My quick take on the results of the 2012 election, and the map that's slowly changing to the disadvantage of the current Republican party, is at America magazine. A taste is below.
Coming soon to this blog: The return of posts about sitcoms!
A lot of today’s headlines refer to Obama’s sizable, even “landslide” victory in the Electoral College of 332-206 (again, assuming he keeps Florida). Technically, Mitt Romney only had to flip two states to win. But one of them had to be California, which was a hotly contested state in every close race of the 20th century and this time gave its 55 electoral votes to Obama thanks to a popular vote margin by more than 20 points. The GOP is noncompetitive in the biggest state in the US, with the biggest chunk of electoral votes in American history, because a negligible share of California’s population lives in overwhelmingly white small towns. It’s the same with New Jersey, which could have been the second flipped state and which also was competitive throughout the 20th century: Its almost completely urban and increasingly nonwhite population is a nonstarter for the GOP.
A nice analysis. I read the America article. If the Republicans work on their problems with Hispanic voters, and several prominent Conservatives have already noted that necessity, they have a chance to stay relevant. They are on the losing side with many of their social positions but I don't think that hurt Romney, who ran towards the middle on those after the nomination was sown up; many didn't believe he was really pro-life anyway. Those issues certainly did hurt the Republicans in a number of Senate races, however, even those who disagreed with them, like Linda McMahon and Scott Brown. They were tarred by association with their own party. So the Republican strategy should be to tone down the rhetoric on immigration and pass something positive like the DREAM Act, while continuing to focus on their core message of less (but not zero) government. That is still a popular message. Though they are unlikely to ever drop their opposition to abortion or gay marriage, those are not going to be major leadership talking points in the future. Of course, any presidential candidate is going to have to make it through the primary process, so they will have to be nominally and consistently pro-life and anti-gay marriage (Romney wasn't consistent and so had to overcompensate) without actually having done anything substantial to advance that agenda which could scare general election voters. Difficult but not impossible. There are already some Republicans who basically fit that profile, like Chris Christie (a bit wobbly on pro-life though). The Republican party is far from doomed.
Posted by: Chris VanHaight | November 08, 2012 at 10:15 AM