Oceander wrote above:
[[ It's time for the GOP to get off the fence and look to the future - the "nontraditional" future - and unhitch itself from a shrinking base. ]]
Nonsense, pure horse manure.
The "base" that the GOP should be trying to attract still represents about 72% of American citizens, if not more.
If only 5% more Euro-Americans had voted Republican in a few key states in 2012, Romney would be in the White House today.
For every vote that the leftist Republicans think they can win from your so-called "non-shrinking base", they will lose two or more from their -real- base, without which they have no hope of remaining a national political party.
Prediction: the Republicans will never win more than 5-7% of "the black vote" again, if that much. Obama has sealed that deal for decades to come.
Prediction: the Republicans will never win more than 15-25% of "the Hispanic vote" (when averaged nationally). The more illegal Hispanics you transform into voters via amnesty (oops, you call it "immigration reform"), the more lopsided the Hispanic vote will become for the democrats in real numbers.
Prediction: the Republicans will never win more than 25% of "The Asian vote". As improbable and amazing as it seems, the percentage of Asians who voted for the democrats was higher than the percentages of Hispanics who did in the last election.
The "future" for the GOP lies in locking up "the white vote", as it has done down south.
Whites in the south vote overwhelmingly Republican as a matter of "survival politics", which might also be called -- the dreaded word -- "identity politics".
If they didn't, they'd be ruled by the democrats, and that "rule" would be largely black, because the southern states have 35-40% black populations and there are more black democrats there than white democrats.
Call this "racist" if you wish -- the whites who live in those states call it "reality".
The "white identity politics" of the south (beginning with what was once referred to as Nixon's "Southern Strategy") has resulted in an astounding transformation: what was once "the solid South" (the solid democratic South) has now turned 180 degrees to become the most "reliably Republican" region in the country.
And again, this is the result of whites who have "switched sides" to the Republicans for reasons of "racial reality".
If it has worked in the South, it can work elsewhere, particularly in the wake of the current alien invasion and border breakdown.
Yes, like you said, it's time for Republicans to "get off the fence" and get busy.
The opportunity is out there for the Pubbies: seal the border, send the illegals back, defend states and local communities against housing the illegal flood.
Do this, and whites will rush to the Republican party side.
Go the way you want to go, and the Republican party will be dead in less than twenty years, possibly in ten...