Byron York is correct that the Republicans cannot win the Electoral College by winning over more Latino voters alone. But the result of his analysis seems to be that the best path to victory is even greater racial polarization. It’s really a two-parter. The GOP can win if they can increase their share of the white vote from 60% to 64%. Or, they can win if they turn out white voters in much higher numbers than Romney managed to do. Of course, they can also win by some partial combination of the two.
I don’t know why so many white voters stayed home in 2012. Were they evangelicals who didn’t want to vote for a Mormon? Were they working class folks who didn’t like Romney’s 47% comments? Some problems are easier to fix than others, but you have to know what the problems were if you want to fix them.
A more populist economic message would help, but the dual strategy of improving their performance with whites and turning more of them out seems to call for bolstering white tribal feelings and turning them against the multiethnic Obama coalition.
The problem is that the younger generations do not really think along tribal lines. And for every white person you get to join your racial club, you tend to turn off a minority.
Of course, the worst part of it is that the strategy depends for success on increasing the divisiveness and racial hostility of our society.
