Rubio parts ways with Tea party

[flabbybody]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/9/sen-marco-rubio-calls-heritage-foundations-immigra/

Following Senator Marco Rubio for the next two years will be lots of fun for political junkies like me. He's got to figure out a way to morph his image into a Rockerfeller/Nixon moderate Republican without pissing off his vital Tea Party support, without which he can't win the nomination. He threw the first bomb today with his unfriendly cut at the conservatives' darling think tank known as the Heritage Foundation.
My guess.... he's got no where near the political accumen of Richard Nixon and won't be able to pull it off. He'll also find it difficult to sign up top talent with most of the stars signing up with the Hillary 2016 train, as soon as that gets out of the station. (if they havn't already)

should make great theater to watch.

[fivekatz]

Rubio should make for some interesting viewing. In general how the GOPers navigate the nomination process which is dominated by a loud minority of a minority party and not get so boxed in by winning that nomination that they can't persuade a majority of the national electorate to vote for them.

While much is made of demographics, the country is evolving and the coalition of Dixie and capital that was the net result of LBJ and the Dems passing Civil Rights and Voting legislation is wearing thin.

Nixon 1968 win was not as much about his political acumen as it was about the loss of Southern Democrats and the anti-war vote combining to give Nixon a majority that Watergate only slowed for 4 years and has required Dems to move to center right to win (Clinton and Obama).

As the Dems moved toward the center the GOP kept moving right and may well have hit the edge where the majority of the nation now believes they are too far right.

Betting on neutralizing all of that with a compromise stand on immigration reform alone probably won't do the trick.

While it is an equally hard tight rope to walk the Dems have some impressive political capital to be gained by tapping the anger the vast majority of Americans have with corporate America.

[buttslinger]

Who's calling the shots in the Republican Party???????

[hippifried]

Who's calling the shots in the Republican Party???????

If you find out, you might want to let them know. They seem to have lost track.

[flabbybody]

There's high profile stars like Christie, Cruz, DeMint, Limbaugh who influence their party's public dogma as well as behind the scene guys who raise money. But I think the days of a small all-powerful circle calling the shots are gone forever.
We saw the power guys become mostly irrelevant on the Dem side during the 2008 primaries when newbie outsiders took a junior senator from Illinois and managed to defeat the mighty Clinton-Schummer New York Mafia of Democratic Party politics.
It wasn't quite as dramatic on the GOP side but a similar sea change has taken place. No one person, or even group of persons, calls the shots. Maybe that's the problem,

[fivekatz]

Flabbybody while there is something to the Obama victory in 2008, it must be taken into account that the Clinton people ran an awful campaign, the Obama folks were mostly brilliant. Clinton's people under estimated the impact of caucus states and how quickly Hilllary could lose front runner status. Further little separated the followers of either candidate in a substantial way so as Hillary faded it was easy to convert to Obama's cause and to bring an end to neo-con rule..

THe GOP has a very different issue where they now try and balance the same kind of unlikely coalition that the Democrats did during the New Deal era. Getting in the way of this are a few factors that make cohesive messaging difficult. Keeping red necks and CEOs on the same train is never easy anymore than keeping red necks, labor and minorities on the New Deal train was.

The shelf life on the Southern states strategy is after a 40 run has started to wear thin. The Koch Brothers complicated things with their Astro Turf Tea Party groups and the wedge issues like right to life, capital punishment just don't play nearly as well with younger voters.

So the GOP right now looks much like the Democrats of the 80's, impassioned souls with no holds barred commitment to THEIR wedge issues. Add to that the fact that their brand is becoming associated with big finance and obstruction and it is a herd of cats without a herder.