GOP Chairman Reince Priebus will release his report on why the Republicans lost the 2012 elections sometime tomorrow, but he gave a preview on Face the Nation this morning. What I took from it is that they think they can go a long way towards correcting things by limiting the number of debates their candidates have in the primaries and that it is important to move the convention up to June or July rather than having it in late August or early September.
I want to discuss each of these ideas separately. The debates hurt the Republicans because their candidates were far outside of the mainstream. Rick Santorum is not a normal politician. Michele Bachmann is a space cadet. Rick Perry is a moron. Newt Gingrich is a very strange individual. Ron Paul is not really a Republican. Herman Cain is just silly. In combination, those candidates were more like a circus act than people offering a serious critique of the president’s policies. In 2004 and 2008, the Democratic debates, which were also numerous, didn’t hurt the party at all. In fact, they hurt President Bush because the candidates were offering substantive critiques and the news organizations were covering those critiques and taking them seriously. The Democrats weren’t discussing birth certificates or the implementation of Sharia Law or anything equivalently detached from reality.
If the Republicans had had 23 debates between Jeb Bush, Dick Lugar, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Jon Huntsman, Colin Powell, and Mitt Romney, then maybe the Republicans would have benefited from so many debates. But only two of those people ran for president, and they had to debate a bunch of idiots and crackpots. So, the first thing to do is to field real candidates who actually have the credentials to be plausible presidents.
I agree that both parties have too many debates, but it’s hard to limit them because each state wants an opportunity to have their particular issues addressed and there are also some constituent groups that want to host debates. Treating the debates as the problem and saying that the solution is to have many fewer of them makes it appear like the Republicans are afraid of exposing people to their message.
The convention issue is complicated. The specific reason that the Republicans want to move the convention up is that Romney wasn’t allowed to use general election funds until he was officially nominated, so he was underfunded during the summer. I understand the move from that perspective, but it comes with a cost. Holding the convention four or five months before the actual election risks making the event almost irrelevant.
The conventions started moving later in the calendar because the finance laws limited how much could be spent after the nomination, but that logic went out the window when Obama didn’t accept matching funds in 2008. So, now the logic moves in the opposite direction. Once you’ve secured the nomination by getting enough delegates, you don’t want to wait months to be able to use general election funds. In making this move, the GOP is acknowledging that no candidate in 2016 will be accepting matching funds. What they are forgetting is that the conventions were held late enough in the last cycle to have an impact on early voting. The first ballots cast in North Carolina were on September 6th, the same day the Democratic Convention in Charlotte was completed.
If the conventions have the intended impact, they provide each party a bump in the polls. Isn’t it better to have that bump when at least some people are voting than in the middle of July?
In any case, I don’t see either of these moves, on the debates or the timing of the convention, as being on point. If the party would stop populating itself with religious fundamentalists and bigots, they would be more appealing. It’s as simple as that.
Plus if they have their convention early, then there is a lot of lag time where their candidate has no one to debate, while the Democrats are still debating, yes? All they can do is fling mud from the sidelines in the form of advertising. But they’d have a moving target if there isn’t a clear front-runner. All the while, their own candidate is now a fixed target for all the Democratic hopefuls to use as a contrast to their own style.
But anything Reince comes up with is lacking in forethought and reason, so there’s that. He’s the reason our Governor’s race in WA was so lopsided. Reince decided not to give any GOTV money to the WA Republicans because WA is a blue state. Thanks, Reince. He really does not get electoral politics from what I can tell.
Watching Jeb Bush’s consternation this month when he attempted to put his big toe into pond only highlighted not only the fractures within the Party but that the none of the factions really have a clue what they could offer a leader to lead with.
There just isn’t a Party to lead anymore.
they ran a race-based campaign, combined with active voter suppression.
they believed that they could racebait enough White people to vote for them, while keeping all the ‘ others’ away from the polls.
I’ve said it before and will continue to say it:
3. They got SIXTY-ONE PERCENT of the White vote, and got their asses handed to them in the Electoral College and Popular Vote. They are still stunned.
a) Barack Obama put a stake through the heart of the Southern Strategy….
b) Barack Obama won the Presidency TWO TIMES without needing ONE FUCKING SOUTHERN STATE. It’s nice that he won the ones that he did…but, even if he hadn’t, he’d still be President – both times.
I don’t think these things are reported on as much as they should be. I also believe the numbers that shocked not only the GOP, but also the MSM, which was kneedeep in collusion with the GOP, were the numbers for everyone who wasn’t White in this country.
They thought the Latino Numbers would be bad, but never thought they’d be THAT bad.
On the other hand, the Asian numbers shocked the fuck out of them…after all the Asians never said anything about all they were observing…they just waited until election day to make their voices heard.
They were shocked, because, after ignoring the pile of obvious racism thrown at this Presidence since before he ever won the nomination, the MSM had the meme prepared that “Black people are far too sensitive where President Obama is concerned.”
When it turned out that everyone who wasn’t White in this country thought the same thing…
That shut them the fuck up in shock.
They haven’t had a response yet to it.
I’m STILL waiting for some ‘journalist’ to ask Turtle Lips how it feels to have failed at the ONLY goal he set for himself for 4 years- to make Barack Obama a one-term President.
Asians don’t like to complain publicly. Their culture is built on social harmony. But alone in the voting booth and anonymous, they are not stupid.
As for MSM, they are deep in the echo chamber. This morning on Bloomberg I listened to an interview about “micro-apartments”. These are apartments with bathroom (wheelchair accessible), kitchen and bedroom, the total falling under 400 square feet. The specific development they were talking about was in NYC and consisted of a ten story building with 250 square foot apartments. Not 250 apartments, apartments of 250 square foot size. I just got a new family room carpet for my modest suburban dwelling. The family room is 12 by 18 which is 216 square feet. I can’t imagine living with a bathroom, some appliances, a small table and a bed all in my family room! There is a similar apartment building in Chicago. It is called Cook County Jail!
Those apartments are for the 1% to rent/buy for their help…the maids, nannies, doormen, or the home healthcare aide. This will keep the help close to the job…never late.
The properties are being rebranded as ‘micro-lofts.’
Micro-apartments made them sound small, confining, and unattractive. However, Frank Luntz poll-tested ‘micro-lofts’ and the target market reacted favorably, even when touring the property.
Those buyers who were told the properties were ‘micro-lofts’ immediately embraced the openness and utility nature of the space which could be described as endlessly adaptable.
Prison to loft conversions are seen as a looming trend, for folks who see the benefit of not losing any space to walls between the 7 virtual rooms in their micro-lofts.
Best of all, the investors marketing these conversions have a woman’s touch. Not just in the physical suitability but the emotional as well. Barbara Bush and Ann Romney have always been interested in making life for comfortable for those who don’t really deserve it.
On a general note I agree with the consensus analysis that the GOP can’t accurately diagnose why they lost because those are problems they can’t fix. They went all-in for the “Southern Strategy” and the evangelical protestant vote and now they are stuck with those extremists as their base.
On a specific note I’m stunned that they are proposing moving the convention earlier. But I guess when your whole party has lost touch with reality you even forget recent history. In 2004 Rove intentionally moved the GOP convention as late as possible for three reasons: to dovetail with 9/11, to give Bush the latest possible convention bounce (the incumbent party gets the last convention), and to give the GOP a whole month of mudslinging at Kerry with the Swift Boat attack. Kerry was stuck, as the Democratic convention had been a full month earlier – if he’d used funds to defend himself he’d have been at a funding disadvantage in the last two months, but because he didn’t fund a defense the attack ads stuck.
Granted, there is one key difference – Kerry had taken the federal funds which limited the total amount that could be expended. Since Obama refused federal funds in 2008 it is likely no candidate will accept those funds again unless the system undergoes major restructuring.
But even with that limitation an early convention does not help. A June convention is likely to get low ratings AND to be forgotten by the low info voters come October.
Romney’s problem in 2012 wasn’t a late convention that prevented him from responding. In fact, I’m not sure it was a problem of lack of funds at all – there seemed to be a strategic decision not to respond until things got really bad. I suspect the funding excuse is just to protect the guilty. But even if it were a funding problem, the problem wasn’t late timing, it was that Romney had blown his primary campaign funds in part due to the long fight but in larger part because they were spending 3x what the Democrats were for the same benefits. Basically, Romney’s campaign spent wildly like the consultant firms that Romney hangs around with do.
Willard’s entire campaign was set up for the grifters that sucked him dry, and was their only purpose.
Nobody had anything good to say about Willard unless they got a check from him.
And I would suspect this will prove the norm for any nominee going forward.
Basically rich white guy nominee didn’t want to spend any of his own money defending himself.
miser from the word go. his personal $$ the only thing he cares about, even takes precedence over his family. He’s eons way even from being Rob Portman
the only real candidates they had were Willard and Huntsman. Everyone else was a G-R-I-F-T-E-R who wasn’t serious about actually running for President. You saw the truth of this when their time in the spotlight came, they actually had no election apparatus to take advantage of it.
Paul sort of did have an election apparatus, but I wouldn’t claim he isn’t a grifter.
Ron Paul’s a lot of things but he’s not a grifter.
There are no serious candidates for the Republican nomination, Republicans are not even a serious party. democrats should point and laugh, and mock them at will. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, JEB(!)? Seriously? I realize the media has a hard time dealing with a party’s self immolation, but frankly that is what we are witnessing in real time. Right wing radio and FOX news are the only things propping it up. Fewer debates won’t matter if Billionaire-financed grifters can do enough ad buys to force themselves on a debate stage, and single activism PAC’s can use ad buys to demand orthodoxy. Even if a legitimate candidate existed and had crossover appeal (Think Christie) he will likely have to follow Romney’s strategy to obtain the nomination, and will be unable to tack to the center.
Romney was a spectacularly bad candidate, and he was the best they had to offer.
Demographics are killing a party that can’t make a turn left. that 61% white vote is a high water mark not likely to be seen again.
That’s how they got 61% of the white vote. If you peeled off the fundamentalists and bigots, they would have been well below 50%. In fact, if there was a thinking politically-aware electorate and you cut out the social issues, then they would only have the votes of the 1% and the 10% wannabees. Their economic issues are laughable nonsense on a par with the 6000 year old Earth. All they have is religious and racial bigotry.
I was just remarking to my lunch companion today (a contemporary of mine) that Obama can ignore the Unions because they have no place else to go. Once that was not true. Unions could threaten to support moderate Republicans like Chuck Percy or Nelson Rockefeller or Arlen Spector and have it be a credible threat. Now what would they say? That they will support McCain or Graham if the Democrats ignore them?
I believe the last two sentences of your post tells the truth about the Republican Party. However, the Republicans really do a good job. Because, the GOP cares about only 1% percent of population yet get 46% percent of the people they do not care about to cast a vote for the Republican Party.
To be clearer, nothing prevented Romney from raising and spending more after securing the nomination except for the individual donor limitation for the primary contests ($2,500 in 2012). That’s very different from what Gore faced in 2000 when his campaign had to go dark between securing the nomination and the convention because of the aggregate limit on primary spending. Whereas, GWB could continue to spend freely because he’d rejected primary federal matching funds. Both then accepted federal funding for the general election.
Howard Dean was the first Democrat to forgo primary federal matching funds. John Kerry quickly followed that lead. In 2008, Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Romney did the same. All but Obama in 2008 and 2012 and Romney in 2012 accepted general election public funding. Technically, the general election federal grant is the limit of what a campaign may spend. For McCain in 2008, that grant and limit was $84 million. But he spent over $300 million.
I thought they diagnosed the problem at CPAC–the lost because they didn’t spend enough time talking about Jefferson Davis.
Yes, I believe BooMan has hit on it in the final paragraph of his post here. But the GOP Chairman cannot say that his Party’s platform, policy pursuits and activist base repel most of the rest of the country’s voters, so more deck chair changing folderol will continue.
Let me just take a side trip to mention a pet peeve. The linked article has this right near the head:
“How did the Republican Party lose a presidential election against a weak incumbent with a bad economy…”.
See, the writer asserts as fact that Obama was a weak incumbent, instead of defining that assertion as one the GOP was making in its campaign. It’s not a small point here- this sort of thing is repeated constantly, and is extremely damaging to the public’s ability to understand issues. In reality, not in perception, the President’s popularity stayed near 50% despite that bad economy, crept upwards very slightly throughout the campaign, and his personal and organizational fundraising and campaign skills were manifest. These are no one’s definition of a “weak incumbent”, but the writer asserted it just the same.
An even more damaging journalistic failure is the unwillingness on air and in print to push back against GOP lies, lies, lies. I watched Martha Radditz host Little George’s This Week today, and her exclusive with Speaker Orange Man was full of the boilerplate lies which are permanent parts of GOP talking points. For example, Boehner repeated today, as he has hundreds of times, that the nation’s public debt and budget deficits are responsible for the mediocre economy. The last 85 years of American economic and Federal budgetary activity have shown this to be a lie. That’s the work I’d use for it; a softer representation would be that Boehner’s statement is not borne out by recent U.S. history. Yet Martha allowd that and other howlers to go by without comment. Silence allows lies to become fact. How would the average person not come to the conclusion that, since journalists do not dispute the “deficits cause bad economies” claim, that it must be true?
But it’s not true, and the public is hurt every time this happens.
Your comment is a gem. Perceptive, meaningful, and well articulated.
I had the misfortune of listening to an interview with Stephen Hadley on NPR today. He repeated well-established lies – beginning with the one that all sources of intelligence agreed that Saddam had WMD – with no push-back from the host. The choice in 2012 to interview one of GWB’s less known staffers was questionable but it was journalistic malpractice to give him a platform to repeat known lies without being challenged.
“If the party would stop populating itself with religious fundamentalists and bigots, they would be more appealing.”
For a party that is legendary for being in bed with business, they seem to have no clue what market share means.
But, I would hesitate to slam Gingrich as being unserious, his silly talk about moon bases might have been over the top, but I think he does have a way of thinking big sometimes. As in, if WE don’t claim the moon, China WILL. And in law and territories, possession is 9/10’s of the law.
The problem with Newt is he’s so grandiose that he’s made a reputation for himself of it. No one takes him seriously any more, even when he might come up with a good idea. It doesn’t help to have been run out of town by your own party either…
Huntsman? What a wasted opportunity there, but tainted by party purity requirements because he worked for Obama.
GOP is losing its market share.