TEA Party Ignorance, Stupidity and Extremism Cost GOP the 2012 Presidential Election

Again I thank my worthy opponent BlackVoid for the debate. Con makes a couple of mistakes in countering my argument.1. Crying Wolf "2. He also has to prove that not only did crying wolf hurt Republicans, but that it hurt them so much that it single-handedly cost them the election. Thats not shown either. The claims aren't quantified." Con misunderstands the purpose and result of the argument on crying wolf. It is not necessary to show that crying wolf "single-handedly" cost conservatives the election, just that it hurt the credibility of the conservative cause, and was part of an overall pattern of taking the "eye off the ball" of the economy. While Con quibbles with a couple of my sources, there are literally thousands, if not millions of examples from a brief google search that show conservatives making fantastic claims about President Obama.[1] Con has not disagreed with that.My argument is an a priori one. Crying wolf hurts credibility. There is ample evidence that conservatives cried wolf on President Obama. Therefore conservative credibility was hurt.By 2012 moderate and undecided voters had to ask themselves could they trust far right conservatives and the Republican Party. This is important for a voter considering other issues than the economy in their decision.There is little doubt that for many Americans the answer is a resounding “No.” Again, this is an a priori argument that Con has not successfully contested. In fact, he barely tried due to his assumption that I would need to show some statistical correlation between mistrust and exit polls.2. Extreme Positions - Agreed on definitionCon claims “Pro doesn't explain why attacking the EPA and having a "belligerent" foreign policy is extremist.” We agreed on the definition of extreme positions in Round 1. While the foreign policy issue is less clear and I’ll drop that, a large majority of Americans have consistently supported the EPA do its job, as a simple google search shows.[4.1]3. Extreme Positions - Mistake in accumulating impact of several extreme positionsThis is where the polling is important and where Con makes an important mistake by failing to add the impact of the several extreme positions that the Romney/Ryan campaign was saddled with in order to judge the cumulativeimpact of those positions on moderate or swing voters. Anti-abortion absolutism - up to 8-12% 17% Abortion is threshold issue [4.2] >70% favor some choice almost 50% pro choice 8% to 12% may have turned out just for women’s choice issue Anti-environmental extremism - % [exact number to be determined, but not needed] Other far right positions - % TOTAL FAR RIGHT POSITIONS - [exact number to be determined, but clearly important]* CONCLUSIONThe really sad thing for the Romney/Ryan ticket, and for conservatives who hoped to turn the country around economically in ways that serve free market ideology is that the Republicans were not surprisingly more trusted by voters on the economy. Had this election been primarily about the economy, as it should have been, Republicans could reasonably be expected to win.While I don't have any confidence that conservatives will learn from their mistakes and focus on credible economic arguments--witness the recent fight brewing between TEA Party members and Karl Rove [4.4]--I urge DDO voters to look carefully at the evidence.Please vote Pro.[4.1]http://content.usatoday.com...[4.2]http://www.gallup.com...[4.3]http://www.gallup.com...[4.4] http://tv.msnbc.com...* I ran out of time in adding up the effect of far right positions. Abortion absolutism and anti-gay messaging were likely enough on their own to cost Republicans the Presidencyhttp://www.nytimes.com...