The only thing GOP/TPers might eventually understand is prominent former members speaking loud and clear exactly WHY they are "former members" ~ Sooz

AlterNet / By Rod Bastanmehr
Veteran Gay Conservative Activist Leaves GOP—Calls Party 'Hopelessly Out of Touch'
Jimmy LaSalvia denounces Republican 'culture of intolerance.'

January 23, 2014 | Gay political activist and longtime Republican, Jimmy LaSalvia, did not merely leave the GOP last week. He loudly denounced his former party for its "culture of intolerance" and predicted it will never "win another Presidential election."

LaSalvia, who founded GOProud, and now plans to become independent, came to the inescapable conclusion that the party is just hopelessly "out of touch with life in America."

“The changes the Republican Party is implementing really amount to nothing more than lipstick on a pig,” LaSalvia said on Yahoo! and ABC News program Top Line, echoing President Obama’s observation in 2008. “It’s a culture of intolerance that I just don’t think any amount of policy changes can fix.”

The 2012 election sealed the deal for LaSalvia.

“It was the Romney campaign that really got me to understand just how severe the problem is,” LaSalvia told Top Line. “And after [that], I just thought, ‘I don’t know if [the GOP] will ever win another Presidential election again.’”

His analysis was as practical as it was brutal. The GOP is doomed because it continues to cater to intolerant people rather than tell them the word has changed and they need to get with it.

“The object of political parties is to win elections, and I’ve determined that the Republicans can never win a national election again, and so at that point, what’s the point?” While LaSalvia still identifies as a conservative, he feels he won't be alone as an independent.

“42% of Americans are independents, because they don’t feel like either party represents their values or principles,” he continued. “I’m like everybody else, and I think that the 42% of Americans who aren’t represented by a party represent the new majority.”

LaSalvia said on air that he is still unsure what his next step is in identifying his role in establishing this “new majority,” but made it clear that he has received an outpouring of support from many on all sides, with some citing it as a historic pendulum swing.

It remains to be seen what LaSalvia will name his new group.

http://www.alternet.org/veteran-gay-conservative-activist-leaves-gop-calls-party-hopelessly-out-touch

Repub strategizers don't care about gay folks. Not a big enough voting block. In fact there are enough homophobes in their Bible Belt Base that there's an advantage being seen as hostile to gays.

But women are another story. Huckabee's offended women this week in a patronizing speech.

Mike Huckabee and women’s uncontrolled libido, or, Uncle Sugar
BY ALEXANDRA PETRI
January 23 at 4:15 pm

WE CAN HEAR YOU! (AP Photo/ Gregory Smith)

The GOP will have a much easier time talking to women once they realize that women can HEAR them.
“They can hear us now? Right now?”
Oh yes. And it isn’t sounding so good.

Mike Huckabee (Former Arkansas Governor, present talking head) made some remarks to the RNC Thursday that have (unfortunately for him) not gone unremarked. You don’t even need an indignation machine to get worked up about this one.

Huckabee said, in full glorious resplendent context, “I think it’s time for Republicans to no longer accept listening to Democrats talk about a war on women. Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war FOR women. For them to be empowered; to be something other than victims of their gender. Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do. Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That’s not a war ON them, it’s a war FOR them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing or them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it, let’s take that discussion all across America because women are far more than Democrats have made them to be. And women across America have to stand up and say, Enough of that nonsense. “

I think for full effect we have to go line by line on this one, because it’s a doozy. It’s a three-coil steamer. Reading this makes me want to bite the head off a bat. Did he not attend the classes on how to talk to women?

The short version is that you should talk to women as though they are in the room. That’s it. It’s that simple. We can hear you! Assume for a second that GOP legislatures in numerous states were not aggressively trying to regulate the female body, as though it were some sort of dangerous alien species invading the workplace that ought to be carefully controlled. Leave that aside for just a moment, and just think about tone. Every single problem the GOP has had with women and messaging comes down the fact that they keep addressing women as though they are not in the room. “It’s okay,” Huckabee seems to think, “I am just speaking in my normal man voice, so no woman will be able to hear or understand! Please, there are no women here. This isn’t a KITCHEN.”

Let’s go line by line.

Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war FOR women. For them to be empowered; to be something other than victims of their gender.

“Victims of their gender.” Of course! I knew there was a word for it. Here I thought I was female, but it turned out the adjective I was looking for was “gender-impaired.” Women, you see, were born with a vital part missing, the part that allows you to legislate and be addressed as though you are in the room. They are to be pitied, not censured. And certainly not given any free birth control. Make them earn the ability to control their reproductive choices by doing what men do: not having wombs.
Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless and hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them birth control medication. Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do.

It’s okay! He can say this. Mike Huckabee has lots of woman-friends.

Also, what’s this about helpless, hopeless creatures with just one goal: birth control? This conjures up a picture of Gollum, frantically scrambling around on the ground muttering something about a NuvaRing. How awful that Democrats think this.
Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women.

Aw, it is so sweet of Mike Huckabee to think that women are capable of doing anything anyone else can do! That’s — really forward, given that it is 1906. I hope he votes to encourage our suffrage!

That’s not a war ON them, it’s a war FOR them.

Those are your options, after all. War ON or war FOR. Women can’t wage war themselves! They are supposed to sit on the side and urge you on by giving your their handkerchiefs as favors.

And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing or them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it, let’s take that discussion all across America because women are far more than Democrats have made them to be.

Uncle Sugar.

Yes, it is Democrats who have said all that. Democrats are the ones insisting that women are helpless creatures crawling around incapable of controlling their libidos. Democrats are the ones who suggest that if we just tightened our chastity belts a notch, none of us would have these problems, and we wouldn’t waste the tax dollars of Real People on our niche issues. Democrats say that. It’s good Mike Huckabee is here to set them straight. He has a lot of woman-friends.

Once more, with feeling: Women, no matter what anyone suggests to the contrary, are people. And we’re in the room. I know that sounds crazy. Women aren’t people! People are men!

But this is your problem. This right here, this is your problem.

gramps: i had to read that SLOWLY a couple of times to read past the sarcasm. it reminds me of Mark Morford's writing. it is ham-fisted, but it is also pretty elegant at the same time.

Here is Jimmy LaSalvia's statement about leaving GOProud ~ just one man making oh-so-crucial points is an excellent read that nails it ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

The Guardian / By Jimmy LaSalvia
Former GOP Activist: I'm Done With the Party of Bigots
The cultural disconnect among Republican leaders is so severe that I just don't think that the party can be saved.

January 29, 2014 | I've been a Republican activist all my life. As a volunteer and professional staffer, I held positions in party organizations and campaigns since high school. I was the ultimate partisan team player, even forming GOProud, an organization for gay conservatives and their allies. But I no longer recognize the party I grew up supporting, and I recently announced that I have changed my voter registration to "no party."

I left the Republican party because it no longer represents my principles and values. I am a limited government conservative, yet Republicans today like big government, as long as they are in charge of it. I also don't tolerate bigotry of any kind, and today's party does. While most Republicans I've known over the years aren't bigots, they tolerate and kowtow to the few who are. The wrong voices have dominated policy debates.

During the 2012 election campaign, I came to the conclusion that the Republican party is incapable of ever winning another national election, because the tolerance of anti-gay activist and other forms of bigotry in the party prevent too many voters from even considering voting for even the Republican candidate.

The organization I founded, GOProud, was the de facto "Gays for Mitt Romney" in the 2012 election. During that campaign, I saw that Romney was held captive and paralyzed with fear of retribution from anti-gay and other forces of intolerance in the GOP.

He couldn't even do real outreach in the gay community and those who support gay rights for concern that he would be talking to "unapproved" groups. I am truly convinced that even if he wanted to reach out to the 47 percent of Americans who support gay marriage, he couldn't have. The forces of intolerance wouldn't have let him.

My first indication of this happened during the primary campaign when I made a small financial contribution to his campaign. Even though everyone else at the fundraising event I attended had their contribution correctly reported to the Federal Elections Commission, my occupation and employer was mysteriously listed as "requested." I immediately knew that Romney didn't want anyone to notice that the head of the gay organization was supporting his campaign.

After he secured the nomination, Romney wouldn't stand up for my friend Richard Grenell when he was under fire from the anti-gay folks. Grenell had been hired as Romney's foreign policy spokesman, but the intolerant wing of the GOP objected because he is openly gay. Romney failed to back his spokesman and Grenell felt compelled to leave his job with the campaign.

There were many more examples of Romney rejecting opportunities to stand up to the bigots and demonstrate some basic level inclusion. Many of them occurred at the GOP convention in Tampa, Florida.

Romney's convention deliberately featured diverse speakers representing nearly every single major demographic group, except two — Muslims and gays. Those are two of the groups that are still OK to exclude (if not demonize) among Republicans, and Romney didn't want anyone to know that he might actually know any of them by putting them on his convention stage.

At that convention, he couldn't even bring himself to send a surrogate speaker to GOProud's event to thank the 900 attendees for their support. Honestly, the list of examples could go on an on. By the end of the campaign, I had come to the realization that if Mitt Romney didn't have the backbone to stand up to the forces of intolerance in the Republican party, then he didn't have the backbone to be president of the United States.

Despite being the most outspoken and high profile gay supporter of Romney, I ended up deciding in the voting booth to vote for Gary Johnson, the former Republican Governor of New Mexico, who ran as the Libertarian candidate. That was the first time in my life I didn't vote for the Republican candidate for president, but my conscience was clear.

After Romney's sound defeat, the Republican National Committee conducted an "autopsy" to determine why the GOP couldn't defeat President Obama. I was very hopeful that they would take a long hard look at the problems preventing the party from winning national elections, and take the drastic measures necessary to reverse its inevitable demise.

Recent events have demonstrated that nothing has changed since the "autopsy." To give a sampling: the fact that Ken Cuccinelli was acceptable to the party as the nominee for Virginia governor when Ken thinks that gay people are "self-destructive" and "soulless." Or two weeks ago, a member of the RNC from Michigan posted on Facebook that he didn't know what any Muslim had ever done to make a positive contribution to America. I'm not kidding.

Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. There is nothing that leads me to believe that the GOP's leadership is willing to take the necessary actions in order to win a national election again. While there are many good up and coming Republican politicians, the ongoing bigotry in the GOP will prevent most Americans from even considering voting for them.

The truth is that many in the Republican party, and most of the leadership, are culturally out of touch with life in America in 2014. Bad messaging and policy proposals can be changed, but cultural problems take generations to repair. The cultural disconnect among Republican leaders is so severe that I just don't think that the party can be saved.

So now I embark on a different path with the New Majority in America — the majority not represented by either major party, to seek innovative solutions to our problems to ultimately make our country better.

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/after-years-being-republican-activist-im-done-gop?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

I can't believe Jimmy noticed as late as 2012 that there's something fishy with the GOP.
But hey, better late than never.

oh, i think he noticed. but noticing, and being completely dejected and without hope are two different things.