Since Obama's victory, the Republicans have begun to play the game that Democrats have been good at for almost a decade: blame everyone else for the failings of the party. Blame John McCain, blame Sarah Palin, blame George Bush, blame Steve Schmidt, blame the message, blame the lack of the use of the internet, blame anyone but yourself.
The truth is that, while the Republicans made some mistakes, they lost one election in a terrible economy, with anti-incumbent fever at an all time high, against the best Democratic candidate since Kennedy. So while the Republicans have some work to do, considering the circumstances, a six-point loss to Obama is not the end of the world.
All this being said:
-The Republicans need to find a messenger: Right now, the blame game is preventing them from finding someone who can unify the party.
-The Republicans should be troubled by their lack of minority outreach: The Republicans are overwhelmingly white, and lost heavily with both African-Americans and Latinos. The party of Pleasantville just won't work anymore.
-The Republicans need an effective economic message: McCain was never good on the economy. For all of his strengths in this climate as someone who could run against the Republicans, McCain never was strong on the economy. The Republicans should find an economic message that resonates with average Americans.
Most importantly, however, the Republicans need to not panic. They won 46% of the popular vote in a nation that had the highest "wrong track" polls in history. George Bush was beyond unpopular, and yet McCain still managed to cobble together quite a few votes across the nation. Now that Bush is gone, the Republicans should look to fashion a more inclusive message that can appeal to some minority groups while speaking to the middle class economically.
The key will be found in the statehouses and not on Capitol Hill. Look for Bobby Jindal to be a lead contender in fashioning a Republican message that can incorporate the concerns of Indian-Americans while building up the middle class.
The last thought is that Sarah Palin is an ineffective messenger: at least for now. Because she was elevated too quickly, her lack of experience haunted her. The Couric interview and the Tina Fey skits on Saturday Night Live came to dominate how people viewed her: as someone well out of her league on issues of the day. While it is far too soon to count Palin out, she should get out of the spotlight, head back to Alaska, bone up on foreign policy experience and a solid economic message, and then get back in the fray. 2012 might even be too soon for her.
RG
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8 comments:
I think the GOP has a lot to worry about here, and I don't think that 46% is a terribly great showing for them, even with the economy/wrong track numbers.
We have a more polarized electorate than at any time in the last 40 years. The reality is that there are about 44 or 45% of the electorate that will never vote Democrat for any reason, simply because of Roe or some other social issue like that (and the hard core Dem base is probably about the same size). So there is really only about 10 of the electorate up for grabs, and that being the case, Obama won about 70-80% of the vote that was up for grabs.
I agree that the GOP has to find a way to reach out beyond their base and connect with minority groups and with groups outside the south. But, I just don't think thats going to happen. Their reaction to the loss seems to be that they lost because they weren't conservative enough, and that to win they have to become more like their base. I hope they do it, that is a losing strategy.
Well, I agree with a surprising amount of what you say, Ryan. The Republicans have to move beyond the blame game and assert a message and forward momentum. Unfortunately--for the Republicans--they have a LOT of work to do. The Democrats are mistaken, however, if they believe that they can now rest on their laurels. Neither party is attractive to a large segment of independent voters.
While the Republicans likely need to work harder to reach out to independents (at least based on the recent elections), Democrats cannot assume a very liberal and partisan position and still hope to appeal to independents. It's important to note that Congress has an even lower approval rating than the current President has.
I'm still hoping for another party or two.
The Congressional approval numbers are incredibly misleading. If they weren't, the Congressional Dems would have gotten pounded in November, but instead they gained about 20 seats.
The reason that the numbers are misleading is because we have the public that is mad at Congress for a lot of different reasons. On one hand, you have a bunch of Republicans who are pissed at the Democrats control Congress and oppose anything that they do. Second, there are a lot of Democrats (me among them) that disapprove of Congress' performance because they were not challenging the Administration enough and not trying hard enough to enact progressive change. But people like me are sure not going to vote to give Congress to the GOP even if we're not real happy with how our party leadership is doing.
Additionally, its also the case that a lot of people hate Congress but they like their individual Congressman. So even if people don't like Congress as a whole, unless damage can be done to their invidual Congressman, nothing is going to change.
I also disagree that the Democrats don't have a mandate for progressive change. For the last two cycles they have campaigned on a progressive agenda and people flocked to them. Further, President-Elect Obama just won a landslide victory all the while promising a progressive agenda and he crushed Sen. McCain among independent voters. If Congress takes steps to enact the Obama agenda, they should be fine.
I think that part of the problem for Republicans too is the lack of enthusiasm for their chosen nominee. My parents are hardcore Republicans, but neither were very enthusiastic about voting for McCain. Republicans need someone who can generate more enthusiasm, and I hope to God that person is not Sarah Palin.
The GOP has a serious "damned if you do, damned if you don't" problem when it comes to enthusiasm, and Sarah Palin is the proof.
The GOP has to find a way to both excite their base and excite independents to vote for them. The Democrats were able to do this with Obama, but its harder for the GOP. On one hand, if they find a candidate that really excites their base, like Sarah Palin, they scare the crap out of independents and moderates. On the other hand, if they find someone that really appeals to moderates and independents, the base gets pissed off and stays home.
The GOP has to find someone that can bridge that gap and given the concerns that make the two groups tick, that's going to be very difficult.
It is true that the GOP has benefited from a strange coalition since Reagan. The truth is that the social conservative agenda convinces many voters to vote against their own economic self-interest.
Ironically, the Joe the plumber episode illustrates this well. Joe should have voted for Obama, if he was looking out for his own economic self-interest. But Republicans have been surprisingly successful at convincing Americans of two things:
a) social conservativism is more important than economics--abortion is by far the most single-issue voter oriented position in the U.S., and it is almost always pro-lifers single-issuing.
b) that taxes on anyone (even the very wealthy) are suspect because someday you might be the very wealthy. Thus, people like Joe the Plumber vote against candidates offering them a tax break because they fear that taxes on the wealthy will hurt them (either because they will someday be the wealthy or they think people will decide to tax them).
I disagree with Tom to some extent that the Republicans can't make this work again, because they've made it work in the past. At some level, the dire straits of the economy combined with an awesome Obama campaign convinced people to vote for Obama.
Oddly, however, prosperous times seem to benefit the Republicans--allowing them to take the focus off the economy and on to other issues. Gore lost on the back of a strong economy and a popular incumbent president. Bush sold the economy as being an issue where "since it's good, let's give back to you."
In other words, the strong economy was a warrant for big tax cuts, over Gore's rainy day fund (something that in an era of high deficits, looks mighty appealing right now).
In addition, Bush effectively used social conservatism in a time of plenty to win votes.
It will be interesting to see what happens if Obama is successful in fixing the economy. Will that actually HURT the Democrats if it takes the economy off the table? My suspicion is that it would help Obama in '12, but hurt his successor in '16, if the Republicans can combine the social/economic agenda they have in the past.
One last thought, Karl Rove in this week's Newsweek definitely thinks it would be a mistake for the Republicans to abandon their social conservative agenda. They get a great many evangelical Christians to single-issue vote on the question of abortion, and it allows them to literally pocket voters that economically should be Democrats.
It's been a winning formula for them back through Reagan, and they shouldn't change just because one election didn't go their way.
I agree with you that they *can* make the strategy work again, but I don't think that they have anyone out there that can pull it off. And I think thats especially true if the economy has started to improve by the time of the next election (but isn't all the way back yet). If things are getting better, but we're still kind of on the brink, I think the voters are going to reward the party thats in power.
I think that this election shows that the GOP's ability to con people into opposing taxes on the wealthy because they might be wealthy just isn't going to work in an environment like this. Obama was crystal clear about his desire to raise taxes on the rich, and yet people voted for him overwhelmingly. I just think that, at least for the forseeable future, the public has decided the GOP simply cannot act as a responsible steward for the economy. Now, that may change if the Democrats make absolutely no progress in fixing this mess, but if they do ok, things aren't going to improve for the GOP. And that leads to the problem for the Republicans...
The GOP was able to build their winning coalition by appealing to social conservatives and then conning the other members of their coalition with their economic message. But if that con isn't likely to work, its going to be very hard to reach those voters. Then, as this year showed, if they don't have that hook and they end up turning to a psychotically conservative candidate like Palin, the base loves her and everyone else gets really scared and turns away from the GOP.
Maybe the GOP can find someone who can bridge the gap again and sell the economic message and reel in the social conservatives without scaring their other voters away. But, I think that absent major failures by the Democrats, the GOP is going to be hard-pressed to find a candidate that can do it.
Responding to “All this being said…”
Response: Concern for the Republicans “finding a messenger…”; what Republicans “should be troubled about…”; what “Republicans need…”; whether or not Republicans “need not panic…”; what the “key” is; and worrying about Sarah Palin--all this trivia and concern for a single political party misses the real point of what the country needs.
Instead: Politics must be set aside. Sound reasoning must take over partisan interest:
Now is the time for reasonable, rational critical analysis of where this country is; development of options to improve, change, or delete current US policies; and the taking of ACTION to enact the best option or options. It seems the President-elect can and will move in this direction despite the fact that he is politician.
If we must have political parties, then a new party of critical rationalist that truly separates religion from state and moves progressively forward in national security; national energy; national/global sound economic practices; and promotes and enacts the general welfare for its citizens.
A party of the center, if you will. MODERATES, not partisans!
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