While President Obama’s supporters bask in re-election glory, America’s conservatives have been left asking themselves how and why their man managed to lose this election and what they can do to ensure a Republican win in 2016.
The truth is that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Romney lost. His failure is obvious to anyone who exists outside of the conservative bubble. People voted not just against Romney, but against his party’s values and what the Republican Party has come to stand for, particularly on social issues like race, women’s rights, gay marriage and immigration, in recent years. The question now is what the future of the party is.
When, after the 2008 election, the party took a sharp shift to the right and fully embraced the Tea Party as its “base”, it embraced ideology over pragmatism, and decided that fanaticism based on nostalgia for a (older, white, male, deeply religious, exclusive) America of yesteryear was better than keeping up with the pace of progress.
The Tea Party – and other radicals like those in the Birther movement who have spent a great deal of time on petty issues such as demanding President Obama’s birth certificate – was allowed to become synonymous with mainstream conservatism, even though it is really a fringe group made up of a small number of people. This led to the Republican brand falling into an even sadder state than it had been after eight years of George Bush’s contentious presidency.
Unable to accept the shifting social, cultural and demographic realities of modern America, the Republican Party clung to the idea that it could fight the direction in which the country is moving and thought little of alienating key voting blocs such as women and minorities – to its own detriment.
These past two elections have seen a huge increase in non-white voters and increased support from women, youth and minorities that was enough to swing the vote in President Obama’s favour in 2012 as they did in 2008. Whether or not conservatives like it, these groups hold the key to the future and will only gain in power and number. In other words, they will not be ignored.
In the post-election analysis, some have started to acknowledge this fact, with former House speaker Newt Gingrich admitting that he and others like Karl Rove were “wrong” about Romney’s prospects. “We all thought we understood the historical pattern and the fact that with this level of unemployment, with this level of gasoline pricing what would happen…,” he said.
On the Huffington Post, a Republican strategist also outlines the level of disconnect that the current party has with the country:
- We thought young voters would not turn out at the same level as 2008. They did. In fact, they represented 19 per cent of the electorate per exit polls–as high, if not higher, than four years ago.
- We said that Democrats would not be +6 over Republicans and if they were, Obama would win. Well, they did and he did. Again, exit polls say Democrats were +6. Romney needed the proportion of Republicans and Democrats to be even to win.
- We thought minority turnout would be lower than 2008. It was not. In several important precincts in key states, minorities voted in numbers equal to – and in some cases better than – four years ago.
- We thought Romney would win Independents by double digits. He won them, but by just five points.
- We thought Romney would have a huge gender advantage among men; it was only seven points. Meanwhile, the President won women by 11 points.
- We thought Romney would dominate on being “better able to handle the economy.” He only beat the President on this issue by a few points. Not enough.
This level of flawed thinking is stunning.
If the Republican Party is to move away from being seen as fringe and disconnected, it needs new leadership that will embrace the mainstream, acknowledge the country’s changes and face reality head on. It needs people who actually understand modern America – perhaps themselves young, brown, female. But this must go beyond mere tokenism.
Republicans would do well to denounce the deeply unpopular Tea Party as its base and admonish the racist, misogynist, fanatics that it brings with it. It would benefit from separating itself from people like the sensationalist Donald Trump, Todd “legitimate rape” Akins (who lost his Tea Party seat in Missouri) and people of their ilk, moving away from the extreme right to a more palatable middle ground for those who may be fiscally conservative yet socially moderate or liberal. It should speak to people and ask them what they need and what they’d like to see from the party.
Those who put millions of dollars into super PACs with very little, if any, return on investment should realize that more than money, the party needs a strong sense of purpose and vision that resonates with a wider range of Americans.
I’m no Republican, but even I have been shocked by the party’s lack of understanding about the direction of the country and their arrogance in believing that somehow they can ignore, dismiss, denigrate and insult large swathes of the voting population and still win. The Republican Party of today risks becoming irrelevant in future years if it cannot get with the programme.
It is time for a new “base”, one that accurately reflects the direction in which America is moving. Whether or not such leadership can emerge from the Republican Party, however, remains to be seen.
It is Charles Darwin who said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” If the Republican Party is to survive, it must listen to Darwin’s words. Its current choice is to evolve or die.
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