Posted on 11/09/2012 12:57:16 PM PST by SeekAndFind
President Obama's re-election has triggered panic in some GOP circles. Obama was able to win not just once, when Americans were reacting against the Bush era, but a second time, with a weak economy and a vulnerable record. America, the alarmists say, has fundamentally shifted so much that Republicans can no longer win national elections. This thesis merits serious consideration. Especially relevant is the fact that Mitt Romney's dismal performance among the growing Hispanic demographic made the race essentially unwinnable.
That having been said, Republicans' demise may not be at hand just yet. In the short and medium-term, it is worth asking how much of this victory can be chalked up to Obama's personal appeal and status as a historical figure, as opposed to fundamental shifts in the American electorate. The key question is whether future Democratic candidates will be able to command the type of margins Obama enjoyed among young voters and African-Americans. Although Republicans face long-term challenges with voter demographics, Romney's problem in this election may not have been primarily structural.
Democrats have consistently dominated Republicans among black voters in the modern era. They have also had the edge with younger voters. Obama significantly outperformed his Democratic predecessors among these groups, for reasons that seem obvious. But he won't always be on the ballot.
Take the black vote. In the six presidential races between 1984 and 2004, Republicans' support among blacks never exceeded 12 percent. But in 2008, Obama won them with an astounding 95 percent to 4 percent for John McCain. This time, he got 93 percent.
Romney received only 6 percent of the black vote. If he had gotten George W. Bush's level of support among blacks in 2004 (11 percent), he would have carried Florida and Ohio by more than 100,000 votes in each state. It's quite possible that Obama has found a Democratic ceiling with black voters, and future Democratic nominees cannot take such margins for granted. So although Republicans cannot afford to continue writing off black votes as they have for far too long, they probably still have time for a serious effort to win more of them.
The story is similar with the youth vote. In past elections, the under-29 vote has gone to Democrats consistently. John Kerry won this group by 9 points in 2004. Obama's great achievement was not that he turned out under-29 voters in significantly higher numbers but that he inspired so many of them. He won them by an astounding 34 points in 2008.
Obama has an unusually strong appeal with the young, but even his advantage among them shrank by 11 points between 2008 and 2012. Will the 2016 presidential campaign of, say, Martin O'Malley or Mark Warner appeal to under-29 voters quite so strongly? And what about black voters? Even assuming 2012 turnout levels for both groups, Obama would have certainly lost Florida, Ohio and Virginia if he had won just these two groups by the same margins that John Kerry did in 2004. And under such a scenario, had Romney managed to win 28 percent among Hispanics instead of his appalling 23 percent performance in Colorado, he would be the next president.
Republicans must take seriously their very real problems with black voters, young voters and also Hispanic voters. But they would be wrong to throw up their hands at demography as if the reaper had already arrived. There is still time for them to reach out. Democrats know they cannot take Obama-levels of support among these groups for granted, but Republicans will be done for indeed if they don't start working now to win their votes.
But is there any reason to think the Republicans will be willing to even propose the solutions necessary, much less able to carry them through?
1. Control the borders and assimilate the Latin American immigrant population. Conservatives will never get a majority of this immigrant population but after a generation or two we can get a respectable percentage.
2. Stop subsidizing unwed motherhood. Ask any economist what you get when you subsidize something. Arguably this is the single biggest factor destroying our society.
3. Put a halt to the indoctrination of our children with leftwing ideology in the schools.
demographics is not the issue...the idiot GOPe is responsible for 99% of the problem...they have a public relations problem, an issue getting out their message and, oh yeh- they are cowards the way the refuse to fight back against obama, the media yet keep arms length from the Tea Party....
The only way the GOP will get the Hispanic Vote is to offer more welfare and food stamps than the Democrats...with the way the GOP is going....that will be coming soon
You ain’t getting it by giving Illegal Alien Amnesty
The GOP just wants to be the minority party
Santa Claus killed the GOP.
See no by-line to this opus in the Examiner. If your not prepared or able to explain how and why gas prices are so high as well as the cost of everything else and the result of socialist planning and call it such all the lamentations about demographics isn’t worth a pile of defecation.
See no by-line to this opus in the Examiner. If your not prepared or able to explain how and why gas prices are so high as well as the cost of everything else and the result of socialist planning and call it such all the lamentations about demographics isn’t worth a pile of defecation.
Who has the cojones to do all those things in Washington DC?
Are they even going to WIN when they run with such a platform?
We need to start talking to blacks and Latinos avbout CONSERVATIVE VALUES. I heard someone tell Rush that he needs to have a SPANISH TRANSLATORS to reach out to the LATINOS.
I think the TEA PARTY need to work in the inner cities and tell minorities that CONSERVATIVES got the same values they want. Unfortunately, no one talk to them, so they don't understand we are not against them.
The Same with the young people, We need to reach out to them.
What about white voters? If the GOP is the white people’s party, why in the state of Maine only 40 percent of whites voted for Romney; in Vermont, only 33 percent. The same holds true in MA. You can’t explain Romney’s losses in states with large white populations and small numbers of minorities.
If we only got 5% of hispanics it would work. Appeal to them on values since they tend to be socially conservative.
idk
what else can you do?
This is true as well. I mean how many Hispanics are there in PA, WI, OH, CO? Yet TX and AZ have a large amount.
It’s something else.
Exactly. Why can’t the GOP win in places like PA when they have a R governor and state house? OR places like CO, OH, WI???
THAT is not a black/hispanic problem.
You can talk to Hispanics, but getting blacks involved with the GOP is almost impossible for all the reasons most of us know. Resources are too scace to spend chasing 6 or 7 percent of the vote when you can get 35 to 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
Well, the Republicans and supposedly fair and balanced commentators who are now pushing amnesty will make sure it happens if they get their way.
Then they'll have to deal with the problem of the former loyal Republicans who abandoned them in disgust. Do they ever ask if their pandering could possibly win them as many votes as it will lose them?
And yet we have almost daily threads expressing angst over Jewish voters, less than 2% and almost all in overwhelmingly Democrat areas anyway.
BUCK UP people! This Examiner article is exactly right. Romney lost by a couple points against a Black candidate who got 94% of the black vote when the black vote was 13% of the electorate. Replace Obama with a white candidate and the black vote shrinks back to 11% (its historic average), and that shaves 2 points off Obama’s margin of victory right there. The black population isn’t growing, SO WRITE THEM OFF.
However, the GOP has a more mixed record with Hispanics and Asians, the two fastest-growing demos. Bush got 40% of each group in his two Presidential runs. Romney got 46% of Asians in Nevada, of all places. McCrory, the NC candidate for Governor, got 46% of Hispanics (Romney only got 31%). There are openings for us with these groups. Micro-target, engage, bring them into the fold. In Canada, the Conservative Party started engaging with new immigrants from Africa, India, etc. and has made good gains by taking an aggressive “makers v. takers” argument to these people.
If the Reps could really lock up the white vote and become the white people’s party, they would win national elections for some time to come. And by the way, 54% of Hispanics self-describe themselves as white. What we need to do is to work on creating a white identity for Hispanics.
That’s why you need to pick & choose the votes you go after. The Dems are very good at it.
Screw demographics. 70% of all voters were white, and the majority of those white voters voted conservative.
If the black and brown people who voted for Buckwheat want a fight on the plains and in the valleys, they’ll lose because white Americans are the best fighters on the globe, bar none.
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