Posted on 12/17/2012 5:18:13 AM PST by Kaslin
The biggest story of the past election was how President Obama’s team was able to get his interest groups to the polls and how correspondingly the Republicans feel behind on certain interest groups. It is clear Republican failed to capture the votes of Hispanics, Asians and other groups. So let’s take a look at where they are and what they need to do.
To discover what happened one has to look at what the Republicans have been doing and why they failed to attract certain voters. The first and most important point is not that they have failed policies or that they are the “old white man” party. Either point is a gross generalization and only partially true. The single biggest reason Republicans are not getting the votes of certain minorities is they are not asking for their votes and/or certainly not doing it on a sustained basis.
Take for example the Hispanic community. There are few Republican organizations that actively outreach to the community. Rocky Chavez, a newly-elected California Assemblyman, told us he received no help from Republicans in his race. To her credit Connie Conway, minority leader of the California Assembly, drafted Rocky immediately after his election to be a statewide spokesperson.
The Republican National Committee stated they had a Hispanic Outreach coordinator and that the Romney campaign usurped control of the outreach, but the Republican share of the Hispanic vote plummeted from 44% in 2004 to 27% in 2012. Results speak very loudly.
The Asian Community, though smaller than the Hispanic Community, is the fasting growing in America. Yet the results there are very similar, with the percentage tanking from 42% in 2004 to 26% in 2012. Stephen Fong, who is a public policy consultant in D.C., served as an informal coordinator of a loose federation of about fifty organizations aimed at the Asian vote. He stated they had some successes -- like in Nevada where Romney received 47% of the Asian vote. But he stated “The Romney campaign had a plan, but did not emphasize Asian-Pacific outreach.” He also stated the point person was not Asian.
Shawn Steel, the national committeeman from California, expressed frustration at the efforts aimed at Asians by Republicans. He stated the effort in Nevada was done with $100,000 of outside monies in the last month of the campaign. He bemoaned how the Romney campaign and RNC to his knowledge spent no money going after the Asian vote while the Obama campaign spent extensive resources. Mr. Steel stated “When will Republican consultants begin to understand their past failures to appreciate rapid demographic shifts? Successful consultants will take advantage of the many opportunities that exist with conservative-minded Asians.”
The most successful operation aimed at an ethnic group is the Republican Jewish Coalition. After a long gestation period and an outsized focus on money raising for candidates, the RJC has now created a sophisticated grassroots outreach program. Matt Brooks, the RJC Executive Director, said “This was our largest undertaking in terms of grass roots in history.” Their efforts resulted in a 10% increase in Republican vote in the Jewish Community. The RNC is looking at modeling what the RJC is doing to organize and attract the minority communities.
Yet, there does not seem to be much existing infrastructure at the RNC to attract minority voters. Sources said there was none when the current Chairman, Reince Priebus, took charge. He asked Vice-Chair Sharon Day to focus on this area. But then the Romney campaign came in and took over. The spokesperson for the RNC told us they are evaluating all the results of the election and determining how to move forward.
How to move forward - The big picture is that Republicans are running campaigns with an antiquated model for their entire structure. Sure they are using some modern technology, but it is as the saying goes like “putting lipstick on a pig.” Republicans do not think as a team. A person declares they want to run for office and they have to start from scratch. They have to hire a consultant who may be qualified or not. They have to hire a fundraiser who may be qualified or not. They then have to run a campaign with little to no institutional knowledge except for possibly a one-day candidates school put on by their local party.
If Republicans want to win in the future, they have to comprehensively reorganize. The structure should start with the National Committee with 50 state units, each one of which has county parties within their state. The entities should not be wholly independent entities, but work in unison with one purpose – to elect Republican candidates. They may say that is being done now, but that is fool’s gold.
Each unit should have people in charge of outreach to interest groups, whether those groups are divided by ethnicity, religion, age or gender. (As a note there already exist Republican Women’s groups in each county.) There should be a flow of information both up and down throughout the structure. This clearly means that DC is just as dependent on a county as the county is on DC. The Miami-Dade County chair for Hispanic outreach should be in regular communication with the RNC coordinator.
Each level should be responsible for interacting with any interest groups that exist within the confines of the laws regarding coordinated activity. If there is a large Vietnamese population in an area and no Republican clubs, then the Party should act to form, seed and structure such groups.
When someone registers to become a candidate, the Republican Party in the area or district should be able to provide them sufficient information on the district to mount a campaign. Once they are the party designee they should be handed a complete up-to-date guidebook with all aspects of their district, including the relevant minority groups to address. The county, the state and the national party should all be working in unison to get the Assemblyman in Wichita, Kansas, elected or the school board member in Mesa, Arizona. The candidates should not be blindly running as we so often see today. If there are ethnic groups in the district, that structure from the local party up to the national party should provide resources to address and gain the vote of those ethnic groups. Candidates should not be lurching around for who their youth vote contacts are and how to incorporate them in a campaign.
A comprehensive organization needs to address every voter no matter what their background. The lack of institutional memory and proper structure is largely responsible for the failure to attract minority voters. Lincoln Clubs were great fifty years ago and provide valuable benefits today, but are not attractive to all elements of the population. Republicans need to adopt a strategy that says they are going after every voter no matter where they are or who they are. The structure should not be dependent on what happens once there is a presidential nominee. It should be fully in place before that occurs and then it should just be an matter of continuity.
This is not to deny the fact that issues and candidates matter. They do. But without a modern structure the party will be hopelessly lost. Republicans are driving a Model T in a Ferrari world and need to do more than cosmetic restructuring. Obama was driving that Ferrari.
The article is pretty useless and really didnt provide any solution to the problem which is the values of the people we are trying to reach. DemocRATS could reach out to me all they want but I will never vote for them because I hate what they stand for. The values you are raised with are important in determine how you vote. You get them from your family, the culture, media and school. By the time they are teens it is too late. Their values are formed. Good luck trying to change them after a decade of indoctrination. I doubt you could change 5% of them to our side.
There are holy-grail benefits that liberals OWN: social security, medical benefits, WIC, SSI, EITC, loan forgiveness, affirmative action, free phones, bus passes, legal aid, open borders, peace dividends, etc.
Conservatives just do not promote those. It is not in our DNA. Conservatives offer hard work, ingenuity, and reverence for the greatest man-made document in the history of the world — the Constitution.
Now you tell me which message will draw minorities.
So, our approach cannot be trying to out-benefit the party that has driven the benefits truck all these years.
However, we might be able to keep their voter-base off the streets and out of the polling places. We might try offering free opium dens!
The best mechanism for conservatives is an existing structure, and that structure exists in the Republican party. Just like the liberals plotted and took over the public schools, our churches, the media, and other social institutions....so must WE not stop our efforts to infiltrate and change the GOP.
Going third party and abandoning the existing apparatus would be a colossal mistake.
It is the message that is the problem.
One line has a sign (FREE STUFF, until it runs out.
The other line has a sign (STUFF YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR, but you can have all you want.
Knowing human nature, what line will they get into? The other line has to run out of free stuff before they will get in our line. How will that happen?
LLS
Our culture is on a downhill slide reminiscent of the final days of the Roman Empire.
We are getting near the bottom but still have a way to go.
The moochers, perverts and tyrants are in control and nothing republicans do will change the current dynamic.
We are past the tipping point and the leftists have the inertia.
Now republicans act concerned but the time when they could have made a difference on the national level has come and gone.
The same people who now wring their hands in despair had a chance to kill the malignancy when George Bush was elected twice.
They could have worked to prevent us from reaching the tipping point, but all they did in the 8 years of his administration was to act like piggish democrats and aid in the ongoing destruction of America.
If republicans had acted responsibly in the years 2001 to 2008 Barack Obama would never have been elected.
Short of a natural or man-made mega-disaster, there will not be a reversal in our fortunes until we hit the bottom and society completes its self destruction.
In the interim, republicans need to maintain their integrity and be ready to rebuild when the fall is complete.
Can they do it? Will they do it?
Judging on past performance it is doubtful.
This is like saying the host needs to reach out to the parasites sucking out his life blood.
If you mean reach minorities who are conservative, I say yes........No to racial pandering.
You posted, in part: We can not reach blacks with the Republican ideology of economic and social freedom...
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I optimistically disagree. I think the conservative message, properly defined (not at MSM describes it, or even as many conservatives define it, and without the racial references too often seen even here) would be embraced by most thinking people. Yes, many blacks (as well as Hispanics and whites) adhere to an entitlement mentality, but even they might be teachable on the principles of conservatism.
I still believe that most blacks actually lead lives that embrace conservative values, although they would never call them that.
Blacks used to be Christian American in culture did produce and inspire a lot of people to be drawn to faith, truth and the ideals of American freedom.
Leftist cultural cleansing of the Black commuunity and the churches has been relentless and systematic has produced it’s fruit in this ripe generation.
It’s my opinion that Blacks are so far gone into leftist immorality, self destruction, race hate, segregation and skin deep meaning, we can not appeal to most of them so we should not form our message shaped around them.
Ofcourse, some Black people are moral and conservative; they understand the structure of American freedom their ancestors fought for and support it. But over 90% voted for the anti-Christian; gay abortion Marxist guy. Modern black elites have become as deep and honorable as the KKK operating out of a whore house. Modern Black film, music and art is totally devoid - cleansed - of Christ’s love, soul and spirit. The Nation of Islam is more represenative of the nature and grace of the modern black community.
I do not agree. The Republican party has always been a statist party. It is root and branch antithetical to constitutional government. Trying to brand Republican as conservaative and constitutional is forcing a square peg into a round hole.
A clean start will generate so much commitment in every state that a full cycle would not be lost getting a new party up to speed. The country is ready for it.
The Tea Party would be sorely remiss if they failed to create a bold new Consitutional party.
Honestly, this sounds like the RJC is trying to take credit for Barack Obama's mouth.
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