Allow for more diverse political views and treasure competent leaders like Dick Lugar instead of repudiating them for ideologues who actually believe every plank in the Republican state party platform. You ever look at the Texas Republican Party platform? It's a place where calls for bizarre public policies like a resurrection of sodomy laws and ending registration for gun ownership make a regular appearance. Republican primaries now are purity tests that demand conformity on social issues where the party mainstream is on the wrong side of history. That doesn't create general election winners in two-party states. There are plenty of centerist like me who aren't enthralled with the Democratic vision, but don't buy the right wing mythology that tax increases, gay marriage, gays in the military are unacceptable public policy outcomes. The electorate is seeking a balanced, centerist approach just as your party's primary voters have made "moderate" a dirty word.
I haven't voted Republican in a presidential or statewide election in a long time, and I agree with this post.
OP was well-stated and the average person should get behind it. In Texas we're sheltered from the two-party bonanza, so it's easy to fall victim to the partisan politics.
And yet, there were commentators on Fox last night that blamed Romney's loss on him being too moderate, doubling down on the need to shift further to the right. Republicans should be control the Senate, yet look how many races they squandered by putting up unelectable candidates.
Crock, I've thought about what the GOP needs to do if it wants to regain power, and this is what I've come up with. 1. The current electoral college strategy doesn’t work. The GOP can’t just concede the entire Northeast, Illinois, and the West Coast and hope to win. That’s 206 electoral votes just given away without any fight at all. Couple that with a handful of states that are long-shots at best (Minnesota, New Mexico, and Michigan), and that simply doesn’t leave enough margin for error. I don’t expect them to become competitive in all of those places, but they do need to become competitive in at least one of those places. That means making the Party palatable in one of those places. I’d shoot for the Northeast. It’s composed of several states, so the Party can rebuild in baby-steps (unlike in California). Furthermore, as progress is made, it would likely spill into the Rustbelt states, which have commonality with the Northeast (certainly more than the West Coast has). Finally, those states still elect Republicans to state and local offices, and those leaders might be able to help out, if the Party doesn’t treat them like **** and tell them they aren’t welcome. 2. The Party needs to avoid polarizing the abortion issue. Notice, I didn't say abandon the pro-life position. That’s suicidal. The GOP isn't going to out-counterculture the Democrats. However, its unwillingness to be remotely pragmatic about the issue directly cost it two Senate seats. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock didn’t lose because they were pro-life. Hell, Joe Donnelly is solidly pro-life himself. They lost because they made statements that exposed their idiocy. However, the consequences went further than that. Their comments took the national focus off the poor economy where the GOP should have had an advantage and put it on a stupid abortion position where it did not. How are candidates like Scott Brown, Linda McMahon, Tommy Thompson, or even Mitt Romney who were relying on heavy crossover support supposed to explain those idiotic statements to voters? They either have to rip their own party or defend them. Neither position is good for them. 3. The GOP must reckon with Hispanics. It’s cost them California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and in the long term may cost them Arizona. The sooner they do it, the easier it’s going to be. Frankly, I have no sympathy for them. Many years ago, both parties sold out their country on the immigration issue from a security standpoint and from a labor (including union) standpoint. Democrats wanted a new constituency to pander to, and their plan was absolutely brilliant, because they knew GOP donors’ greed would kill any resistance the Party would have otherwise had. They also knew their union voters were too dumb to figure out they were getting screwed. How does the GOP reckon? It needs to develop a real solution to immigration that involves heavy border security and some path to legalization for non-violent illegal aliens. They also need to stop demonizing illegal immigrants in general. Illegal immigrants may not vote (though some clearly do), but huge numbers of legal, voting Hispanics have illegal immigrants as close friends, family members, or ancestors. If you want to promote border security and deport violent criminal aliens, go for it. Most Hispanics would support that wholeheartedly, but when you suggest grabbing the bricklayer off the job site, pouring out his beer, calling him a lazy, welfare-hustling piece of **** (which he isn't), having obnoxious cops with small penis issues hassle him, and deporting him or throwing his kid out of school (while at the same time performing "political fellatio" on his employer for a campaign contribution), they’re going to have a problem with that. I think the GOP could support a plan that was still pretty onerous – could require learning English, paying fines, back taxes, etc., and most Hispanic voters would be OK with it as a compromise just to get the issue out of limbo. Does that plan suck? Yep, it does. Should lawbreakers be rewarded? Hell no, but it’s too late. This isn't Nazi Germany, and we're not going to summarily deport 12 million people. The genie is well out of the bottle and can’t be put back in. Next time the GOP's greedy-*** donors want slave labor, maybe the Party should consider putting its country first, instead of turning into traitorous sacks of ****. 4. As part of the above referenced Northeastern strategy, stop crapping on moderates or publicly ridiculing them as RINOs, especially if they’re from swing or Democratic states. You aren't going to elect Marco Rubio in states like Maine or Massachusetts. If you can elect an Olympia Snowe who will vote with you half the time, that’s progress. She might have to cast a pro-labor vote or a pro-environment vote from time to time, but work with her where you can. You need people like her. On a related note, don’t demonize experience and problem-solving abilities. Dick Lugar is a statesman who actually knew how to break gridlock, and he was one of the brightest foreign policy minds of his day. You don’t shitcan him for somebody who runs promising to basically act like an uncompromising jerk when he gets into office. That might work in overwhelmingly Republican states, but it’s a nonstarter in states that at least listen to Democrats. 5. Develop an agenda that appeals directly to voters under 40. Just saying, “well we’re pro-growth, and they’ll have a job if we win” isn't enough. When the Party is trying to raise money from billionaires, it comes up with a comprehensive pro-billionaire agenda and pitches it with everything the Party has. Put 1/10 of that effort into appealing to younger voters. That doesn't necessarily mean dramatically altering the substantive agenda. The Democratic position on entitlements is completely indefensible and highway robbery to younger voters, but the GOP doesn't exploit that. Start exploiting it. 6. Stop being the party that celebrates stupidity. The GOP used to have very smart people as its standard bearers - William F. Buckley, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, etc. Now we have a cavalcade of stupid people - Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Todd Akin, etc. Get rid of those people, and replace them with an new class of intellectual conservatives. 7. Long term, realize that some things are more important than making money, such as protecting the small-government cause. One big disadvantage the GOP has is that when a person votes for the first time, he’s been sitting through an 18 – 22 year Obama commercial and has had his head stuffed with disinformation from a Democratic-oriented media. Don’t bellyache about it. Get over it, and fight back. Instead of telling all your conservative kids to become engineers, doctors, or CPAs so they can make money, tell at least some of them to become teachers, college professors, and journalists. There’s a reason why liberals go into those fields, and it’s because their political agenda matters more to them than their individual financial well-being. More conservatives need to show a similar level of commitment.
Deez -- I just gotta say Yeah! You ever decide to run for public office let me know and I'll do all I can to help you. I don't agree with you on a lot of issues. But I respect your intellect and your values.
To me, it is simply down to the math. You look at who the GOP has consistently sold well with and why and you have to conclude that a broader approach is in order. This was in my mind the GOPs race to lose and they found a way to lose it.
I need to bookmark this so I can just copy/paste Deez's stuff in arguments. I honestly believe the GOP is going to take some initiative with the aforementioned issues (as much as the far right is willing to concede) and it'll lead to a kinder, gentler GOP with far more mass appeal in 2016. Imagine how big a right victory would have been if they had followed even two of those items? They've got to pull it together and stop shooting themselves in the foot.
As a follow up or add on the Deez's post, the GOP's alienation of Hispanics (Latinos) is eventually going to cost them Arizona and Texas. If they lose those two states, they are done in national elections. The GOP could appeal to the traditional family values of the many Hispanic families, but the xenophobic elements and actions need to be removed and ridiculed. I also think the opposition to social programs needs to be lessened or modified.
Deez, great post. I would swap 1 and 3. I would completely change my tact with Hispanics and immigration immediately and make it my biggest priority by far. And then I would completely downplay all social issues. Your post is spot on, and yet, so damn obvious. At least the GOP still controls the "House of Representin'"
Republicans can avoid the whole gay marriage issue by getting government out of the marriage business altogether. Marriage should not be regulated especially by the national centralized government, although I suspect even the half of Americans who are communists and socialists would agree there should be a legal minimum age and maximum number of participants, probably 2. With respect to the illegal Hispanic invasion, I believe this may be one source of the future mass violence to come irregardless of what Republicans do now. It would be better for Republicans to rigidly stick to their fiscal and core social beliefs, not cave to illegal aliens and face what comes squareley, even if it means collapsing the command economy and centralized national government sooner rather than later.
I suppose I would understand immigraiton fear if these aliens were somehow hiding in closets everywhere . .. lurking and unidentifiable . . . .menacing like Islamic terrorists. I spent several summer jobs during high school at a car wash working with many of them. They are working in the fields of California and often work as maids or construction workers. They are plodding along, paying sales tax and keeping labor costs down. They are already here and have been for a long time. The concept of just rounding all these people up and shipping them out en masse doesn't seem to be the most logical way forward. Hopefully a more moderate solution can be found.
newdoc, I understand that science literacy and critical thinking skills are not at the top of anybody's political agenda. However the fact that the Texas Republican party would OPPOSE them in convention votes means you have a lot of folks completely out of touch with the mainstream of intelligent thought putting together party platforms. We have to get somebody besides wingnuts excited enough to get elected as GOP delegates.
