Posted on 03/18/2013 9:04:13 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
RNC: Voters see GOP as ‘scary’ and ‘out of touch' By: Maggie Haberman March 18, 2013 07:00 AM EDT
The Republican National Committee concedes in a sprawling report Monday that the GOP is seen as the party of “stuffy old men” and needs to change its ways.
Among the RNC’s proposed fixes: enacting comprehensive immigration reform, addressing middle-class economic anxieties head on and condensing a presidential primary process that saw Mitt Romney get battered for months ahead of the general election.
The committee also proposes major improvements to the party’s voter database and digital technology, which paled next to that of the Democrats and contributed to the party’s losses last year.
The suggestions are among dozens the committee makes in what RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has dubbed an “autopsy” of the party’s 2012 failures and a roadmap forward. Priebus unveiled the 98-page report at a news conference Monday morning at The National Press Club.
“There’s no one reason we lost,” Priebus said. “Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement. … So, there’s no one solution: There’s a long list of them.”
The report devotes many pages to the need to better connect with minority, female and young voters. Comprehensive immigration reform is a critical first step, it says.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
"We lost" You say that as if you and the rest of the local rank-n-file Republicans are part of the GOPe that run the Party. The GOP doesn't consider the rubes to be part of their Party. The rubes are there to blindly vote for what ever mushy socialist-lite candidate the Party deigns to run without question.
And Romney was not the lesser of two evils. Saying that makes it seem that there is a choice between the two. He was the equal of two evils because they were working together. Romney did everything he could to make sure Barry won, short out outright endorsing him. Romney's entire campaign, after he eliminated the real opposition candidates, was a total joke. There is no way anyone could lose to a talentless, worthless, on-the-down-low Marxists nobody like Barry Soetoro unless it was deliberate.
“condensing a presidential primary process”
Translation: “We’re not going to give you time to vet the limp candidate we pick for you”
““There’s no one reason we lost,” Priebus said. “”
BS.....NOT being conservative is why ya lost!
This smells like Grover Norquist/Karl Rove/CPAC/ACU to me.
Good lord
The RNC is so clueless. Why can’t they just shup up and plot to win? Instead they have to go around pretending they are now going to get hip. It is so embarassing.
I’m the same way. I used to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, talking about the country reaching its “end days,” and how many actual years it might have left. But after the 2012 election, I’ve noticed so many of my rather ‘average joe’ GOP-voting friends and relatives basically say the same things, and they are dead serious. Some of them because of the “takers overwhelming makers” argument, some because of the insane federal debt, and some (actually quite a lot) because of the moral degeneracy as represented by things like homo marriage.
It’s really an amazing little sea-change, actually hearing so many people tell me “the country is over.” People I never would have imagined this coming from. Not in their nature. And that’s not even going into the other topic of how these once “rah-rah-Republicans” are now so totally alienated from their Party.
If we ever had an honest, no-nonsense, courageous conservative as our nominee, that circular firing squad wouldn't amount to more than a few lone voices on the far extremity of the conservative voter base.
Elevating squish liberals to the Republican nominee position, guarantees widespread infighting, disillusionment, circular firing squads, and lost presidential elections for our side.
Amen
I agree with the voters. They are scary. The leadership of the Republican party has shown no desire to do anything but perpetuate and expand the power of the federal government.
100% of the Democrats about about 70% of the Republicans are either dead-set against the constitution and individual liberty or at best condone the status quo.
That’s pretty scary. So scary that many, even here at FR, can’t bring themselves to accept it. Look at the people whining about conservatives not supporting Romney or some other such bunk in this very thread for a prime example.
Folks like us have preached this here for over a decade
Amazing how many here are still so daft about it
Talking openly like this was forbidden once you know
This is sort of the central article of faith of FR, but I assure you, it's wrong and based on wishful thinking.
A "real conservative" (as defined by the majority of FR) will lose fare worse than Romney did. Not understanding that is a symptom of being out of touch with a variety of people across the political spectrum in a variety of geographic settings.
And spare me the Reagan stuff. First, he wasn't nearly the "true conservative" that people have sort of invented memories of.
Second, key aspects of how he built his coalition (anti-Communism, "tough on crime") simply don't matter anymore.
The Soviet Union is gone - the "tough on crime" thing is a bit different. There's been a small uptick in violent crime the past couple of years, of course, but crime has still declined steeply from the beginning of the Clinton Administration till today. At the time Reagan was elected, crime was rampant, and more importantly, it was spread more widely - the white middle class had far more fear of crime than they do today (which is now even more concentrated in minority neighborhoods and is mostly minority-on-minority.) Sure, there are lurid stories posted of awful crimes on FR all the time, but the white middle class isn't nearly as terrified of crime as they were in the 1980s - in the 1980s, I had various relatives and myself burglarized, but I literally don't know a single person that's been the victim of a single crime in the past decade.
The soccer mom types in the 1980s who may have voted Republican out of fear for their own and their children's safety are now going Democratic because of gay rights and abortion.
The longer the primary process, the more it favors those with lots of money. I don't see how condensing it favors the "GOP-e" candidate or future Romneys.
Running a candidate whose appeal to conservatives was “at least I’m not Obama”, and “plus, I’m not a Muslim”, just wasn’t enough evidently.
It is especially weak all these months later, you need a new line.
That is funny but excellent description
The Republicans slogan might as well be, “Vote Republican - We Suck Less.”
Not sure that it will be a problem in the future. Many who disagreed with the direction of the GOP and who were not happy with Romney have merely left the party and given up. I think that the GOP will manage to chase off the last of the conservatives in the next couple of years. The GOP has been neutered, and conservatives have been banished to the desert. You will see conservatives vote for the few conservative candidates who manage to sneak past the GOP machine. Other than that you will see lots of GOP candidates lose to Dems in 2014.
“”The longer the primary process, the more it favors those with lots of money. I don’t see how condensing it favors the “GOP-e” candidate or future Romneys.”
You may be right, but nothing the GOPe does ever works, so why should this.
And let's get real about legal immigration. Every ten years we have what amounts to an amnesty. With 1.2 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ENTERING ANNUALLY, they will be able to vote eventually and two thirds of them will vote Dem. Illegal immigration is the shiny little bauble that distracts us from the real game changer--legal immigration. The status quo will make the Dems the permanent majority party. Amnesty just hastens the process
LOL, yeah, move left, that'll work. Romney couldn't get people to vote for him because he was so far left, but you want to keep going that way, you have an agenda, not an honest theory.
“Voters see GOP as ‘scary’ and ‘out of touch’”
Nah, Republicans are not ‘scary’. Conservatives are ‘scary’ because the voters are ‘scared’ of losing their freebies and handouts.
“Romney was not perfect but would have stopped the onslaught.”
Interesting thought. I didn’t see much difference between the two.
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