Posted on 08/16/2013 6:13:45 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On Election Night 2010, I watched the returns come in alongside a prominent liberal columnist. As he observed the Republicans capture the House of Representatives and gain in the Senate, in governor’s mansions, and in state houses across the country, my friend put the best spin on events that he could.
“Well,” I remember him saying, “the Obama electorate just didn’t show up.”
How right he was. The voters who went to the polls in 2010 were older and whiter than the voters in 2008. Whites made up 77 percent of the electorate in 2010. And the Republican share of that vote was 60 percent, translating into the best year for the GOP since 1948.
Fast-forward two years. The Romney campaign and many conservatives, including me, assumed the 2012 electorate would more closely resemble 2010 than 2008. We were wrong. In 2012, the white share of the electorate dropped to 72 percent. Romney won 59 percent of that vote: the highest share for a presidential candidate in decades, but not high enough to defeat President Obama. As my liberal colleague had predicted, the Obama electorate returned to save the president from the heartbreak of a single term.
Are conservatives repeating the mistake? They take it for granted that the electorate in 2014 will be the same as in 2010. Surely Obama voters will stay home during the midterms, they say. Surely Obama and Democrats in Congress will suffer from the same “six-year itch” that voters scratched in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations.
They point out the favorable political conditions. Senate Democrats are defending more seats than Senate Republicans. The House? It’s a firewall, strengthened by gerrymandering, incumbency, and the concentration of Obama supporters in a few districts. The president’s approval rating is in the doldrums. And Republicans are performing fairly well on the generic ballot.
All true. But all subject to change: A major event could rally the public to the president, a Republican-engineered government shutdown could blow whatever good will with voters the party has left, a rash of scandals could break out over Republicans in Congress, disappointment in GOP leadership and message could lead to apathy, disillusion, and a decline in turnout.
Leaving the field open to the Obama team, assuming it is ready to play.
It is. The president’s attempts to recreate the conditions of the 2012 election have been blatant but not ineffective. His campaign was transformed into Organizing for Action in order to keep tabs on its precious voter list and data and keep core supporters active (even if those supporters don’t always show at events). His fundraising appeals mention his desire to restore Nancy Pelosi to speaker of the House. His major policy addresses—on drones and the war on terror, on global warming, on surveillance—are designed to keep his liberal base placated during this politically difficult time. His sudden return to themes of economics, inequality, and government activism is a recapitulation of his successful 2012 message of “caring about people.” Hammering uncaring Republicans, giving speeches before adoring, raucous crowds, bus tours—this isn’t how presidents behave in an off year. It’s how they behave in an election year.
For Obama, that election year has already begun. In the summer of 2012, his lieutenants spent millions on negative, dishonest advertisements that successfully defined Romney as a heartless private equity tycoon. In 2014, however, there is no single candidate for them to define. Instead they have to define the entire Republican Party—not only as a bunch of rapacious Objectivists, but also, and more importantly, as a mob eager to deprive minorities and women of civil rights.
That is why the president lately has been “speaking personally about race.” The threat of a return to segregation and Jim Crow is a spur to action—and the greater the perception that such a return is imminent, the better the chances of high Democratic turnout next year. The president’s remarks on Trayvon Martin and race in America, his Justice Department’s continuing fights with Texas over the Voting Rights Act, the steady drumbeat of rhetoric suggesting the right to vote is in peril, the president’s suggestion in a recent New York Times interview that if his economic program is not implemented “racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse,” all heighten the stakes for his most committed supporters. True, none of these messages has the subtlety of last year’s “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” But that’s what makes Joe so special.
The “war on women” resumed earlier this summer when Texas state senator Wendy Davis catapulted into celebrity—and into the pages of Vogue—with her highly publicized, and highly ineffective, filibuster of state abortion regulations. Expect Republican candidates for House, Senate, and governor to be questioned not on their views of abortion but on their views of contraception. And wait, as legions of Democratic trackers are waiting, for the inevitable gaffe involving abortion and rape.
A spirited and risk-taking GOP could rally its electorate and respond to the inevitable attacks and missteps with an affirmative, unapologetic program that addressed national security, the economy, and the condition of American society. If you see it, let me know. At the moment, the Republican message is limited to highlighting scandals and the problems with Obamacare. It’s reactive, not active. What would be the agenda if, say, John Boehner suddenly became president? What would Republicans do? End the Fed?
Yes, with a Republican House, president and vice president, and 50 Senators, they could repeal Obamacare. But what would replace it?
The Republican Party was lulled into a similar complacency in 1998 when they assumed impeachment was message enough to gain seats. Instead they lost five. Plenty of people were convinced the economy and Obama’s manifest failures would doom him in 2012. Every day provides a new, horrible reminder that they were wrong.
“The majority is at risk,” an unnamed Republican strategist told Byron York earlier this week. It may not look that way now. But it didn’t look that way in September 2005, either. Be afraid.
I don’t think even the hard-core liberals would want to see Nancy Pelosi as Speaker Of The House again. That woman was a public relations disaster for them. Who else have they got who isn’t despised by the moderates and independants, as well as practically everybody else who bothers to vote? And she’s so power-hungry that she will not go away until she finally drops dead.
as long as we have this clueless drunk in charge nothing will happen
Excellent comments. You, I and GeronL are essentially identifying the same demographic that cost the election in 2012 which is the 6 million strong blue collar conservative vote. They sat it out.
And to think the GOPe strategizes to replace that lost conservative demographic with Hispanic votes; idiots.
There is too much gloom & doom on this forum. What is needed is the grassroots efforts to primary out all those tired, senile old RINOs, some of who have been hanging around congress since the Nixon Administration. Activists all over the country are working hard on it. Others, like some of the posters here, are just giving up. If some of you had been living in our great-grandparents’ time you would have said:
“Hitler has conquered most of Europe, and he is now bombing London into submission. His army is vast and well-organized, and the German people are solidly behind him. All hope is lost. We may as well surrender.”
Where is your spine? Where is your determination?
Yep.
The mistake was electing a bunch of weak cowards who bore the label "Republican". And no,the mistake will not be repeated - - at least not with my vote, unless I see amnesty flushed down the toilet for good and the Democrats shut down government rather than see their communist "Mengelecare" killed.
Yes, it is actually hard to believe they could be so clueless.
Yup, the ‘Rats have controlled the House for a long time. Even during the so called GOP majorities. The GOP are weak sauce losers.
Agreed again.
(why do R party leaders need to be pushed while D party leaders push everybody and everything out of their way?)
Very well put.
Thank You.
While all you say is true the reason the GOP lost the last election is that the Rats have ready access to a sufficient block of voters that the GOP does not. “The Nonexistent Voter”. The recent post about the number of Registered Rat voters in NC over 112 years of age is just one more example of it. What ever else is true if the Rats can just “adjust fire” in the precise booths needed they can’t be beat. This is why they fight any effort to fix vote fraud so fiercely.
Expedition of our decline. No more strongly worded letters of protest or other contrived "resistance" to the tyrants on the Left who will soon be the absolute masters of the weenies and traitors "on the Right". Those on the Right don't mind because they are followers vs. leaders and will still lord it over the People.
Bill Clinton’s failure on terrorism
And, of course, Obama and Hillary's failures in BenGhazi and Egypt.
Add a number on this site who divide folks who are mostly conservative, because they are not exactly like you. When you or others divide that group-you’d be better off spending your Obama divide and conquer game on HP as that is where the low info voter is. You can change some of them there. you will not change anyone here. You will run off donors.
You seem to be one of those low information GOP groupies that live in the past with the fantasy notion there are two major political parties in the USA, the democrats and the republicans.
I live in the reality of the here and now where the two major parties in the USA today are the ruling class and the country class.
It’s not a divide strategy, it’s an argument with a new point of view that will turn the GOPe on its head allowing for a take back of the party. Call it a hostile takeover.
Disgruntled corporate GOP donors can go kiss the rings of democrats if they like, and many have. But then they find there they are at the bottom of the barrel, whereas with a little thought they can decide to back American ideals with us, else we tell them no deal.
Lobbyists only want legislation that is in their interest of their clients and all we want is allegiance to conservative principles. They play ball with us by our rules, we play ball with them; it’s that simple. Else they can go cut a deal with the hard left who they know they can’t trust or who they know will bury them with political liability.
GOP donors that court democrat power centers might as well put their heads on the chopping block because their assets will eventually be consumed by the unions including government unions. There are too many examples to list of these occurrences.
So their selling point has been you go with our RINO or else you get Obama-Hillary. We’re changing that, you go with our conservative or your RINO gets primaried.
Hispanics go with a winner or they follow La Raza. The GOP has had no real winners since Reagan, so La Raza smiles. The GOP has many fine conservative Latinos but they are not controllable by the likes of Rove so they get shunned. Only the Rubios who agree to follow the GOPe script get the spotlight. That is going to change.
So there’s no point in planning a divide of hispanics because there is nowhere for them to go except for where La Raza tells them to go. And we are not ready yet to tell them to come to us because we are still fighting the Rockefeller republicans. When that battle is completed, then we’ll talk.
You want donors? Get with your Tea Party Chapter and help them achieve non-profit non-partisan status with the IRS.
Reading assignment for you:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
PS - Over the last 13 years I gave more than $30,000 of my own hard earned greenbacks to GOPe sponsored causes and candidates. I want my money back.
“We’re /you’re changing that.” What is the “we” stuff? You have mice in your pocket? Ants in pants? Why not state what “you and you alone stand for.” America was founded by many rugged individuals.-They had basic values when it came to rights, freedom of religion, self reliance, plus other things. They were not into divide and conquer as many had just seen the Church of England tell them who, what, etc.. We had 13 colonies and not all were the same religion.One was even catholic. We had basic principles we agreed on then. Sorry if a person is not my ideal candidate after going through the process, but; I will vote for that person vs Obama or Clinton.Yes, I wish things were much more conservative-but; I see some too far gone also. Even in the military we did not have all pilots,SEALS,other SPECOPS, etc. It takes many different skills to make a team/unit. I hope you will realize that not all can be you. And anyone who wants there money back-Well,we call them “Indian Givers”.I do not want to know one.
Aha! A pontificator who targets individual conservatives! Go change your depends gramps. You don’t like what you see here, then vote for Rubio in 2016 like a good little GOPe bobblehead.
Send your donation here:
http://www.americancrossroads.org/
and remember FR is not a GOP site, it is a
C O N S E R V A T I V E
Forum.
In the last year plus some on the site have become like attack dogs. Sad. Maybe GED’s will help some.
You’ll be happier if you find youself a nice little RINO blog where you can find fellow RINO commiseraters to ‘share’ with.
Here’s one for ya:
http://themoderatevoice.com/
FR is not for everybody but it is first in its class and is a leading forum for conservative thinking. It is also tremendously effective. You may not know it but Freepers were crucially instrumental in the 2000 Bush-Gore Recount in Florida and without their activism, Gore would have won in 2000.
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