will the Republican party be relevant in future elections?

I seem to remember Bush winning with only 271 in 2000...and calling it a "mandate"...

Sorry, guys, I flipped over to watch some of FauxNews' coverage last night--for comic relief. And when it became obvious that Obama had won, and all of their sorry-a**ed faces were on the floor, they immediately turned to trying to marginalize him by turning to: "Well, it isn't a 'mandate'."... We know where your ideas come from, and as usual, it's pathetic.

I'm almost tempted to listen Rush Limburger today, just to hear him go apoplectic.... (A stroke--on the air--perhaps?)

Yeah, I think 332 votes is about as good of a "refudiation" of the GOTP as we can hope for...

I do think the Dems and the Media did a good job pretending that Mitt would govern as a social conservative even though there was very little evidence of it in the man's record.

LOL so we were supposed to ignore Mitt's words that he was "severely conservative" or the rest of his campaign rhetoric about how socially conservative he was?

That is a major problem with the GOP and their candidates - they have to appease the ultra-right wing nutjobs to get nominated. Romney was actually a pretty middle-of-the-road governor. They have to talk out of both sides of their mouths because the party is so dysfunctional. Not that the dems are much better, although they seem to be marginally better in that respect. But the net result is that the electorate remains polarized based upon the rhetoric of candidates attempting to appease the fringes of their respective parties to garner approval.

And I expect the right-wing, teabagger, social-conservative fringe to "Jus' keep doin' what they're doin'....." Keep primarying the sane ones out, and running the nutjobs... Sharron Angle, Christine McDonnell, Aiken, Mourdock, ad nauseum....

One can only hope....

Edited to add:

Romney's loss will open up a fierce debate inside the Republican Party over where to go next. The conservative wing will argue that Romney lost because he was not bold enough in communicating the conservative vision and philosophy of governance. But the nation's demographics are shifting away from the party, as younger voters and minorities go for Democrats in increasing numbers. A major question facing the party is whether it can begin to reach out to these groups, and what impact any such move to broaden the party has on core ideologies.

And to put another exclamation point on it:

*** And the GOP’s demographic dilemma: Obama’s demographic edge creates this dilemma for the Republican Party: It can no longer rely on white voters to win national elections anymore, especially in presidential cycles. Indeed, according to the exit poll, 89% of all votes Mitt Romney won last night came from whites (compared with 56% for Obama). So the Republicans are maximizing their share with white voters; they just aren’t getting the rest. And come 2016, the white portion of the electorate will probably drop another couple of points to 70%. Politico’s Martin puts it this way: “Battling a wheezing economy and a deeply motivated opposition, Obama still managed to retain much of his 2008 map because of the GOP’s deficiencies with the voters who are changing the political face of once conservative-leaning Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Nevada. Republicans face a crisis: the country is growing less white and their coalition has become more white in recent years. In 2004, George W. Bush won [about 40 percent] of Hispanics. Four years later, John McCain, the author of an immigration reform bill, took 31 percent of Hispanics. And this year, Romney captured only 27 percent of Hispanics.”

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012 ... -edge?lite

You can complain about it being "racist" all you want... FACTS are FACTS... You can't keep running on getting a higher and higher percentage of a dwindling demographic...PERIOD.

Hopefully this election will serve as a wake up call to the GOP and that some of power is removed from the mossbacks. Here is to hoping that groups like the Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives and the Colorado Hispanic Republicans continue to grow and have a strong voice.

I would be willing to bet that the party machine will look at it and think: "How do we improve our 'message'?", i.e., "How can we 'spin' it better?" They still won't GET that it's not the message--it's the party.

LadyJazzer wrote: I would be willing to bet that the party machine will look at it and think: "How do we improve our 'message'?", i.e., "How can we 'spin' it better?" They still won't GET that it's not the message--it's the party.

I wouldn't take that bet.

Random points from the net:
Democrats have now won the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.
President Barack Obama is the first Democrat to get reelected with an absolute majority of the popular vote since FDR.
George W. Bush won 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004. John McCain won 31 percent of it. Mitt Romney won 21 percent. The trend is unmistakable.
Thirteen percent of the vote was African American, 10 percent was Latino, 3 percent was Asian. In 2008, it was 13 African American, 9 percent Latino, 2 percent Asian.
Whites went from 74 to 72 percent of the vote. They'll be under 70 percent in 2016.