On any given position, somebody is pushing to move away from it, but they've got a foot stuck in the status quo. So, you get someone like Bobby Jindal calling for a mild rethink of the party's position on corporate policy, but who is opposed to same-sex marriage. The only potential messiah figure I can see at the moment is Jon Huntsman, but there's just one problem: his own party hate his guts (precisely for this reason: he knows exactly why and where they're wrong). He also probably can't cultivate the cult of personality that Reagan could.

[GreatJustice]

Texas is becoming bluer, but it isn't becoming bluer quite that fast. Maybe in 2020 or 2024 if non-Tejano Hispanics continue to favour Democrats it'll be open to Democrats, but not in 2016. Plus, the GOP is very much capable of completely changing, and as has already been said, over the course of decades parties can completely change or else the political landscape can completely change. For example, at one point the most progressive parts of the US were in the midwest, and the conservatives were in the northeast.

Anyway, if political trends continue as they are now, I'd guess the map of the future will look something like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

]

Assuming a "close" election. The Midwest has been trending Republican for a while, while the northeast is certainly open to Republicans under certain situations as well. Grey states are "swing", at least in a very close election.

[FearfulJesuit]

That map makes even more nonsense with the colors as they are usually interpreted than flipped, so I am going to assume blue means Republican and red Democrat.

Just...What world could possibly come to pass where Minnesota votes Republican consistently, Illinois and Massachussetts are swing states, and Louisiana is a solid Democrat stronghold? I mean...It's certainly possible and probable for the strongholds and swing states to realign in the coming decades, and most of those individual states could I suppose end up the way they are shown in some possibility, but what on earth could possibly happen in Washington that that collective map is the result? What are you on?

[Max White]

Isn't California pretty much the banner boy for your Democrats?

[Sirus]

Not as often as I'd like

But I sure can't see California flipping to the Republicans in 3 years.