44 Comments - very old soil - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 2:46 am: Good morning Rich - Tarbender - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 3:21 am: At times like this, I just wanna go and watch Season 7 of West Wing with Vinnick v. Santos. - Gooner - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 6:00 am: At times like this, I want to sit back, post here so that I get e-mailed comments, and wait to read Oswego Willy’s comments. The guy has an understanding of that nature of the GOP that ranks with the best and I’m looking to his lengthy analysis of this story. For what it is worth, as a moderate Dem, I’m always disappointed in the ILGOP. I would love to see a functional ILGOP in part to keep Dems honest and in part because it would be good to have a real choice. I just don’t see it happening for a while. Rauner is about a personal battle with the Speaker that would be boring except for the fact that the Gov.’s actions are dragging down the state. Then we have the Illinois Review crowd who believes IL is located south of Tennessee. We used to have Ron Sandack and Ed Sullivan as a real future but Ron became terrified of Rauner and Ed got tired of the battles. That leaves us with Kirk as the last of the old time Republicans who can win in IL, and unfortunately, his actions the past few years leave a lot to be desired. I don’t have a clue how the party responds to this one. Maybe a Rauner loss will do it, but even if that happens, I suspect it would just strengthen the far right who would claim that Rauner went soft. - train111 - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 6:27 am: What is a “true conservative” anyways? - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 7:59 am: Trump has had a few very bad polling days. In two of the polls, according to this article, African-American support for Trump is at 1% and 2%. If Trump loses, I wonder what the autopsy report will look like then? - Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:07 am: Sorry I forgot to post the link. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57a47debe4b021fd98783ce3 - Rasselas - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:23 am: Interesting math. If the GOP can’t go over 59% of the white vote, and the white vote is 73% of the electorate (or less, 4 years later), that totals 43.1%. In a two person contest, you’d have to get the other 7% from the 27% non-white vote. I.e., you’d need 26% of the Hispanic, Asian, African-American vote. That’s pretty intimidating. - Gonzo - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:29 am: I’ll allow Hunter S. Thompson to summarize this election cycle: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” - OneMan - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:31 am: “As I personally feel about everything. This expresses my idea of being a conservative. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not conservative.” - Thoughts Matter - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:37 am: I think the Republican Party is dying. Regardless of who wins the election, many people are done with the Republican Party. The Tea party, über religious conservatives and Trump have driven moderates out. As said on the post, younger voters aren’t flocking to be one of those three factions listed above. - Give Me A Break - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:52 am: Have to agree with the comments about how the current GOP seems to hang onto Reagan as their “high water mark” and long for his return. To my two voting age daughters (23 and 33) talk about Reagan is the same as someone talking to me about FDR. It’s past history and not something I view as being all that relevant to today’s real world we live in. But yet, many of my GOP friends can’t get through a discussion of issues without bringing up the Reagan years. - illinois manufacturer - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:54 am: I see as many as 5 factions…the Trump populist anti free trade and immigration and it is the majority…but on trade some can go to democrats ….keep an eye on Ohio Senate race. Then the religious…the so called freedom the Koch Rauner. The corporatist…also shared with the dems….and the neo cons ….war party which is small but has had far more jnfluence than its numbers like the Koch Rauner faction. The GOP problem is these sides are not playing well together and may never. On the Democratic side its the popultist left against the establishment which has strong corpoatist tendencies. If the GOP disintegrates I think it helps the Sanders movement. - 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 8:57 am: I think this video does a pretty good job explaining how the Grand Old Party found itself in this predicament. No snark, if you have seven minutes today, this is worth a look. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s8VOM8ET1WU - Dee Lay - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:24 am: If the GOP continues down this weird and winding road, I think we are going to see a turn towards the 2.5 party system like the British with more of a conservative coalition in the legislature. You could say the same thing for the Dems as well if the extreme branch breaks off in their own way. - Anon221 - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:26 am: 47th- Thanks for that link. We need to be reminded of our histories to inform our futures, and to be thoughtful about how we proceed with major changes. - hisgirlfriday - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:30 am: The only thing that unifies the Republican Party these days is hatred of Democrats. Donald has messed all that up by attacking Republicans as well as Democrats, but the party’s problems go way beyond Trump. Just look at the insane way the Senate GOP has behaved after Scalia died. There is no coherent message to tell about what they will do when elected to government when they are running on a platform of hating government and/or representing a base that has descended into anarchist and nihilist impulses. Outside the small subset of the party with strong religious convictions on sex/abortion/marriage or strong ideological convictions on economics, most of the party is a grab bag of grievances and trolls. A party that doesn’t take government seriously or think it matters in their lives has no problem putting forward a joke candidate to vent their contempt for the whole process because they don’t think it matters. It’s another way to stick it to those pointy-headed liberals that actually care about this stuff. Even “serious” policy proposals from a “serious” Republican like Rauner on unions and electoral reforms aren’t really about helping people generally but about sticking it to the Democratic Party, their financing and tactical advantages. That’s all most Republicans seem to stand for — resenting the half of the country not on their team and obstructing them however they can. - AlfondoGonz - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:32 am: I imagine it is very sobering for decent GOP members to see exactly what we’ve seen for a while now: a significant part of their base is ignorant, hateful, uneducated, and, most importantly, wrong. Wrong on the issues. Please note I am not denigrating all GOP members. Nor am I claiming that there aren’t far left fringe lunatics who vote D, either. It’s no wonder Trump thinks he can secure some Bernie supporters considering the vitriol some of them spewed during the Democratic primary. I imagine for decent, classy, hard working Republicans, the realities this cycle has brought out are disheartening. - NCA - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:34 am: I live in the Southwest Suburbs, where the Arab-American population has grown quite a bit in recent years. My Arab neighbors and friends are entrepreneurs and socially conservative — they should be Republicans, and I think many of them were before 9/11. But with the GOP steeped in racial politics and cultural identity, they are all Democrats today. - pundent - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:36 am: The challenge seems to be that the Republican party is at war with itself over what constitutes the “base”. You have members yelling at one another that they aren’t real conservatives or “RINOS”. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t know what a real Republican is these days. Is it Donald Trump, Paul Ryan or Bruce Rauner? There’s just as much that separates them as unites them. And as the definition of what a Republican is gets more and more narrow the party will inevitably shrink. - Amalia - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:40 am: if I were living in England under a David Cameron admin, I would perhaps have been a Conservative…not so sure under May now. Reason is that David Cameron cared about finances, but he also cared about things like marriage for all. And Labour is just out of it in so many ways, Berners on a sugar high. Conservative does not need to mean social conservative. The way forward might be the way back for Republicans. They like to say that Lincoln freed the slaves and the Dems were the party of the Klan. Dems evolved. Republicans spend their time on voter ID matters and transvaginal ultrasounds. that is not evolving. - hisgirlfriday - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:41 am: @Thoughts Matter Re: Younger Voters and the future of the GOP — There was a McClatchy poll yesterday that had Trump in 4th (!!!) place for voters under 30. Gary Johnson was second and Jill Stein third. - Big Mouth - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:45 am: FiveThirtyEight has a long history of underestimating Trump(see below). This bias should preclude them from being a reliable and predictive source about anything Trump. As early as June 2015, FiveThirtyEight argued that Donald Trump “isn’t a real candidate”[84] and maintained that Trump could not win the nomination until late in the election season.[85] When Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee in May 2016, New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg wrote that “predictions can have consequences” and criticized FiveThirtyEight for underestimating Trump’s chances. He argued that by giving “Mr. Trump a 2 percent chance at the nomination despite strong polls in his favor…they also arguably sapped the journalistic will to scour his record as aggressively as those of his supposedly more serious rivals”.[86] In a long retrospective “How I Acted Like A Pundit And Screwed Up On Donald Trump,” published in May 2016 after Trump had become the likely nominee, Silver reviewed how he had erred in evaluating Trump’s chances early in the primary campaign. Silver wrote, “The big mistake is a curious one for a website that focuses on statistics. Unlike virtually every other forecast we publish at FiveThirtyEight — including the primary and caucus projections I just mentioned — our early estimates of Trump’s chances weren’t based on a statistical model. Instead, they were what we [call] ’subjective odds’ — which is to say, educated guesses. In other words, we were basically acting like pundits, but attaching numbers to our estimates. And we succumbed to some of the same biases that pundits often suffer, such as not changing our minds quickly enough in the face of new evidence. Without a model as a fortification, we found ourselves rambling around the countryside like all the other pundit-barbarians, randomly setting fire to things”.[87] - Way Way Down Here - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:48 am: 47th - Thanks for the link. - Highland, IL - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:53 am: If you check out Kyle McCarter’s Facebook page you’ll see this being played out in the comments of his Trump endorsement. - CrazyHorse - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 9:58 am: ==Interesting math. If the GOP can’t go over 59% of the white vote, and the white vote is 73% of the electorate (or less, 4 years later), that totals 43.1%. In a two person contest, you’d have to get the other 7% from the 27% non-white vote. I.e., you’d need 26% of the Hispanic, Asian, African-American vote. That’s pretty intimidating.== True but the numbers in the swing states are all that really matters. The African-American vote in the Red States which largely propelled Clinton to her victory over Sanders will be a non-factor. Also, Hispanic voters are heavily concentrated in Deep Blue and Red States like California and Texas, so a large chunk of their voting bloc is a non-factor as well. Of course their votes matter but those state results are basically predetermined regardless of the candidates. Trump’s only chance was (and still is) to win over a large percentage of white voters in the Swing States. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:01 am: First, - Gooner -, thank you for some very generously kind words, and the pressure to try to be thoughtful in my comment(s). I appreciate that you read what I write, and get something from it, that’s very gratifying, thank you - OW To, - -47th Ward -, Wow, that is one great watch. Thank you for finding that and sharing. To the Post, Rich, great stuff, great find to share here. To pivot off this… ===That battle has been coming for a very long time. The big money is on the side of the post-2012 “autopsy Republicans,” including the DC leadership and people like Gov. Bruce Rauner, who closely followed that roadmap in 2014. But the party’s intensity and its “bodies” are on the Christian conservative side. Even so, both wings are too small to win without the other.=== … I’m an autopsy Republican. To keep my comment Illinois-centric, what 2010 taught me was ceding Cook and Chicago at such a blatant level doomed Bill Brady. Only 4 votes a precinct would’ve put Brady in the window to win, and without looking for those 4 votes, it gave Quinn more than enough of a window to run up totals that Brady couldn’t chase down. This 4 vote a precinct really reflected a lack of minority outreach and understanding that becoming a white, middle aged, “conservative” party that looks at Urban Chicago as the enemy will not lead to electoral success. The “20%” benchmark, that GOP winners have had in Chicago must include voters outside the predominantly white wards, the wealthier wards. In the collar counties, as minorities leave Chicago and Cook, the pockets of significant lopsided tallies are becoming more pronounced unlike a county like DuPage had seen, for example. What Rauner did was tap into frustration of Blagojevich and Quinn, and allowed true conservatives that may not agree with Rauner in many social issues to back Rauner. In 2010, Brady’s conservatism and lack of Chicago presence allowed a peeling off the Brady campaign. In 2014, Rauner’s “Pat Quinn failed” was enough of a reason for even conservatives, watching Mrs. Rauner on TV, to be brought into the fold, while Brady’s views were a bridge too far, even to defeat Quinn. But Madigan won a “Paper” Super-Majority. The two House Caucuses reflect why Democrats have a better feel for the micro, but what is also seen is how Rauner has taken the schism of the GOP and “held it together” not by strong leadership skills or Reaganesque eloquence to love of party. Rauner has moderates voting against themselves and their moderate districts, and conservatives rail on the fiscal and political conservative values to rally the “base”, but then turns on the social conservative values as the politics demands. In reality, Rauner is masking the moderates and social conservatives’ ire by keeping them all quiet under the proven retaliation Rauner will use. You can’t promote growth, racial, social, or even ideological, when the brand “Rauner” promotes what his definition of the GOP is, and will be. What’s frustrating for me is the Caucuses having great candidates, in my opinion, spouting terms and platform points that aren’t reflective of inclusion, but dividing and subdividing Illinois, promoting pigeon-hole members and believing “Fire Madigan”, like Rauner’s “Pat Quinn failed” will be enough to win districts that have candidates that don’t reflect the diversity or realities of these micro districts. The ILGOP isn’t socially conservative, even as many GOP GA members reflect that image. The ILGOP isn’t ethically diverse, as the caucuses reflect that truth in stages pictures with the governor. What’s happened is the outreach that makes sense in the absolute immediate is how Rauner is steering ILGOP growth, while pushing harder and harder “Fire Madigan” in districts that have, arguably, Democratic members or candidates more reflective of the micro district. The less in common the GOP candidate has with the micro district, the more “Fire Madigan” I’m sure will be seen. It’s not the issues, diversity, fiscal, or social agreement being engaged, it’s cookie-cutter candidate messaging at the ridiculous amount of Rauner monies to sell it. Not one thing in this framing talks about expansion, growth, outreach, or building. It’s about feeding the one thought, “Fire Madigan” Where the angry Trump voter exists, the ILGOP will get significant bumps in “Fire Madigan” too. Rauner and his Crew knows that. In the collars and downstate Democratic targets with a Trump “base” (angry, predominantly white males) make certain districts even better targets, which explains why Rauner made clear his support of Trump in Peoria, but no other repudiation or discussion of it now. As an “autopsy” Republican, and watching “Yellow” and “NV”s grow in the GOP GA, and seeing the Trump phenomenon, and the usurping of true social conservative ideals, except in platform appeasing, and seeing great GOP candidates reflect ideal of the simplicity of “Fire Madigan” instead of trying to win on the issues of the day, the Rauner Money wing and their agenda-izing, making diversity less of the goal in reaching out to grow, this 2014 statehouse cycle isn’t about Republicans winning seats and growing a base, it will be a proxy war with Republicans, again, being asked to forget their social, economic, and political philosophies, but suppressing them all, for the good of a false growth of “like-minded” shells that in the end won’t be able to shape the ILGOP or its growth, and Trump voters will play a key role in stifling all those things that make a party live, grow, and even exist. - Matt Vernau - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:07 am: A true conservative is someone who wants to be surrounded by friends and neighbors who can pick up the lunch tab even though (s)he would never need or want someone else to pick it up. The GOP is dead they just don’t yet understand the statistics. The far right and big money folks are naturally destructive. Worse still they are not the middle. - ZC - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:13 am: What unites these two wings of the party, as noted, is that they’re both catering to a shrinking wing of the actual U.S. electorate. But, it’s a part of the electorate that a) votes more, especially in presidential off-years and b) is much better distributed across a geographic map. Democrats are getting seriously “clump-y” around big cities and while they’ve had better success in the burbs and rural areas in IL than in some other states, that’s been driven in part by an unsustainable strategy on Madigan’s part to keep taxes low while pension benefits remain high. In the long run, advantage Democrats - we’re seeing this already at the presidential level - but at the state level, it’s gonna play itself out for some time now. - HRC2016 - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:20 am: 47TH Ward –thanks for the link,probably the best 7 minutes I will spend all weekend. - Southern Dawg - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:28 am: One needs to know only two words to explain Rauner’s election victory in 2014: Pat Quinn There really is no other reason. - Chicago_Downstater - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:41 am: I somewhat agree with Rich that the ILGOP won’t likely feel the immediate effects of Trump fallout. I suspect we’ll see that in the 2018 Gubernatorial Primary instead. I’m guessing the IL Budget Crisis has hardened both Dem & GOP voters and pushed them toward populist wings of the party that traditionally aren’t that strong in Illinois. I have doubts given the national trend that this will be a temporary ideological migration. Greater populist support in IL + Rich Governor who uses money to undermine dissention = A nasty primary. I wouldn’t be surprised if a more “populist-friendly” candidate upended Rauner in a primary come 2018, which in turn could throw the whole party on its ear. - Amalia - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:52 am: Oswego Willy is pretty awesome! thanks for giving us so much thoughtful commentary. - Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:55 am: ===Greater populist support in IL + Rich Governor who uses money to undermine dissention = A nasty primary.=== I disagree. “Rich Governor who uses money to undermine dissention = nobody brave enough to run in the primary.” You can’t beat somebody with nobody. And who’s gonna cross this guy? - Norseman - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 10:56 am: Thank you Willy for your analysis. Thank you 47 for the video link. Last night, I read the commentary from another long-term GOP adherent who is now leaving the party. Actually, as I and so many others feel, the party has left us. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 11:10 am: - Amalia -, thank you. I learned a lot I guess from some really great “teachers” - Norseman -, appreciate it, thanks. ===You can’t beat somebody with nobody. And who’s gonna cross this guy?=== Rauner cleared the GOP field in 2014, I’d be shocked if anyone of significance in the ILGOP even pretends to think about challenging Rauner in the 2018 primary. Can’t see it. Rauner will be in even better stead if the Democrats have a costly primary to take on Rauner’s millions. - walker - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 11:43 am: Parties have ways of healing themselves and evolving. A solid message of anti-status quo, combined with already popular reform ideas, with a view of less taxing government, driven by confident (not berating) leadership can work as a package for the GOP — but only if they clearly walk away from exclusion and toward inclusion. They must embrace the autopsy learnings. There is nothing inherently contradictory in that whole package. Trump doesn’t have the goods to carry this full message. Rauner might have most of what’s needed ideologically for a rehabbed GOP, but he’s been terrible at picking his battles, and implementation. - illini - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 11:55 am: Willy - your analysis, observations and comments are “spot on”. Thanks for your cogent and timely comments. Just wish I could think coherently and type as fast as you can. I do intend to send a link to this thread and especially your comments to my many Republican friends. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 12:27 pm: ===A solid message of anti-status quo, combined with already popular reform ideas, with a view of less taxing government, driven by confident (not berating) leadership can work as a package for the GOP — but only if they clearly walk away from exclusion and toward inclusion. They must embrace the autopsy learnings. There is nothing inherently contradictory in that whole package.=== Restaurant quality. ===… but he’s (Bruce Rauner) been terrible at picking his battles, and implementation.=== That’s spot on too. Thanks - illini -, I appreciate your support, and that linking to the whole Post Rich put up will also add, with Rich’s and others’ comments and commentary, to a very broad discussion too. Thanks, OW - illini - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 12:44 pm: Willy - I’ve already sent it to close to 30 individuals in my county. And I’m not even a Republican! I only want there to be two honestly competing parties/candidates/agendas for our state - and I know there is a mark on my party as well! I used to say that I have more problems with my party than I do with the R’s, and to some extent that is still true, but there is a bigger picture. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 12:50 pm: - illini - I concur, governing truthfully and honestly to the differences that the Parties have, and agreeing within a party “80% of the time” allows both parties to grow and that expansion allows thoughtful disagreements to become how each party can frame who they are in the best ways. It’s important that both parties are “strong”, and allow the “opposition” to also find common ground with the other. Surrender and conpromise are not synonyms. Those in either party that think they are aren’t giving the people the best solutions that both parties can agree on. Thanks again, and keep plugging. - Southern Dawg1 - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 1:29 pm: Oswego Willy, again, is awesome. The one thing I would like to add, and I don’t know if he’ll see this or not, is the “Fire Madigan”, and “Quinn Failed” slogans that has in many ways revived the ILGOP, is also fueled– much like the national party– in part by conspiracy theories that alienates the party from actual governance. It’s hard to co-govern when you’ve told you’re base for years the opposition is an enemy bent on destroying life as you know it. Am I wrong? - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 1:51 pm: ===It’s hard to co-govern when you’ve told you’re base for years the opposition is an enemy bent on destroying life as you know it. Am I wrong?=== I don’t think you’re wrong - Southern Dawg1 -, and in fact many, including myself, and other actually “in the arena” have stated that Rauner, or his Staff or Crew, or GOP GA members, continued disparaging of Madigan and Democrats has hampered governing. Rauner tries to pull the curtains open and says @the other side knows I (we) don’t mean it, it’s just words, it’s just rhetoric” Well, Dems and Madigan haven’t just seen these statements as meaningless rhetoric. And while it helps fuel rabid Republicans loving the continued assult on Dems and Madigan, and arguably plays into a Trump narrative too, it doesn’t help in the governing… … and to tie this to the Post… The drilling down to the most rabid Republicans and giving them the red meat they crave, it also continues an image to some moderates and to independents that Rauner isn’t about solving anything but fighting for the sake of fighting… Just. Like. Madigan. No building or reaching out can happen when your party looks the same as the other… less the racial, social, and ideolologial differences Democrats portray… and Trump does not. - Oswego Willy - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 1:53 pm: - Southern Dawg1 -, … and you’re very kind, thank you. I wanted to make sure I answered your question completely. - Southern Dawg1 - Friday, Aug 5, 16 @ 1:57 pm: Yes, Oswego, you answered it and I entirely appreciate it. Ten years ago I was a senate staffer…and I thought things were screwed up then. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.