Kimberly Strassel and Rahm Emanuel have very different messages. Ms. Strassel, writing in the Wall Street Journal, warns conservatives that the president’s superior turnout operation is not responsible for his victory and that the Republicans cannot win future elections simply by matching the Democrats’ technical expertise. To win, the GOP must compete for Hispanic votes, and that means going in to Latino communities and talking to them.
Mayor Emanuel agrees that the turnout machine didn’t win the election for the Democrats but he doesn’t agree that the victory was preordained by demography and the Republicans’ weakness with minority voters. Emanuel emphasizes that the Republicans can improve their turnout efforts and they can change their strategies to attract more Latinos. To continue their successes, the Democrats needs to realize that they won because of the superiority of their ideas.
Of course, Mayor Emanuel lays out a series of “Democratic” ideas, some of which aren’t too popular with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Yet, his argument against complacency is a good one. The Democrats can’t take voters for granted or think that their organizational advantages are carved in stone. Where he and Ms. Strassel share a viewpoint is their belief that demography doesn’t have to be destiny. The Republicans can adapt.
Ms. Strassel emphasizes the demographic nature of the Republicans’ defeat, but only in order to argue that it must be addressed. She doesn’t say so explicitly, but it’s clear that she thinks nominating a Latino to run on the ticket is no substitute for community engagement. She wants Republicans on the ground in Latino communities, talking to people and getting supporters registered to vote. This would also be true for the growing Asian communities, and even to a degree in black communities.
What we are not hearing is any arguments from conservatives that they can continue on as before if only they can disenfranchise and discourage enough minority voters. No doubt, we will see some of this in practice. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker seems intent on rolling back 40 years of same-day registration in his state, for example. Shrinking and skewing the electorate didn’t work for the Republicans in 2012, but that doesn’t mean they will give up on the effort. The difference is that no one is willing to argue that these efforts at voter suppression will be sufficient to overcome their weaknesses with minority voters.
What also goes largely unmentioned is that much of the energy and purpose of the conservative base comes from a deep antipathy for brown people and the browning of America. Many conservatives not only do not want to extend citizenship rights to undocumented Latinos, they want to make their lives so miserable that they will self-deport. If this view were not popular on the right, Mitt Romney would not have adopted it (successfully) in the
Republican primaries. Here is how Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson explained the problem during the campaign.
“My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people — not all of them, but most of them — who are still basing their decisions on race,” Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz. “Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists, and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander in chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin, and that’s despicable.”
If we are going for candor, the same attitude extends to the growing Latino community in this country, whether they are here legally or not. And that is why it is no simple matter for the Republican Party to adopt a more welcoming tone to Latinos. While a new attitude might reduce the degree to which the GOP loses the Latino vote, it will come at the cost of alienating some of the party’s most ardent and dedicated supporters. Whether that manifests itself as xenophobic primary challenges or simply depressed turnout, it presents a real problem for Republican politicians.
Nor can the Republicans kid themselves that acquiescing to a comprehensive immigration reform that creates millions of new Latino voters will redound to their political advantage. Even if they went from losing 71% of the Latino vote to losing 51%, more Latino voters would still mean more votes for the Democrats so long as the GOP doesn’t evolve on social and domestic policy.
The Republicans should not agree to comprehensive immigration reform because they think it will benefit them politically. They should agree to it because it is the humane thing to do. Their brand of conservatism has an expiration date no matter what they do.
In a way, both Strassel and Emanuel are correct. The Dems won because they have better ideas and the Republicans lost because they did so poorly with minorities. If the GOP wants to win the presidency any time soon, they have to fix both problems. The Democrats should not assume that they won’t.
I used the democratic voter identification tool in my race. I did not win. In SD, near Sioux Falls, there are about 5-6 districts. Of these, 1 (SD 15) is majority Dem. In that district, Dems won. Other districts are majority Repub. In those districts, mostly Repubs won – although D 9 surprised me.
In the other districts, Dems ran the race often as recommended by the Dem Party – concentrate on the undecideds, who are a combination of mixed households (1D, 1R) or I/O/L households. That is what I did. I knocked on every door in my district in the undecided category, except that that were inaccessible (in locked apartments). I lost 60-40. I didn’t spend much.
Others knocked on many doors, ignoring the party suggestions. One guy knocked on every door, in a rural district (and that is very difficult). He lost 52-48. Others knocked on every door 2-3 times, and lost 60-40.
My point is that some states are very red, and they do not respond to the notion that they are persuadable. In SD, the Republican Party has done pretty well over the last 2-3 years. They cut the government way back, wound up with a pretty sizeable surplus, and had pretty much no disasters. I thought that this might be a good year for Dems, but we went from 30R-5D in the Senate to 28R-7D. Not much of a victory. Some spent $50K and lost 60-40, some like me spent under $5 K, and lost 60-40
My point is that the turnout advantage is key when you have a close situation. Turnout cannot take a 60-40 situation and make it into a winner. It can make a difference when you are 52-48. It is not going to turn a 60-40 into a Dem winner.
One other important issue: My district has 3 kinds of precincts – low income ones with trailer parks, mid-income ones with older houses and apartment buildings, and high-income ones with single-family houses who are owner-occupied. I did well – even won – in the low income precincts. I was some close in the mid income, and got wiped out 2:1 in the owner-occupied districts, including my own precinct.
The problem with the district is voter registration. The district is supposedly 42R-35D-23IOL. However, many of the D are in the rental apartments, and the accuracy of the voter rolls there is just terrible. Probably 25-33% of the voter rolls in apartment houses are correct. So, my district LOOKS more winable than it possibly is. Plus it is difficult to get into the apartment, and many of them are not citizens.
My solution? A very very aggressive voter registration drive early in the voting year. Without that, your turnout operation is not going to be successful, because you waste a LOT of time on non-existent, misregistered voters. Since we were already out-registered, the issue of the registration difference is possibly relevant
What are the key issues that make the Dakotas so inhospitable to Democrats on the presidential level and on the local level. And why do we have so much success on the non-presidential federal level?
We’ve had Sens. Johnson and Daschle and Conrad and Dorgan, and now Heitkamp. We’ve recently controlled both House seats, too.
Excellent question. I think that it’s simply taxes. South Dakota (North and South Dakota are totally different, BTW – North Dakota elected a liberal senator this cycle) is opposed to taxes. They are suspicious about teachers.
I had a forum in a small town that was part of the district. We talked about Issue 14, which was a proposal to take money from the general fund to establish a slush fund to bribe out-of-state businesses. I said “we don’t pick winners and losers” but several of the audience were just shaking their heads.
Another issue is a no questions, slavish fealty about the wisdom of businesspersons.
SD pays teachers the lowest salaries in the country. Students have debts here pretty much on a par with other states. Salaries are low.
It’s partly a culture thing. Only fools are Democrats here. People are reluctant to let their neighbors know that they are Democrats. So there’s that social pressure thing.
The tax structure here is the most regressive in the country, and no one cares. They want it more regressive.
Of course, many people are very nice. But it’s the basic idea that much of the taxes go to lazy shiftless people who live in the public housing. It’s hard to find a single businessperson who is a democrat, although many allowed me to post my big signs.
So, why is SD red? Tax hatred, government hatred, distrust of government including teachers and education, and relative success by the Republican state government currently. I don’t see how we can turn in around in 2 years. Tim Johnson is up for reelection, and the last governor (Mike Rounds) is gonna run against him. Tim is gonna have a huge fight, and I ain’t putting any money on him right now. Tim won in 2008 partly out of pity due to his brain injury (his speech is still not good, but has improved). He has run the pity card out, however, and it won’t be available this time around.
By definition, turnout is what takes a 60-40 situation and makes it a winner. What you found is that the conventional campaign-ramp-up GOTV techniques, even when they are the current best-of-breed, are not sufficient. You identified expanding the base of registered voters inclined to vote Democratic (no matter how they declare themselves for registration) as one area that needs improvement in your district.
You spent $5K. What was the cost per vote that you actually received, and how did that compared to others running? Was there an incumbent or was this an open seat? How much did your opponent spend per vote in order to win? How many votes would it take to win your district? How strong was you name identification on voting day? How strong was your opponent’s?
I am not a fan of the PVI as destiny frame on elections. If the GOP had believed that they never would have contested the South in the 1950s and 1960s. And would not have had the organizational infrastructure to use the Nixon Presidency to make gains. And certainly, we would not have seen Reagan as President.
Your district was 60-40 in this election. What was it when George McGovern ran for President?
You mentioned favorable responses from the lower income section of your district. What percentage of folks who had favorable responses actually voted?
How did you frame your candidacy when you were talking to people in contrast to your opponent and in contrast to the GOP? That, in part, is where the ideas part comes in.
George McGovern first ran 50 years ago, and things were very different then. The degree of polarization was much lower. He run first before the Vietnam war began the polarization. So any comparison to then and now is not particularly useful. Like I said, some ran with $50K, had about the same results as i did.
As to running against an incumbent, yes, I did run against an incumbent, who was a part of the leadership structure. The district was substantially redistricted, and many did not like my opponent. Not enough of an advantage, unfortunately.
I ran mostly on education, as there was an unpopular referendum (Referred Law 16) up for Yes/No vote. The law was badly defeated -60:40, but the vote on the law did not translate into success for many democrats.
In SD, Obama was very unpopular, Obamacare was a huge loser, and the state government is doing reasonably well right now – they took a huge deficit 2 years ago and have a decent surplus. So, no help there.
In SD, Obama was very unpopular, Obamacare was a huge loser, and the state government is doing reasonably well right now – they took a huge deficit 2 years ago and have a decent surplus. So, no help there.
Can you expand on this more? How many people are uninsured in your state? And how did they turn a huge deficit into a surplus?
Cut the hell out of education – back to 2007 levels. I used that as my major argument, but it was not hugely effective. Gov cut about everything, calling it a “structural deficit”. This allowed them to essentially claim that the Republican policies were effective. It’s pretty hard to argue with the surplus.
What’s the biggest employer in SD? Is it the military? Teachers? Farms? Other government things(like Mt. Rushmore)?
Google has this order.
Meatpacking, callcenters, manufacturing, medical, military.
Sanford is a hell of a lot bigger than that. It is at least 20,000 in the entire state. It is a huge network of clinics, hospitals, and a research group (I work in the research unit).
5 years ago, Denny Sanford gave Sioux Valley Hospital $400 million, and $100-200 million since. We are now the largest rural-based health care system in the US, with components in ND, SD, IA, NE, and MN.
So Sandford employees themselves approach 2.5% of the total population?
That might be the count for the entire network in ND, SD, and MN.
From
http://www.sanfordhealth.org/About
“Sanford Health is an integrated health system headquartered in the Dakotas and is now the largest rural, not-for-profit health care system in the nation with locations in 126 communities in eight states. In addition, Sanford Health is in the process of developing international clinics in Ireland, Ghana, Israel and Mexico. Sanford Health includes 35 hospitals, 140 clinic locations and nearly 1,200 physicians in 70 specialty areas of medicine. With more than 25,000 employees, Sanford Health is the largest employer in North and South Dakota. The system is experiencing dynamic growth and development in conjunction with Denny Sanford’s nearly $700 million in gifts, the largest ever to a health care organization in America. These gifts are making possible the implementation of the several initiatives including global children’s clinics, multiple research centers and finding a cure for type 1 diabetes and breast cancer.”
I will assume that they will not fix EITHER problem for as long as they continue to nominate Teabaggers. The Presidency was lost to them long before Obama came along. George W. Bush and the GOP’s overreach has guaranteed a stretch of Democratic Presidents for the time being.
I see the GOP trying to airbrush their candidates. Rubio is the prime example. But he won’t win. Not enough Republicans voted for a Mormon to win, and not enough Republicans will vote for a Latino to win.
And as long as their platforms and primary speeches are geared to appeal to our modern extreme conservatism, they will lose general elections.
When will it stop? When will extremists suddenly stop running for GOP nominations? When their Party becomes extinct and powerless, and only then. Until then, the Democrats have a free ride–for the Presidency, anyway, and for most Senate seats in purple states.
It is a beautiful thing. If you insist on worrying about whether this is the current reality and that maybe a Republican will win the Presidency, there’s nothing else I can tell you to convince you otherwise. Go ahead and worry about it. There certainly was enough of THAT in the last year…
Doesn’t explain the House which is supposed to be most responsive to the people.
Republican control in the House is the result of gerrymandering. The Democrats won the most votes in Pennsylvania’s House races, but the state will have a 13-5 Republican majority in its delegation. Ohio is just as bad.
Nationally, the Democrats beat the Republicans by half a million votes in House races.
Elections in Census years have consequences. Dems should remember that in 2020.
‘The Democrats should not assume that they won’t.’
Republican elites with an instinct for self-preservation will certainly try, but keep in mind that they’ve been slopping the sub-literate, brain-damaged racist pigs of their base on vulgar T-Bone-Steaks-&-Cadillacs propaganda for more than 40 years now. They can’t undo that overnight, if ever.
Conservative, David Frum in a Daily Beast post 11/07/12 asks and answers the question, “Where did the Tea Party go?” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/07/where-did-the-tea-party-go.html
*For two years, conservatives have been pointing to 2010 as the model to follow in every subsequent election. They overlooked one basic fact:
In 2010, voters over 60 accounted for 34% of the electorate.
In 2012, voters over 65 (I don’t know why they changed the age breakouts, but they did) accounted for 15% of the electorate.
The rest, as they say, was as easy as falling downstairs.
*
As I see it, demography and voter turnout are structurally related. 2010 and 1994 were both GOP Congressional wave elections and both occurred during off presidential year elections when voter turn out in general is lower and those that do turn out tend to be “whiter, richer and older”. So Democrats are going to have additional turn out & demographic hurdles for Congress, state legislators, governor’s races and the 1/3rd of the senate that comes up for election in non-presidential election years.
However, long term demographic trends do not look well for the GOP or generic “conservatism” (not just the nutso/Tea Bagger faction). I can’t find the link but I’m pretty sure my memory is accurate for the following break out stat in the 2012 election. White voters over age 65 gave Romney a 20 point lead over Obama. This compares to white voters under 30 who split their vote roughly 50/50.
This whole topic — and by that I mean not just this posting, because I see things like this a lot since the election — strikes me as kind of concern-troll-y. Funny that the Dems are telling the Republicans the same things some of the Republicans are telling themselves, and to me it’s all a lot of talk.
They deserve everything they’re getting and let them figure out what to do. We have enough problems of our own to solve. Really, we do.
I do want a two-party system in this country, and I do respect thoughtful conservatives like the proverbial Daniel Larison — but if the Republican Party were to fragment into two or into smithereens tomorrow, that would be fine with me. They’ll have to work it out for themselves.
I’m glad to see Repubs chasing Latinos because it is due to fail, save perhaps for a one-shot for a Latino Presidential nominee (only Pres; downticket doesn’t count). Latinos are about 10% of the electorate, so to make up their 3% pop vote disadvantage, Repubs would have to flip about 30% of them. Good luck. That would be well beyond Bush, who seems the high water mark, largely for his associations with Fox.
Where they could do better would be with women. They only need to flip 6% of them. This entails getting the Christian Right to chill out. Their leaders would largely be game; their agenda is more political and economic than sincerely religious, but for the rank and file, it is different. Whether abortion is banned is ultimately in the hands of the Lord, but whether your soul is saved is a function of what you personally did. So purity of position does ultimately matter more than political success. Hard to motivate horse-trading with a mindset like that. We don’t control the outcome of the trade anyway and – hey, come back! I need that horse! That’s my soul!
Actually, it’s easier than I said, writing hastily. To make up a 3% deficit requires flipping 1.5% of women or 15% of Latinos. Still clear which is the taller order.