Evangelical leaders and conservative activists have a simple message for establishment Republicans about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid: We told you so.
After nearly two weeks of listening to GOP officials pledge to assert greater control over the party and its most strident voices in the wake of Romney’s loss, grass-roots activists have begun to fight back, saying that they are not to blame for the party’s losses in November.
“The moderates have had their candidate in 2008 and they had their candidate in 2012. And they got crushed in both elections. Now they tell us we have to keep moderating. If we do that, will we win?” said Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Family Leader. Vander Plaats is an influential Christian conservative who opposed Romney in the Iowa caucuses 10 months ago and opposed Sen. John McCain’s candidacy four years ago.
The conservative backlash sets up an internal fight for the direction of the Republican Party, as many top leaders in Washington have proposed moderating their views on citizenship for illegal immigrants, to appeal to Latino voters. In addition, many top GOP officials have called for softening the party’s rhetoric on social issues, following the embarrassing showing by Senate candidates who were routed after publicly musing about denying abortion services to women who had been raped.
The extremers, as I will call them, need a reality check. Yes, they caused the loss. To say that the candidate wasn’t conservative enough defies conventional wisdom and overlooks the reality of the situation. Could Romney have won? Absolutely. He might have won if he and other members of the GOP had been muzzled. You can’t have party members running around defining rape (which Ryan had been involved in earlier) and bashing the 47% in private.
Perhaps what the extremers really mean is they need to redefine their dog whistles so that we dumbos don’t recognize that we are being insulted.
In order for the extremers to win, they are going to have to put away the social values part of their dance card. women and young people simply aren’t going to go for the restrictions on contraception. That notion went out the window for most Americans some 60 years ago. Many Americans had already rejected that kind of government interference. Additionally, most Americans like a safety net. To say that abortion will only be legal in cases of rape or incest is NOT a moderate point of view.
Too many of the extremers have embraced the anti immigration rhetoric of NumbersUSA and FAIR to be considered acceptable by most Latino families. Legal, voting Latino families usually know or have family members who don’t have their paper work totally in order through no fault of their own. Cries for changes to the 14th Amendment haven’t gone unnoticed. Deportation of children of illegal immigrants just seems hateful to many of us. Imagine what it appears to the typical Latino.
Rick Santorum who simply doesn’t represent moderates and liberals weighed in:
“The American people do not want ‘gifts’ from their leaders, particularly when these gifts leave a steep bill for our children to pay, but they do want us to be on their side,” Santorum wrote in a USA Today op-ed published Monday. He placed the blame on the national party, saying it lacked an appealing agenda: “We as a party, the party of Ronald Reagan and ‘Morning in America,’ failed to provide an agenda that shows we care.”
The dispute began to take shape soon after Obama was declared the winner and Republicans, who had hoped to claim the Senate majority, lost two seats. Two days after the election, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC News that the Republicans’ mission was to appeal to nonwhite voters: “How do we speak to all Americans? You know, not just to people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans?”
No Rick, your positions aren’t the party of Ronald Reagan. That is what we have all been saying. Far from it. Ask Mrs. Reagan to spell it out to you. Ask his son Ron to spell it out. I know Ron is a Democrat but he can articulate your problem. Uber conservatism is simply not going to win in the long run. Extremers, find yourself an intellectual conservative to doesn’t give in to your knee jerk reactions that sound like a Rush Limbaugh rewind. Then you might win. Meanwhile, you will continue to lose each and every time on a national level as long as you sound like a cross between the Pope and Rush Limbaugh.
Lie and deny….keep telling yourself that.
I can’t take credit but I think you’re saying Reagan’s “three legged stool has become a pogo stick”.
Yep, just keep going more and more conservative, alienate more people and leave the Dems in charge, cause THAT is what will happen.
I don’t think that faction is truly conservative. Intolerant and narrow minded maybe. M
These guys still don’t get it, do they?
The far right knows/believes that their social positions are absolutely correct and godly. They can not moderate those points. 1/3 of the population will always be conservative and, maybe, 1/3 of those will always be far-right. I predict that the far-right will exit the National stage and focus on the State and local levels. State and local elections bring far fewer left-of-center voters to the polling booths and the far-right can energize their base to participate. While Progressives are looking forward, they need to watch their backs locally.
Excellent points made, BS. Virginia can’t get any more far right without issuing burkas to its women folk.
@Moon-howler
There you go with your government issued burkas. Just another government handout program. I guess next you’ll expect everyone to contribute to education, medical care and national defense.
@Moe, none of that nonsense for the wimmens.
It’s always great to hear commentary from liberals on what conservatives need to do to win future elections. The usual super-duper sage advice, which was offered here as well, is that conservatives should stop being so … er, … conservative.
But the reality is that Obama only won by 3%; and in some swing states, the margin was even closer. However, I noticed on Election Day a group of Obama activists outside my polling place that was gripping/grinning and talking to people. Romney had no one there. I read later that Obama had mobilized over 200,000 volunteers for the get-out-the-vote effort, while Romney had only ~20,000 and a crappy computer program. It is clearly much more effective to knock on people’s doors and offer rides to polling places than to rely mostly on robocalls. Obama’s large, sophisticated effort could easily made the difference in this election.
So I have to give credit to the Obama campaign. The community organizer is not very effective at fixing the economy, but he certainly knows how to get voters to the polls. Conservatives need to learn from him well in advance of the 2016 election.
@Kelly
I don’t think everyone who chimed in on this thread is a liberal.
You don’t have the numbers. Its really that simple. Your party softens up the candidate in the primaries. You beat up on Romney so badly that there was no oppositional research to do.
The far rights will never be elected. They don’t represent but a sliver of America.
Somehow 3% turns in to 3 million votes. That is nothing to sneeze at.
What really bothers me a great deal is how badly many Republicans are treating Governor Romney now. It sickens me. he did what he could do. He can’t help it that you all didn’t love him. I thought he did a pretty good job of continually making himself over and trying to drag himself back up to moderate at the end. It didn’t work and that is what I think Republicans need to learn.
Meanwhile, I see a bunch of fair weather friends.
I think I liked Romney better than many Republicans did and I know I am more respectfu of President Bush than many Republicans.
You can also continue to run fools like Michelle Bachmann or Rick Santorum and lose elections. Romney isn’t a fool.
Hmmmmm….
We’re told we can’t win with conservatives so the RNC runs moderates. We lose. We win in 2010 with conservatives, defeating moderate Republicans and Democrats. The RNC panics, and runs moderates. We lose, though we are told that the moderate lost because, a)he was too conservative b) he was too liberal.
We lost because Romney did not turn out the base. No adult should have to be coaxed or pulled to the vote. 10 million Republicans, based upon Bush’s turnouts, did not vote for Romney…. because he was too similar to Obama. But he lost because conservatives can’t win? Ok then.
Cargo, those elections were mostly regional. Its easier to pull off extremism regionally. How successful were the senate races? not as much. You also had some unique situations like a depression and people were scared. I think you are going to have to treat the 2010 elections as an outlier.
I just know that extremists have never been elected to the presidency.
Can you honestly see Rick Santorum as President?
Also, Cargo, would you want a Todd Akin in office? Senator? President?
Shudder. I just watched some video where he spoke about the Pilgrims escaping socialism. Holy cow!!
That makes it sound bigger than it was. The reality is that he won this election by less than 400K strategically placed votes. 116K Virginia, 73K Florida, 104K Ohio, and 88.5K Iowa. Those tip in the other direction and we’d be sitting around talking about President Romney. Got to give props to the OFA organizing effort, it was world-class and made all the difference in the world.
Perhaps this election was based on perception. The Republicans spent too much time focused on discrediting Obama. Aside from social issues, their only focus appeared to be saving the economy by relieving the tax burden of the very wealthy. Facts show that the tax rate of the most wealthly has declined from 40% or thereabouts in the 50’s (who was yearning for the good old days!!) to about 25% today. When Romney tried to go in another direction it simply backfired – he wasn’t believable. There’s also the interesting fact that Romney lost his state of residency. Only Nixon and Wilson won the Presidency while losing their home/state of residency in recent history. Romney won in Mass with a 5% majority in 02 and lost by 23% to Obama in 2012.
The drive for nostalgia of the fifties is interesting – especially since the Republicans seemed to want to return to that time. In 1950 tax rates on the very wealthy were were higher, homicides per thousand were 4.6 (5.6 in 2008) and in 1950 1M abortions were performed in th US and 1.2M in 2011….
On the other hand 6.2% of the population had a degree in 1950 vs 27% percent today.
There’s a lot to think about and the too quick blaming or simple solutions won’t help anyone. A full re engineering is needed.
There seems to be a sort of unrealistic nostalagia associated with people who were teenageres + during the 50s.
REcently I sent around one of those email things about remember this and that during the 50s. A friend of my mother’s although much younger than my mother, probably mid 70s in age, wrote back about what a wonderful child hood she had and how she wouldnt trade middle school, high school or college for anything. I had just finished saying something the fear of being nuked, etc etc that made the times not quite as wonderful.
let’s go back to some of your factoids. I am dumbfounded that there were a million abortions in 1950. How would they ever know? It was so underground. I went to school with a girl who ended up in the hospital from an illegal one. Now I am going to have to ask…were those illegal? I have always read that the ladies with some money and standing in town never had any problems getting a hospital to board certify an abortion.
I certainly believe it about the degrees. Does that include associates degree? Only 10% of the population even applied to college when Mr. H was coming along. That’s even including those going on the GI bill.
The number is approximate and I found it on feminist.com. Other site estimates the range from 850k to over a million. The death rate along with “legitimate” numbers help extrapolate an estimate. My relative worked for the “welfare department” and had stories to tell about both clients and those that approached her unofficially regarding abortion. It truly was an underground but a highly organized one on many places. I should have clarified approximate.
Yes that number is for BA/BS degrees.
@Lyssa
Totally amazing. We tend to think of teens and college girls who “got in trouble.” It sounds like not society women but your women of standing around town also got the stamp of approval.
I have heard a few things that make me really curious….like its one of those things that was very common right below the surface of acceptability.
In fact, in the Sheri Finkbine Story, there was a hint of that. She was denied because her story went public, probably because of her job and her association with Romper Room.
Kelly and Cargo,
I can’t stop thinking about this. Reminder, I used to consider myself a Republican 30 years ago. Not a strong R …I voted all over the ticket, mainly for the ideas or the or the person, not the party…not ever.
Here are some problems I see that made me leave and never consider myself a Republican again.
A new breed of cat came on the scene. They wanted to go after Big Bird and Sesame Street and things people liked that I considered not just harmless but doing good in the world. They took aim at PBS and trumpeted on about liberal this and that. PBS? Ken Burns? American Experience? They blasted education, usually about things they knew nothing about. They bullied systems into phonics programs because that is how they learned, rather than using a multi-modal approach to reading and lauguage.
They took a direct hit on abortion. Not the late term, third trimester abortions out of New York and california that most of us consider grisly…but all abortion. There was no sense of coming together and getting rid of the most disagreeable aspects of the issue.
They went after pornography. Not the horrible smut that is violent but silly things like Playboy and the Statue of David.
That was all in the beginning.There was no seeking common ground. Hell we all want rapists and criminals off the street.
Now put all those things on steroids. Put those lying dogs on Fox News on 24 hours a day….I listen to an hour of those lies and gouges and by George, I come away HATING Republicans.
That channel deliberately stirs things up and drives a wedge between people. Now I find myself defending poor old Mitt Romney because of the rEpublicans. How can someone be so suitiable for the presidency one minute and in 10 days be totally worthless?
Perhaps it is the Republicans who really lack conviction.
All I know is this…until that party stops the divisiveness with Fox News as its cheerleader, I will probably continue to feel the hate. There really is no sense in it. There are so many things we can agree on.
Life really is about governance, not running for office. If this country is to continue to grow and prosper, there has to be a better way than the rancor I now see.
It’s worth saying again. Today’s GOP is by-in-large a white male Southern party. The white male Southerners had it good for a long time to the detriment and oppression of other groups of Americans . They were the ruling class in the Deep South and they were 100% right in everything they said or did by virtue of their status and power for more than 250 years. The landscape in America has changed and the women, blacks, wage earners Gays and Latinos are now in their ascendency and the old guard is in decline. The GOP is flailing away at their loss of status. If the Republicans want to continue to matter, want to have a say-so in policy, want to ensure conservative values are not plowed under they need to join in with the rest of us, sit down at the table and act as adults. They need to contribute to the overall good and not just for the benefit of the already wealthy. They need to advocate for their ideals and not denigrate the ideals of others. They must understand that they are not 100% right all the time and that their opposition is not 100% wrong all the time. Fox News is just echoing what the right wing is saying and thinking. When that wing of the party grows up then Fox will follow suit.
I read an interesting view that Fox has assumed the communications arm of the Republican Party and that the GOP had to address that.
I read a similar article and they sure do need to address it.
So, now we have a “balance.” The GOP has talk radio and FOX. The Democrats have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Hollywood, most of the TV programming, and most of the education system.
Romney lost because he WASN’T suitable, apparently, to be President. The voters demonstrated that. He lost because millions of Republicans decided that the chance of Obama winning was more acceptable than voting for Romney. They decided that having the…well, you know my opinion on Mr. President.
That’s why I’ve changed my tone. If they wanted Obama’s agenda….give it to them. If the House wants to compromise without actually, you know, getting anything…they should just vote “present” and let the Democrats own it.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H. L. Mencken.
I was watching this great documentary on integration of Alabama State. It was fascinating to recall that not so long ago there was a large majority in this County that believed THEY had the moral ground to oppose integration. It was the South who dared the federal government to implement rule of law. Reminds of today actually. Where are most of the states daring Obama’s administration to implement the affordable care act? Yes, that would be the South. I did not see northern states refusing to implement medicare part d or NCLB. Very interesting dichotomy.
It’s hard not to acknowledge the lack of respect for rule of law by so many southern states as harkening back to a racist time. I don’t even know if its conscious, it may not be. So much of the language I hear directed at the Obama adminstration is almost identical to George Wallace and his belief in “States rights” over the federal government.
States rights certainly has had a rebirth of wonder lately. That’s what seems to get trotted out every time someone wants to ‘show the feds.’
That pesky 10th Amendment….
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Of course, its not going to get any respect THIS time either……
That was settled around 1865. I wouldn’t put much stock in things turning out differently.
From Cargo: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” H. L. Mencken.
I hate it when those pesky “common people” get what they want, don’t you, Cargo?
Let’s see- “states rights.” That term has been used to protect human enslavement, racial inequality, and now to attempt to prevent people from getting healthcare. Not a great track record in my book…
Not such a good track record….re states rights.
Then you think about some of the states who are singing states rights. Shudder.
No. He lost because he got outsmarted and outworked by the Obama apparatus. Period, full stop. Obama microtargeted and got his vote out, and Romney did not.
Could it possibly have been that Obama won because people realized that Romney has no core values, that he tacks whichever way he needs to at the moment? That the Republican Party’s total platform is: no added income to the Federal Government, no civil rights for gay people, no reproduction freedom for women, no citizenship for South American “illegal” immigrants and massive cuts in social programs?
If Republicans really believe that it was all about the Obama campaign machine, they have some tough years ahead of them. The Obama apparatus didn’t get pot legalized in two states, gay marriage approved in others, a Democratically-controlled Senate re-elected and expanded, and Democratic House membership expanded. If it wasn’t for gerrymandering, the House would likely have gone Democratic too.
The above indicates a shift in the electorate, likely at least partially due to backlash from the extreme current Republican positions. Republicans can evolve or fade away. They don’t have to give up on core Republican values such as Mitt’s dad George Romney espoused, they just have to ignore the religious extremists and Grover Norquists that live among them. It’s that or receive a steadily declining share of the vote from now on…
As previously stated, the election was won by less than 400K strategically placed votes. Sorry, but that’s just math. There’s a science to winning elections, and the Democrats were much, much better at it in the 2012 cycle.
That’s not a mandate, and it’s certainly not a seismic shift toward your morally bankrupt and repugnant ideology of institutionalized theft, class envy, and Soviet style collectivism.
Well, since we are down to name calling, you Republicans just keep thinking it is all about the science of winning elections and let me know how that works out for you.
You thought you had it in the bag this time. You overlooked some pretty critical stuff–starting with the phone situation and the polls and the demographics which made for a deadly cocktail for the GOP. Your pollsters missed a big chunk of the voters because of cell phones. Many 20-40 something folks don’t even have land lines. That is a drastic change even from 2008.
Secondly, don’t dare talk to me about class warfare because I will call liar and foul each and every time. Time for the little country club boys to pony up. They got blind sided because a few basics never occurred to them. there is a huge disparity of wealth in this country that is ever increasing. The 47% remark illuminates who the real warriors are with the class stuff.
One little lesson for the country club set–never ever talk about black folks like they are invisible or hard of hearing and never ever imply that all they want is free stuff.
Years ago I sat in the Mt. Vernon Club in Fredericksburg with my not then husband and listened to a bunch of the cc boys dropping the N word here and there while the wait staff served them. It was like they didn’t exist. It was enough of a winceable moment that I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I was barely more than kid myself. I knew then that one of them was probably getting really Sh!tty boubon instead of being served from his high end bottle and that one day there would be a pay back more than bad bourbon. Those people are dead and gone now, I am sorry to say, but they had children and I bet their children went out and voted. There is some long memory there and before this election there was lots of that…loud and clear, even if the specific word wasn’t used. I made sure I cast my vote on behalf of Thomas, Matty and Julia, just because they had to endure those pigs just to make a living.
Never underestimate the little people might be another way to look at it, regardless of race.
Moon,
I just gave you a standing ovation!
Cato, my friend, even if it was “400,000 strategically placed votes” that decided the presidential election, that still doesn’t explain the exit polls siding with the President on tax issues (in both parties) or the many other elections and issues won by the Democrats that I mentioned above.
It’s easy to retreat to name calling when you’re obviously still licking your wounds, but if you would step back and take a more dispassionate look at the situation, you might see that the extremists in the Republican party are destroying it from the inside. Your choice- see you in 2014!
@Moon-howler
True. True. True. You don’t have to go any farther than African-American businessmen in Manassas to prove your point. Unequal treatment isn’t just a thing of the past and memories die hard.