That leaves Republicans with a reliable 30% to 40% of the vote. Can you win elections with that? Depends on how many outside the Party you can attract. Do the math.
These days all a Republican has to do to lose an election is mouth off about social issues or get a reminder from Democrats about where the party stands on social issues. It can be done. But it adds a headwind.
As a warmonger myself I do not fit well with #3. But the Democrats have come around enough on that issue (in practice if not rhetoric) that I can tolerate them.In many ways, the Republican Party is like a 3 legged stool.with 3 constituent legs - the social conservatives, the Rockefeller Republicans and constitutional liberty activists.
1. The social conservatives endorse big government and endless wars.
2. The Rockefeller Republicans endorse big government and endless wars but are very uncomfortable the social issues which they don't care about.
3. The constitutional liberty activists oppose big government, the darn wars, the trillion dollar a year foreign policy, the Federal Reserve and they really oppose the federal government meddling in the social issues because it's not a power specifically enumerated in the constitution.
What is killing the Republican Party is that the constitutional liberty activists will no longer hold their noses and vote Republican as they once did and this is a trend that surfaced in 2006 and was considerably magnified in 2008 when the Democrats took back the House of Representatives and won the presidency.
In fact, the liberty activists are so angry with the GOP that they are determined to guarantee its defeat by voting 3rd party for however long it takes for the liberty activists to takeover the GOP from the warmongers and fascists. The Gary Johnson vote delivered critical swing states to Obama in 2012.
http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/20 ... -ugly.html
I'm proud to say that I was part of the Johnson surge and may have convinced a few where it matters (I live in Illinois) to join it as well.