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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

[SalmonGod]

Just makes it easier for corporations to buy legislation.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As much as I disagree with the two party system and the Republican party I'm not sure if I like the idea of such a blue America. I do have an equally strong aversion towards the Democratic Party and would most sincerely hope that in the event of a blue America (as these swing states mean nothing is "safe" for Republicans) things start to break up and we see different political parties getting into either state or federal government.

The last thing I want (besides another Republican victory) is a large, all or 90% blue USA led by Hillary Clinton where substantial opposition is hard to find and apathy runs rampant.

It's unlikely to reach that point. Assuming even that the Republican Party doesn't pull out of its nosedive, there will start to be instability around the point where they're perpetually stuck as a minority party. The Democrat's constituents will start demanding meaningful legislation pretty quickly once it becomes clear that the GOP isn't going to be able to do anything about it. If the Supreme Court is stacked full of liberals we'll start seeing decent electoral reform. From there on, the various factions of the Democratic Party are going to vie for power as the GOP either makes a comeback or dies.

And then, in the latter case, Jill Stein and Rockey Anderson will watch them fight from beneath their carbon-neutral headquarters. They will watch, and....await the future...

[Andrew425]

I think people have a general aversion to having one party stay in power for too long. Moderates and the like would likely switch over after a few terms of straight Democratic leadership.

All in all the Republicans have always had a better message that has resonated with people. The only reason they are loosing is because they've been acting stupid for the past 5 years

[misko27]

The thing with the "parties as political bloc of varied interests" situation means they don't stand up well if given control over the government with little opposition: They start splitting to their seams over all the different things they want, and eventually they collapse under their own weight or start shedding interest groups which form separate parties and die and cost them votes; either way letting the other party return to grace, having shed fat in the form of unpopular policies, politicians, or other undesirable traits and ready to fight the good fight. This takes the form of anywhere from being mildly preferred to a party on the verge of total control, but still eventually returning to equilibrium.

It's happened before. A lot. In both directions. In a short term the system is unstable, but from a long view it eventually works out evenly. Of course, if MSH is right and electoral reform occurs under a Democratic majority (which is entirely possible depending on how long and how complete their control is; the republicans are losing a serious demographics war right now, and democrats pass a lot of cool things when they have total power) then no one can predict what will happen, but likely the end of American politics as we know it (for better or for worse).

Also, if it becomes 90% blue, what's to stop them actually trying to keep the populace from voting for the other party?

They control the vast majority, they can screw over the people more often.

I'm not sure if they'd really become a totalitarian state like that, that's a bit far fetched, but I do fear a system where the Democrats have that much power. Them "screwing people over" isn't all that far fetched, especially if you end up with someone like Hillary who's a bit too authoritarian for my liking.

I'm not saying they go all-out insane, but they could afford to start passing unpopular legislation because it benefits themselves.

greatorder, If they somehow managed a 90%, combining the will of the conservatives, the libertarians, the liberals, the radicals, the everything, (bearing in mind 20% still believes Obama is a muslim, and about half the self-declared democrats positively view socialism) into a single party, then maybe they should be allowed to pass whatever the hell they like. I think that's a mandate of the people If I've ever seen one. The 10% of the population is almost certainly the extreme segment. Any dictatorship with steady 90% support is a dictatorship of the people (hah, I joke).

But 90% isn't even necessary, 60% is. With that, a so-called "super majority", Congress can pass whatever it wants and there is no way the minority can really stop it. There have been three of these in the modern era, and one of these was in 2009, which should give you some insight into how long they last. That particular congress passed The Affordable Care Act, actually, which should also let you know about what happens when they pass unpopular legislation (the earliest one passed the Voting rights act, Medicaid/care, Freedom of Information Act, and things of that nature; the 95th was Carter, which speaks for itself (although he passed the Clean Water Act, which is a plus)). You know, they say the majority and opposition party in American politics are like the sun and moon: the moon "shines by the light of the other". Well they do that pretty damn well.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, as unstable as American politics seem in the narrow view when you pull back a bit it's actually quite stable. If the Republican party ruptures then something else will simply take its place and people will realign themselves in such a way that balance is restored. After all, a two party system by its very nature is always going to have parties that contain people with fairly different viewpoints that only agree one a few things. If one party gets too powerful then the internal politics of that party start to fracture as the various groups within it start pressing more for the things they care about and votes on laws become less 'Democrat or Republican' and more 'Stance X vs Stance Y' on a given issue.

[GreatJustice]

Reports of the Republican Party's death have been greatly exaggerated. The party of Reagan and Bush probably isn't coming back, but the Republican Party as a whole isn't quite so doomed as some would paint them to be. At any rate, right now they don't need to do much of anything except sit back and establish that they don't like most of what Obama does, since the Democrats have done a great job shooting themselves in the foot with terrible implementation of the ACA and so on. The Republican platform needs to change a fair bit to work in the 21st century, but the demographic advantages of the Democrats still require that they don't royally screw things up when they're running things.

[Descan]

What terrible implementation? The website? Something else?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It all depends on how the ACA goes once it actually starts. At the moment, the problems with the implementation have been limited to:

-Market Shock (unavoidable, definitely going to reverse)
-The Website.

If the ACA falls flat the Republicans will have a chance of a 2014 resurgence and 2016 Presidency. If it works, they have a smaller chance of taking the Senate in 2014, but will not get the 2016 Presidency. If it ends up on the level of Medicare and Social Security, RIP GOP for the next two elections at least.

[GlyphGryph]

The Republicans have basically one strategy and only one strategy, which they have been pursuing full-stop.

It has two parts:
A) Convince people they can't trust the government, esp. Obama, by insuring that government is not working, esp. parts that were brought into being by Obama. This means on the fence people might vote anti-gov Republican, or might just stay home, because they are apathetic or have become anti-government (which works well for the party that isn't in power).
B) Convince their base that they are a persecuted minority, and that supporting your "team" against the terrible other side that wants to oppress and persecute them is the only option, no matter what your "team" does. This means the base doesn't stay home, because they are afraid.

To a certain extent, this strategy is working.

[alway]

The Republicans have basically one strategy and only one strategy, which they have been pursuing full-stop.

It has two parts:
A) Convince people they can't trust the government, esp. Obama, by insuring that government is not working, esp. parts that were brought into being by Obama. This means on the fence people might vote anti-gov Republican, or might just stay home, because they are apathetic or have become anti-government (which works well for the party that isn't in power).
B) Convince their base that they are a persecuted minority, and that supporting your "team" against the terrible other side that wants to oppress and persecute them is the only option, no matter what your "team" does. This means the base doesn't stay home, because they are afraid.

To a certain extent, this strategy is working.

Also redistricting to ensure they keep the House even if the entire party sprouts horns, wings, turn red, and go around prodding people with pitchforks while laughing maniacally.

[RedKing]

All in all the Republicans have always had a better message that has resonated with people. The only reason they are loosing is because they've been acting stupid for the past 5 33 years

ftfy

[MetalSlimeHunt]

All in all the Republicans have always had a better message that has resonated with people. The only reason they are loosing is because they've been acting stupid for the past 5 33 41 years.

ftfy

Who started the crisis of faith in the Republicans that resulted in Reagantopia? Nixon! Who broke into his opponent's party headquarters when he was certain to beat him anyway, and wouldn't have learned anything very useful from doing it? Nixon! Who got the only truly unelected President in history in the White House? Nixon! Who killed any chance of the liberal Republicans surviving as a faction? Nixon!

[RedKing]

Yeah, but you can't say the party as a whole was crazy just because of Nixon.

IMHO, it was when they made the Faustian marriage of the religious right and the fiscal conservatives (circa 1980) that the GOP started the long, shadowy descent to their eventual landing at Crazytown International Airport.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, but I'd mark him as a decently defined starting point for crazy. If Reagan's election was the Republican Party claiming the Damned Blade of The All-Devourer while laughing manically and eclipsing the sun with it as a show of power, Nixon's election was them sitting up at night staring in desire at it suspended in containment, looking around nervously to make sure everybody else is still sleeping. 

[Lord Shonus]

Yeah, but you can't say the party as a whole was crazy just because of Nixon.

IMHO, it was when they made the Faustian marriage of the religious right and the fiscal conservatives (circa 1980) that the GOP started the long, shadowy descent to their eventual landing at Crazytown International Airport.

It was more the post-WWII anticommunist faction, in my opinion. Facing the twin specters of FDR, ender of the Depression and visionary savior of democracy; and Truman, who finished the war against Germany, crushed the hated Japanese Empire, and made a stand in Korea against the Evil Empire; the Republican party really had no chance. They could count on the unbeatable Eisenhower (who probably could have won if he'd been a card-carrying representative of the Communist party) for one election, probably two; but after that they'd need a platform that could stand up. So they began a crusade against the windmill of American Communism, which had never really been a powerful force in the US thanks to labor unions actively distancing themselves from the international movement. Armed with proof (from captured German intelligence documents) that the prewar peace parties had been heavily infiltrated (or in many cases started by Soviet agents (this proof came from German agents that were also infiltrating and starting peace movements in the West) and flimsy allegations of continuing infiltration, the GOP launched an all-out attack on Truman as being soft on Communism. "Proof" of this ranged from firing MacArthur (who nearly lost Korea by never expecting either the initial invasion or the entry of China into the war, although to be fair to the man more recent information suggests that this was primarily his staff officers failure) to his use of the atom bomb on Japan (in this revisionist account, Truman knew damn well that Japan was about to surrender anyway, and used the bomb in a clumsy attempt to either intimidate or warn the Reds.  This theory is generally made up out of nothing. All the accounts of the time suggest that Truman genuinely believed that using the bomb was the only alternative to a full-scale invasion that, based on previous invasions of Japanese territory, would result in up to a million American casualties and possibly result in the extinction of the Japanese populace through hopeless assaults and mass suicide. There is plenty of room to argue that he was incorrect in this belief, and even more room to debate the use of the weapon on moral grounds, but, much like the Pearl Harbor conspiracy theories, there is no evidence to support the revisionist claims.) His decision not to invade and conquer the Soviet Union after V-J day (quite possibly feasible given that all of the Soviet manufacturing infrastucture would be in range of conventional or nuclear-armed B-29s based in Japan, Korea, and China) was even more "proof" that he was a Communist sympathizer.