The Great Mystery

"The great mystery of recent elections, including last fall's, isn't why Barack Obama won reelection despite a terrible economy and a feckless foreign policy. It's why the Republicans-ostensibly the party of smaller government and the champion of individual liberty-ever lose elections. According to Gallup, for the last decade, a sizable majority of Americans "think the government is doing too much," and half see themselves as economic conservatives. If the GOP is losing elections, it's precisely because, as Paul put it at CPAC, the party "is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom." Independent voters are generally turned off by a party that seems fixated on yesterday's social mores. Growing majorities of Americans are totally fine with legal pot and gay marriage; fully 80 percent of us believe that abortion should be legal under some circumstances, with 61 percent saying it should be unrestricted in the first trimester of pregnancy. Similarly large chunks of voters are turned off by crony capitalism, industry-specific bailouts, the president's top-down health-care plan, a reckless disregard for civil liberties, and a foreign policy that seems largely indistinguishable from that of George W. Bush."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/15/rand-paul-plays-the-maverick-at-cpac-and-the-evangelical-in-cedar-rapids.html