The Spectacle Blog
Political losses are interesting to watch. Generally speaking, the left and the right handle them differently.
Too often, the tendency of the right is to talk about how certain groups are holding the rest down. Primarily the debate is between those who favor social conservatism and those who favor economic conservatism. Each group insists that its approach is the correct one to get back to a ruling majority vote.
There certainly are quite a few larger problems facing the conservative movement. Right now, particularly among Hispanic, black, and Asian voters, the conservative side has a number of trends that do not favor it. The electorate remained, as it has been historically, more Democratic than Republican.
Fundamentally, however, fingerpointing is not the correct approach. For that, conservatives would do well to learn from their rivals on the left. Liberals handle political losses quite differently. Generally speaking, left-wingers focus on what they did wrong and how to fix it rather than try to cast off who is to blame. Aside from some quibbling between the hardcore communists and the New Democrat types, you simply do not see people calling for expulsion of Hispanics, chastening of gays, or repudiation of government unions. This communitarian approach has been a core part of how leftists have operated for centuries. The old French leftist phrase “pas d’ennemi à gauche,” no enemies on the left, has been something they live by to this day.
Not only is this approach more rational and free from acrimony, it is also actually more likely to lead to productive outcomes.
The primary challenges for the right are ones of messaging, demographics, and market penetration. The specific issues do not really matter that much to most people, largely because they do not care about policy. If you can get the larger societal trends moving in your favor, politics becomes much easier.
The left has long harbored a built-in advantage in the American system due to greater numbers of Americans identifying with its party. Historically, the GOP has been able to overcome this through maxing out its base vote. That happened once again in 2012. Conservatives of all varieties showed up and voted. The difference this year was that Democrats finally seem to have developed a real ground game. Mitt Romney did not lose the election. Barack Obama won it.
Policy is an outcome of the political process, it is the end. If conservatives wish to obtain that end, we should focus on the beginning of the process rather than fight over whose end is best. Before we can get to that point, however, we must focus on changing hearts and minds of those who disagree. Making speeches and TV ads does not do that.
Discussing and debating ultimate objectives is both necessary and entertaining but now is not the time for it, particularly when lashing out is the easy thing to do. Our challenge is not whom to expel but whom to invite in. The next four years are going to be very interesting for conservatives. Will we learn the lessons we need to, though?
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http://spectator.org/blog/2012/11/09/right-needs-expansion-not-dism
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Ryan| 11.9.12 @ 11:22AM
I think sometimes the problem could be is that Conservatives could mistake the idea that changing the way a message is presented is the same thing as changing the message. It isn't. Ronald Reagan - very effectively - presented the message in a clear manner.
We believe our message - low taxes, more freedom, personal responsibility, less dependency on government - is the right one.
Sometimes we forget - and the Ron Paul supporters are prime examples here - is that people listen and look to the messenger more than the message.
Romney is a poor messenger (and has a poor grasp of the message). Obama is a good messenger with a poor message.
JustenO| 11.10.12 @ 10:34PM
the problem is getting that message out, when all the media cares to report is when some nut gets in front of a crowd and says it's gods will for a rape victim to have a baby, or some other such stuff.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:48PM
Someone in a different threat came up with ONE solution - for the GOP to, in the lead-up to primaries, host debates moderated by local LIBERAL lights, columnists or newspaper editors - not to determine the direction of the party, but to show which candidates can take the heat and be coherent and still deliver the party message. It might have saved us the GOP senatorial primary in which Dick Lugar (a RINO, but STILL a senior Senate Republican) was replaced by a guy who told reporters that children out of rapes were "meant to be."
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:49PM
"a different THREAD.. " sheesh, I'm sorry
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.9.12 @ 11:31AM
The GOP needs to forget about blacks and Hispanics. They are bought and paid for voting blocks of the left. The GOP needs to focus on running real conservatives, not moderates. Stop apologizing, too. It just shows weakness.
Zeppo| 11.9.12 @ 11:52AM
The GOP needs to focus on running real conservatives? You must be kidding. Maybe you mean that real conservatives need to focus on taking over the GOP.
Biff| 11.11.12 @ 7:38PM
quite correct; why do people continue to confuse conservative ideology with the old guard Republican party?
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:52PM
You don't live around recent Hispanic arrivals to the country, do you? They're REALLY conservative. Just new to the country, and vulnerable to being lied to - and the Democrats are beyond good at it. We don't give up, we don't relax the borders, but we DO explain what America's all about, remind them they came here for what conservatism has built up before they came here, and show them how liberalism is destroying their reason for coming here. The mass post-election layoffs are a perfect time for delivering that message.
Quartermaster| 11.9.12 @ 12:55PM
The difference between conservatives and the loony left is quite simple. The left uses handouts to buy teh electorate and if one of theirs commits some apostasy that person is shunned and harshly punished until they abjectly grovel with remorse, and then they will allow a period of probation.
The GOP will simply allow the establishment and moderates, who have no principles, to keep running things no matter what they do. People like Boehner, who is an utter idiot, are already they are ready to deal when nothing has even come up yet. They have surrendered to the left.
It's time for Operation Whig. The GOP must die. It's time for Conservative to leave the GOP. cain is exectly right.
Whig| 11.9.12 @ 2:06PM
Look, there are two ways of dealing with a changing electorate. First, try to appease them by agreeing with them in principle but differing with them on specifics. See the last Republican governors of Illinois, California, and New York. Become Dem lites. Chris Christie seems to be adopting this position as well as John Boehner et. al.
Second, change the playing field by fracturing the majority coalition with targeted policies. Ronald Reagan in California is an example. Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, GW Bush in Texas, and now Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
Ideological and name calling fights turn off independents and moderate swing voters. You have to make your positions concrete and understandable.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.9.12 @ 2:27PM
So Romney's moderate, non-name calling method works?
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 2:52PM
it's clearly time to contemplate O'Rourke's Law:
"Those who the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous". Making Obama into Saruman isn't getting it. Much better to make him into what he is, the two-bit crook who pretended to be a genius and blew up the national economy. The Sorcerer's Incompetent Apprentice. If we do it with a light touch, but a subtext in which his fumbling and thievery from the Medicare Fund and American small businesses points clearly to his indifference to ordinary people. Plenty of mentions of his vacation schedule, with "how do WE get the Air Force to fly our wives to Spain?" in it - jocular, but with an edge underneath. We allow our brothers and sisters in America to call the names, and I'm sure this time January the names will be bad ones. The attendance at his NEXT inauguration will allow the District of Columbia and Park Police to lay patrolmen OFF.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:56PM
I was waiting for someone to mention Bobby Jindal. He saved the state-owned hospital system in Louisiana set up by Huey Long, which has NO chance of disappearing and treats perhaps a fifth of the population, from bankruptcy. Jindal understands medical economics as very few politicians in either party do. If there is a chance for the GOP to deliver an alternative to Obamacare in the chaos following the Obama layoffs, it lies with Bobby Jindal.
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 2:25PM
Another point in favor of Bobby Jindal is that he's a "happy warrior." He's personable, photogenic, and self-effacing. Like Ronald Reagan, he's HARD to hate, which is a definite plus. Everything he got, he earned - his dad worked as an engineer at the Exxon refinery at Baton Rouge, so the whole spurious "dynasty" thing can't be used against him. And in Louisiana, he drove the local Democratic party to open and virulent racism in his first campaign for governor (where he lost to Kathleen Blanco - who basically was a sock puppet for her hubby, handled Hurricane Katrina as badly as it could have been managed, and destroyed the Democrats' chances of gaining the Governorship for years). Jindal beat her soundly in the next election, was re-elected by acclamation, and would be a shoo-in for re-election again if Louisiana law didn't limit governors to two terms.
It's Jindal's turn. If he were to emerge as an eminence grise for the GOP, counsel a way out of the Obamacare economic disaster, and be recognized as the man who saved the American economy, it'd be worth twice the money spent trying to elect Romney in and of itself.
C Bowen | 11.9.12 @ 3:48PM
How did Republicans do with the urban Somalian vote? How can we educate Somalians on the benefits of the free market?
Man, this a worthless article.
How about, as a start, shut down the refugee racket that pays organizations like Catholic Charities a bounty to set them up on welfare in urban areas and apparently, vote straight ticket?
Derek Leaberry| 11.9.12 @ 4:38PM
Conservatives like Peter Brimelow, Sam Francis, Pat Buchanan and Tom Fleming have warned about immigration for 20 years. They were either ignored or were condemned by the Wall Street Journal twits, the neo-conservatives and big businessmen. They were right, the others wrong, and conservatism will pay the price of political desolation.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.9.12 @ 7:26PM
Yes conservatives have been warning about mass immigration for years, but Sam Francis is a racist. He and his fellow racists do more harm to the goal of stopping the immigration tide than any romantic WSJ twit might do.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.9.12 @ 8:05PM
I should say the late Sam Francis. BTW, Fleming may not be as bad as Francis, but he denies American exceptionalism. Plus, he denies the American principle -- all mean are created equal -- and believes that "blood, soil, and kinship" is the true principle of America.
Grzmlyk| 11.9.12 @ 6:23PM
Yes, I do think the green deck chairs would look better over here, on the foredeck of the Titanic, than over there. Let's rearrange them.
Man, I don't know what's worse - the loss or listening to the self-appointed GOP brain trust do post-mortems.
Here's the truth: Conservatism is GONE. It has gone the way of the dodo bird. It no longer exists in this country. Fini. Over. That ship has sailed; the bus has left the depot. Get it?
We are not a "center-right" country (god, I hope never to hear that again); we are a LEFT WING country. We are one with Western Europe. We are a terminal Welfare state.
Liberalism is relentless, amoral and continues to move the goal posts; conservativism is static, polite and seeks to defend a small - and shrinking - turf. The truth is that liberalism ALWAYS WINS in the long run because entropy always claims closed systems. Weeds overtake the untended garden. Chaos eventually rules over order.
There is no turning back - oh, sure, there may be the occasional hiccup - the Reagan era or 2010. But look at the culture in this country for the last 100 years. Which way has it moved year after year?
That tells you everything you need to know. Karl Rove can recalculate his message all he wants, Krauthammer can admonish us to open the door once and for all to illegal immigration, pundits everywhere can scratch their heads over how to win hearts and minds.
It is all futile.
C. Vernon Crisler | 11.9.12 @ 7:27PM
Yes, it's easy to believe everything is futile, but listen all ye conservatives and true patriots to the words of Thomas Jefferson:
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt. But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself. "
Grzmlyk| 11.9.12 @ 6:24PM
(cont'd)
I don't care how any of you wizards slice it - it is over for the GOP, over for conservatism, over for America and over for Western Civilization.
Them's the facts.
Zeppo| 11.9.12 @ 6:39PM
You have a nice weekend, too, Grzmlyk.
Grzmlyk| 11.9.12 @ 6:54PM
Hey - you can tell a stage-4 cancer patient that they're not dying, or that there's a chance that chemo will work, or that a miracle may occur, but that doesn't change reality. Overwhelmingly, they die.
I don't see the point in lying to ourselves - the GOP establishment doesn't give a rat's ass about conservative principles anyway; it's a power game to them. Look at our last several nominees: Bush, McCain, Romney. Not a conservative in the bunch. All RINOs - why? To appeal to the critical mass of this country, which is, say it with me, LEFT WING. Continue to pretend if you must. I do understand. But facts are facts.
Zeppo| 11.10.12 @ 1:06AM
Was I arguing/
Grzmlyk| 11.10.12 @ 10:30AM
I apologize.
I reflexively thought you were taking the Emmett Tyrrell argument (which delusion is epidemic in light of conservatism's rejection by the electorate), which is, "let's lie to ourselves about the true nature of this country so that we can go on pretending the clock hasn't run out and we're several touchdowns behind."
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:38PM
I'm a cancer patient with a cancer so rare and poorly understood that the protocol for it doesn't even HAVE stages. It's try and pray for me. But giving up isn't in the cards until one of Obama's people in Medicare tells my caregivers to send me home with a ton of painkillers my Part D plan won't cover.
Likewise for the GOP. Giving up ain't in the cards.
The Tea Party's still finding its feet. I'm in Tea Party in Space, one of the branches of the movement which is making a difference by encouraging NASA to move out of the corporate welfare business toward buying privately and saving billions - it's already happened with SpaceX's latest spacelift rocket.
Setting achievable goals is important. Finding a good basis FOR those goals is another. The very best basis for "agonizing reappraisal" is going back to the Constitution and explaining why we made the change. It's a repentance that doesn't involve becoming a liberal - instead, it's a way of becoming even MORE right-wing in a morally unassailable way. Like waving a red cape in front of the media's bull, then sweeping it aside to reveal a massive steel anvil at the last minute. Conservative principles have to be founded in the Constitution, and we have to ask social conservatives to seek their goals by educating the public, not seeking coercive laws that won't pass judicial muster (like the Defense of Marriage Act, recently shot down in court).
We could try the same old stuff, instead. See how it works?
Artie| 11.10.12 @ 5:30AM
Test
Artie| 11.10.12 @ 5:36AM
God
Vance P. Frickey| 11.11.12 @ 1:27PM
The last thing the right needs now is a circular firing squad.
It'd be a lot more productive if conservatism rediscovered the Constitution. Social conservatives, pragmatists and everyone else need to agree that whatever we propose to do from now on has to conform to the Bill of Rights, at a minimum. That will, done properly, take the stick with which the Democrats beat the Right away from them - and allow us to deliver the same beating to the left with it.
Biff| 11.11.12 @ 7:34PM
If we want to focus on what we did wrong, as you suggest, the number one mistake was thinking we could pass a New England RINO, who has flipped his position on practically every issue during his career, off as a genuine conservative. Game, set, and match.