Revenge of the (Nerds) Liberals

You know in High School there are three classes of students. The Nerds, the Cool Kids, and the groupies in between who divide themselves between the two.  Most of the groupies gravitate towards the Cool Kids. After all, they're the beautiful people, the jocks, the popular ones. These are the kids who always get invited to the best parties, belong to the best cliques, know all the best clubs, etc. But something tends to happen around the time these students become High School seniors. By this time most of them have heard the "your ass is getting out of this house when you turn 18" speech from their parents, and they figure it may be a good idea to bring their grades up to a point where they can get into some college with a dorm. This is when you see the groupies gravitate away from the Cool Kids and towards the Nerds, mostly out of desperation, because these are the people who get all of the good grades, study hard, and know the answers to all of the tests. And because they're usually not petty, vengeful, and vindictive, they're more than willing to do tutoring work (though some have been known to charge a nominal fee). Pretty soon these former jock groupies, now nerd groupies, find that nerd-dom is a rather neat place to be, not to mention practical when it comes to college evaluations. So what happens when the Nerds become more popular than the Cool Kids, and eventually start to outnumber them? The Nerds become the Cool Kids.

If only the Republicans in Washington would learn that lesson.

A Bloomberg National poll conducted February 15-18 show President Obama with a 55% approval rating, his highest since 2009. That same poll shows Republican favorability down to 35%, their lowest since 2009. Furthermore, according to a USA Today poll out yesterday, only 22% of Americans are willing to admit publicly to being Republican. Ironic, isn't it? Gays and lesbians are coming out of the closet, and Republicans are moving in. Some more numbers from the USA Today poll...

• 45% of Americans agree with Obama's approach in dealing with the deficit, compared to 38% who agree with congressional Republicans.

• 45% agree with his approach to Gun Control, vs. 39% who agree with Republicans.

• 50% agree with him on Immigration, versus 33% who agree with the Republican approach.

• 47% agree with him on Climate Control, vs. 26% for Republicans.

Since the 2012 election, Republicans have been tearing their hair out and scratching their pea-brains wondering why America hates them so much. They've hired consultants, ran focus groups, and done everything short of consulting a medium trying to figure out how to become the "cool kids" again. So far the only thing they've been able to come up with is, to quote Republican strategist Nicole Wallace, "modernize the message".   Here she is the day after the election.

“Republicans have got to modernize the message. What happens at this juncture is always the same thing. We talk about a war within the Republican party between the moderates and the conservatives. That’s an irrelevant and outdated debate. It’s about modernizing the language. It’s about making it relevant to the policy debates of our time.”

Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, Ms. Wallace, but that message that you think needs to be "modernized", frankly, IT SUCKS. The whole anti-Gay, anti-minority, anti-women, anti-immigration message that your party has spent the last four years pushing out to your Bat-Crap Crazy base. The reason that 53% of the country DIDN'T vote for your guy was because they didn't really care for your message, and no amount of prettying it up is going to make it any more pleasing.

Unasked, I offer my own solutions as to how the GOP can get back into the good graces of the American public.  Instead of waging a war on Women, Immigrants, minorities and the poor, instead of alienating half the country by calling them "takers", maybe you should give these people a reason to vote for you.  Mitt Romney, after losing the election, opined on how Obama was able to win despite unemployment above 7%, and an anemic economy.  From the LA Times...

Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-age women to back the president.

Further...

“The president’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

In short, Obama won the election by promising people stuff that they'd probably like.  Gee, what a concept.  Promise people stuff they'd like, and they'll vote for you, and you'll win elections.  Now I'm no political strategist or anything, but this just doesn't seem very complicated to me.  I mean, it's not rocket science.  Republicans are putting so much time and effort into trying to win elections, so much effort into raising money from rich donors, making up insane voter ID laws, cutting or eliminating early voting, jury-rigging the Electoral College, and obstructing the president just for the sake of obstruction, when the simple concept of just offering people what they want would be an almost guaranteed winner for them.  And it's not like they have to look very far to find out what people want.  Just check out any poll not put out by FOX News and you'll see that most Americans support marriage equality, a woman's right to choose, and a path to citizenship for immigrants.  Most Americans support some form of gun control legislation, including banning assault weapons.  Most Americans believe the wealthy should pay more in taxes.  Most Americans believe we should do something about climate change.  Most Americans believe we shouldn't cut Medicare and Social Security, we should raise the minimum wage, and they want Republicans, Democrats, and the President to work together to get things done.

Instead of continuing in their futile effort to "take the country back" to some conservative utopia that only existed in 1950s television, Republicans should join the rest of America here in 2013.  Seriously, this is not that hard. You support policies that most Americans support, show how you can implement them better than the other party, and (gasp...clutch the pearls) YOU WIN ELECTIONS. 

You wanna win elections, GOP?  Maybe it's time that you joined the rest of us in Coolsville, a.k.a. America.

Bloomberg: Obama Rated at 3-Year High in Poll, Republicans at Bottom - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-21/obama-rated-at-3-year-high-in-poll-republicans-at-bottom.html

USA Today: On issues, public is more aligned with Obama than GOP - http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/02/21/poll-pew-obama-gop-guns-energy-immigration-sequester/1934233/

LA Times: Romney reflects on his loss in call with campaign donors - http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-election-campaign-donors-20121114,0,5622330.story