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The GOP goes AWOL

That the Republicans are still in a bubble removed from the realities of the USA 2012, was amply demonstrated yesterday when a GOP stalwart spoke of how the Party ought to have run its campaign as it did when Ronald Reagan ran for office.   Hello!   That was in the 1980's.     Times have changed - something which has evidently not caught on with the GOP.

Although Thomas Friedman is not someone MPS particularly likes, let alone agrees with most times, in his latest op-ed piece for The New York Times, he does seem to capture the American zeitgeist.

"It seems that many Americans went to the polls without much enthusiasm for either candidate, but, nevertheless, with a clear idea of whom they preferred. The majority seemed to be saying to Obama: “You didn’t get it all right the first time, but we’re going to give you a second chance.” In a way, they voted for “hope and change” again. I don’t think it was so much a ratification of health care or “Race to the Top” or any other Obama initiative. It was more a vote on his character: “We think you’re trying. Now try even harder. Learn from your mistakes. Reach out to the other side, even if they slap away your hand, and focus like a laser on the economy, so those of us who voted for you today without much enthusiasm can feel good about this vote.”

And that is why Obama’s victory is so devastating for the G.O.P. A country with nearly 8 percent unemployment preferred to give the president a second chance rather than Mitt Romney a first one. The Republican Party today needs to have a real heart-to-heart with itself.

The G.O.P. has lost two presidential elections in a row because it forced its candidate to run so far to the loony right to get through the primaries, dominated by its ultraconservative base, that he could not get close enough back to the center to carry the national election. It is not enough for Republicans to tell their Democratic colleagues in private — as some do — “I wish I could help you, but our base is crazy.” They need to have their own reformation. The center-right has got to have it out with the far-right, or it is going to be a minority party for a long time.

Many in the next generation of America know climate change is real, and they want to see something done to mitigate it. Many in the next generation of America will be of Hispanic origin and insist on humane immigration reform that gives a practical legal pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The next generation is going to need immigration of high-I.Q. risk-takers from India, China and Latin America if the U.S. is going to remain at the cutting edge of the Information Technology revolution and be able to afford the government we want. Many in the next generation of America see gays and lesbians in their families, workplaces and Army barracks, and they don’t want to deny them the marriage rights held by others. The G.O.P. today is at war with too many in the next generation of America on all of these issues."

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