I am a naturally optimistic fellow, not easily depressed. But on
election night, despite a supply of cheap champagne and leftover
Halloween candy to boost my spirits, I went to bed thoroughly
demoralized and in the dumps. The
piece by Robert Stacy McCain that appeared on this site the
next morning (“Doomed Beyond all Hope of Redemption”) pretty much
summed up my feelings.
But Time, the Great Healer, soon started to have its salubrious
effect on my psyche, and I was able to wade through some
post-mortem analyses without getting physically ill, and eventually
came to the conclusion that though, yes, the Republican Party (the
only political party through which conservatives wield policy
making influence) has many problems, it is not the complete wreck
that some assume, and therefore the nation is not, necessarily,
doomed.
Like many conservatives, I had bought into the very reasonable
narrative that lower enthusiasm on the Democratic side for Obama,
combined with much higher enthusiasm for Romney among Republicans
than for John McCain in 2008, would mean the 2012 electorate would
be much more evenly split among Republicans and Democrats versus
2008, and Romney’s strength with independents would likely push him
over the top. That didn’t happen. The “enthusiasm gap” didn’t
manifest itself and though Romney improved greatly upon McCain’s
performance with independents, Democratic turnout beat Republican
turnout by about as much as it did in 2008. In addition to losing
the presidential race, Republicans, once hopeful of capturing the
senate in a target rich environment of vulnerable Democratic seats,
actually appear to have managed a net loss of two seats.
Republican failures in Senate races in 2012 and 2010 highlight
the most serious internal problem for which the Republican Party
needs to find an answer. In 2010, so-called “Tea Party”
conservatives pushed weak Senate candidates in the contests against
a particularly vulnerable Harry Reid in Nevada, and in favor of the
one Republican candidate who could have (and would have) won in an
open seat in Delaware, long-time congressman Mike Castle. Castle,
however, was deemed too “moderate” so the Tea Party’s nod, and
ultimately the nomination went to Christine O’Donnell. O’Donnell,
like the Tea Party’s Nevada selection, Sharron Angle, was an
unpolished (putting it kindly) candidate whose only selling point
was an unflinching conservative worldview. Arguments about
electability were swept aside, and it didn’t matter that O’Donnell
and Angle could easily (and I mean easily) be painted as
kooks. As a result, the Republican Party fumbled away two easy
pick-ups, with the Tea Party faithful arguing that it was better to
lose elections to liberal Democrats than to elect moderate
“RINO’s”, or even “establishment” conservatives. This mistake was
repeated again in 2012 with Todd Aiken in Missouri and Richard
Mourdock in Indiana. Again, two more sure-win Senate seats given
away by ill-advised candidate selection.
Did Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, with their imbecilic
comments on rape (which seemed to get more press attention than
Benghazi), ultimately cost Mitt Romney the presidential election?
Probably not, but they did further tarnish the Republican “brand”
playing into the hands of the Democratic propaganda machine that
the Republican Party is hostile to women, and full of ignorant,
right-wing religious zealots. To be a majority national party you
have to build coalitions, like Ronald Reagan did so well in the
1980’s. By definition, everyone in the coalition will not be in
agreement on every issue. But conservatives when backing primary
candidates need to realize that being able to win the general
election has to be an important consideration. Someone who is less
than a 100% conservative, but who conservatives could bring into
coalitions on most important issues, is not a bad alternative to a
liberal Democrat who will always or almost always be opposed to
conservative positions. The Republican Party, to be a national
majority party, needs the likes of a Mike Castle in Delaware or a
Richard Lugar, and to cast them aside as candidates in contested
elections for the likes of Christine O’Donnell and Richard Mourdock
is insanity. In order repair the damage of eight years of an Obama
presidency conservatives are going to need to build large governing
coalitions greater than their own numbers.
Along those lines, there are those that are blaming the 2012
calamity on the fact that Mitt Romney wasn’t conservative enough
and did not provide a stark enough contrast with Barrack Obama. But
the reality is that the contrast was pretty stark. Like most every
politician out there (including Barrack Obama), Mitt Romney had to
deal with past position flip-flops and some of his campaign team’s
strategic decisions can be second guessed, but in what really
mattered in this election, he laid out a clear vision of support
for free-enterprise, low taxes, and reduction of over-bearing
government regulation that was clearly and fundamentally different
from President Obama’s policies of stimulus spending, auto
bailouts, increased regulation, and increased taxes on the “rich.”
Romney’s problem was that he was never able to erase away fully the
caricature of himself engrained in the minds of many voters through
early and ubiquitous Obama ads that he was a crass, unfeeling, out
of touch, rich guy. It didn’t help that that caricature was also
pushed by many of Romney’s opponents in the Republican primary. In
the end, though voters in exit polls expressed agreement with the
core Republican value of limited government, they also thought that
Obama would do a much better job looking out for the interests of
the “middle class.” In the end, the bigger philosophical agreement
was no match for the smaller more personal concern. And that is my
reason for hope. Even with a strong Democrat turnout, the basic
philosophy that is the core common bond of Republicans resonated
with a majority of the electorate.
Yes, the Republican Party has to stop “eating its own” with
purges of perfectly electable (if not perfectly conservative)
candidates. Yes, the Republican Party has to work harder at selling
itself to women, Hispanics, and other minority groups. But
Republicans don’t need to (and should not) alter their core
beliefs. Romney’s defeat at the hands of an apparently vulnerable
incumbent has less to do with giant faults within the Republican
Party than it does with the particular circumstances of this
election. The bottom line is that it is very difficult to pivot out
of a highly competitive primary and into a general election and
defeat a well-funded incumbent with a huge, in-place, campaign
machine. That’s just political reality. And you can bet that just
as it looks bleak for Republicans after this bitter defeat, it
looked just as bad for Democrats after 2004 and 1988, and for
Republicans after Clinton’s reelection in 1996. The electorate is
fickle, and both parties tend to fritter away quickly what looks
like national dominance. It will be even more so with Democrats
this time around with a lame duck president with an uninspiring
first term record that likely will not be improved upon in his
second term.
So Republicans should not get too carried away with
recriminations. To borrow some sports advice, what Republicans need
to do is step back, regroup, and focus on fundamentals. In this
case, that means focusing on expanding coalitions, selecting the
best suited candidates, and winning elections.
