Stop blaming everything on the Mexicans. Most Mexican American citizens are socially conservative, have religious and family values, and are reasonably capitalistic. They are OUR kind of people. So stop bashing them. I don't mean the illegals who don't vote anyway. Actually, their numbers have declined because the economy has caused some of them to return to Mexico. The Republicans should convert the Mexicans.
Is that so hard to think about? I remember the solid (Democratic) South!!
Now as for us "righteous" upstanding white American middle class people, did you know that 3,000,000 fewer REGISTERED REPUBLICANS voted for Romney than had voted for McCain? That would have been enough to turn the race.
Did the Republicans turn the "solid South" around by calling people "redneck hillbillies?"
So let's stop wailing and get to work. Dammit, we're almost there.
And Romney ran a damned poor campaign. Let's face it. G.W. Bush was a pretty incompetent president (I voted for him too) but Romney never told the voters how he would differ.
I know many Mexicans and I agree that most Mexicans are hard working decent people. However most of them are voted Democrat because Democrats turn a blind eye to illegal immigration where Republicans don't.
I too remember the old Democrat South, just like I remember a California that voted for Bush, Regan, and Nixon. Unfortunately there are too many states hell bent on becoming California. The 3 million Republicans who stayed home would only have changed the outcome if they were in specific states. I haven't read what states these folks are from, but they would have had to have been fairly localized in a few states for any difference to have been made.
The South turned red because the old Blue Dog Democrats were fairly socially conservative, and when the Democrats at the national level went left on social issues the southeren Blue Dog Democrats no longer related to them.
The demographics are shifting farther left with every election cycle. I don't know how you see this as being "almost there."
Romney and Bush ran on a fairly similar value system, which is at the core of the Republican party. I wasn't infatuated with Romney, but for the most part I supported him because the issues he ran on were Conservative issues. These core values were rejected by the majority of voters. This is the game changer.
Look at the number of states that voted for Bush Sr., Regan, and Nixon. Is there any imaginable Republican candidate that you could see winning many of these states today? The answer is no, and we cannot always take it to the final day in battleground states in order to win. If we are depending on eeking out small marginal victories, which is the best I can see us doing, then we are done, especially when you consider the dhifting demographics.
