Mind you, the core of this argument is based on an ad run in a Republican political district I am in.  A Democrat almost never stands a chance of getting elected here.  Scott Murphy barely squeaked out a win by maybe less than 100 votes, and then lost by like 10%+ two years later to his GOP opponent, Chris Gibson.

Watch this ad being run again Chris Gibson's opponent this election:

Yes, there is "big spender" angle, but note the taxes.  NO mention is maded of cutting taxes further, just holding the line.  And also, see the line about Wall Street bonuses.  Yes, this is an ad that went out that looked at executives getting bonuses in a negative light.  And on budget cuts?  Well, can't even mention cutting Medicare (in a SuperPAC email that arrived in the house in support of Gibson, it spoke out against cuts to Medicare).  That is a political football.  The GOP is actually running on the Democrats want to cut Medicare.

Pretty much, as it is now, maybe in some spots there can be pushing more for tax cuts, and also speaking on the "war on success", and also more cuts.  But, when political reality hits, it isn't going to be able to get more done.  As it is now, this talk of the 47% came out of giving everyone more tax cuts (bumping more out of the tax rolls) in order to cut taxes on the upper end.  Reality is, people don't care about tax cuts for people doing better than them, if it doesn't benefit them.   Even if the push now is to want to get more people paying taxes who aren't now on the lower end, so that more tax cuts on the higher end can happen.  That just isn't going to play.

So, as it is now, the GOP is stuck.  It can't politically push anything as an answer, because this has run the course.  Unless they want to turn on budget deficits (this is a primary hammer being used to cut spending) and say "deficits don't matter", they are left holding the line.  It is not "cut taxes more" but "prevent taxes being raised".  And that there is being on the defensive.

For right now anyway.

Until another Jimmy Carter/James Callaghan type crisis hits anyway.

Which, considering the warning signs might happen as early as Obama's second term.

Looks like the only thing keeping us away from Stagflation is that the economy is too shitty to get inflation on anything that isn't a need.

There is no longer any room to cut taxes, outside of on the upper end, unless you want to throw out the concern over the deficit.

About the only way it can go would be full Libertarian, where you end up really seriously shrinking the size of government.  With that, you end up cutting into the core of other values the GOP has pushed, which is military spending, and also the drug war.  I won't dismiss that there won't be a Libertarian uprising, that fuses smaller government with liberal social values (or at least strong civil liberties).  If people are paranoid about the future and do the usual response of demanding Washington do something about it, then Libertarianism won't gain much traction.  Anyone pro-government merely runs scare ads that undermine the Libertarian.   Look at what happened to Ron Paul to see here.

As far as stagflation goes, what you describe IS partly why it can happen.  Things that are need drive up prices while everything else stinks.  Of course, the government lying about the numbers, and mucking around with hedonics, is attempts to mask this.

They really want to run a socially conservative and rich-benefiting campaign, but the votes just wouldn't be there if they outright did. They need to change the people in charge and the senators to people with more moderate views if they want to appear united and yet still have a chance of winning.

When the GOP has a motivated core, with a set of values they are not going to budge on in implementation, like the Tea Party, how can they afford to be able to run someone with more moderate views?  They can't do this.  End result is, a GOP candidate ends up having to shift much more to the right than would be viable on a national stage.  The Democrats don't have a Tea Party equivalent, with Occupy failing to cooperate, so they will gravitate more conservative.  And because the GOP is now set on running against Democrats, the GOP doesn't declare victory and go home, but keeps pushing.  End result is the Democrats end up more in the middle and the GOP ends up putting itself out of the mainstream.  

So the problem is that primaries are for registered Republicans only.

And yeah I agree the Democrats are more conservative now. Obama had one of the most liberal voting records but once in he hasn't done anything different to Bush. More war, more Guantanamo, more bailouts, same disregard for civil liberties, no tax increases etc.

Those aren't conservative policies. Bush wasn't a conservative.

It is conservative in the sense that it's more of the same, but not in the sense of the false dichotomy of conservatism/liberalism.

OT: It seems to me that the Democrats have also reached the end of their rope. All they know how to run on is more free stuff and also taxing them dirty ol' richers. Problem is, the Democrats' proposed tax hikes will only rake in about $80 billion a year. Not nearly enough to even close the deficit, let alone to pay for all the "investments" they want to make or for the swelling of the welfare rolls now that Obama has gutted Clinton's reform. This has been their MO for about a century now, so it'll be interesting to see where they go from here. I'm betting they'll continue to deny reality for as long as possible, but if Obama wins a second term, the shit is going to hit the fan on his watch. And everyone will find out just what Maggie Thatcher meant when she said, "The problem with socialism is that it's fucking stupid, you daft cunt."

Eh, there is a LOT more you could cut then you would think.

If both parties wanted to stop pushing poltics, and say... reform how welfare works in the country?  They could simplfy it, increase what they pay the average person and still save some money on cuts.

As for Staglation...  better hope we're not in it now.

The only cure for staglation the exact opposite of what we're doing now.

Tight fiscal policy and... well taxcuts.

More towards Bush then. American politics is contesting a very small ideological space these days.