Dems went through this a generation ago when Reagan branded extremists and made "liberal" a slur
Joel Send a noteboard - 11/11/2012 06:10:00 PM
I believe, and I have repeated this point, that Obama was pushed forward too far, too fast. The Democratic Party was enthralled by a man who was, as Vice President Joe Biden put it, “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”. He certainly didn’t have the experience to be President, though. He had been a one-term Illinois state senator, then a one-term United States Senator from Illinois, having conveniently skipped the other elected offices that one usually is expected to serve before aspiring to the US Senate. His record was scarce, with lots of absenteeism. His Administration, since he became President, has reflected this amateur status. I firmly attribute foreign policy successes to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In the domestic sphere, Obama’s actions have undermined one another. How, for example, can you help encourage an increase in employment when you’ve just saddled employers with higher health care costs? How can you encourage manufacturers to return to the United States while pushing for rules that make it easier to unionize and keeping the corporate tax levels where they are?
I totally agree with your first point in particular - those meteoric careers rarely work out well for anyone in politics, whether it's a party in a parliamentary system that sees its seats quintuple in one election, or a politician who becomes president with so little experience. Bandwagons have a way of leaving those jumping on them with a hangover.
A rare moment of consensus. Obama should have waited till 2016 (when he would have been ready) and let a far more capable Hillary have 2008. Unfortunately, ambition got the better of him, and 2008 was the closest thing to automatic since 1976, so he did not want to roll the dice on 2016. McCain said we could not afford on-the-job training for the president, and he was right.
For good or for ill, however, Obama has won another four years. I sincerely hope that the Republican Party has learned some important lessons, because if they haven’t, they are doomed to repeated defeat and, ultimately, collapse as a political party. This would be a catastrophe for America because a new credible opposition (and/or split in the Democratic Party) would take time to form, and in that time there would be no voice to question the DNC’s platform and goals. Regardless of political leanings, the idea of a one-party system for any length of time should be disturbing to anyone who values the democratic process and representative government.
I think the talk about the demise of the Republican Party is a little premature... only eight years ago people were saying much the same about the Democratic Party. And it could be just me, but I don't exactly have the impression the Democratic Party is particularly strong, or that such a split as you mention is so far-fetched. On issues like gay marriage, the social conservatives are on the losing side of history, but more generally speaking, the Blue Dogs and conservative Dems are the ones who won the Senate majority and the presidency now, just like in 2006 and 2008. Whenever the Democrats get too cocky, they risk losing those votes.
Fair point; the two party system makes it hard for either major party to completely disintegrate until/unless an alternative takes their place. However much either dominates some will always disagree and gravitate to the opposition by default.
So what, then, are the lessons for the Republican Party as I see them? I’ll tell you:
1. Being anti-immigrant is a losing strategy. Unless you’re the sort of person Elizabeth Warren lied about being, most of your ancestors were born somewhere other than the Americas. Some came on the Mayflower, others through Ellis Island, still others on slave ships. Almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants. Furthermore, we now have millions of illegal immigrants who have largely crossed our southern border, and it’s been going on for several generations so many of their children and grandchildren are citizens (read: voters). Our southern neighbors are Hispanic nations, and many of our citizens are Hispanic. Any strategy for dealing with the problem of illegal immigration (because it is a problem; undocumented workers put burdens on communities, law enforcement, health care providers, and strain the domestic labor market in some industries) must recognize that you have to deal with non-criminal illegals with a sense of humanity and decency. Hell, even Newt Gingrich recognized that. And yet, all Romney did to try to influence the Hispanic vote was rant about Cuba (which might have helped him with a very narrow demographic among Cuban exiles in Florida, but doesn’t seem to have been enough for him to have carried the state) and then point out that Barack Obama failed. Well, okay, but Mitt, what the Hell were you going to do differently? Romney never said anything. He was ominously silent. For all we know, he was going to solve the problem of illegal immigration by lighting immigrants on fire with flamethrowers. He made the first part of a winning argument (Obama lied to you and used you) but then he didn’t follow it up with anything of his own. This was more indicative of his largely negative strategy, but it’s a losing one. Many Hispanics should, by rights, be Republican voters. Many are religious, they by and large have a strong work ethic and they usually side with Republicans on economic issues. I fervently hoped that Romney would pick Rubio, and that Rubio would force the Republicans to address the immigration issues directly, openly and honestly, and come up with a decent solution that didn’t involve mass deportations or other harsh measures. He didn’t, perhaps because he didn’t know how to sell immigration reform to his own party or the country, but it was a mistake. Republicans need to recognize that if they treat illegals like human beings with the same hopes and dreams that brought their own ancestors to America, they need not cede the Hispanic vote to the Democrats. In fact, had Romney done that, I think we would have seen both Nevada and Florida turn red last night.
1. Being anti-immigrant is a losing strategy. Unless you’re the sort of person Elizabeth Warren lied about being, most of your ancestors were born somewhere other than the Americas. Some came on the Mayflower, others through Ellis Island, still others on slave ships. Almost all of us are the descendants of immigrants. Furthermore, we now have millions of illegal immigrants who have largely crossed our southern border, and it’s been going on for several generations so many of their children and grandchildren are citizens (read: voters). Our southern neighbors are Hispanic nations, and many of our citizens are Hispanic. Any strategy for dealing with the problem of illegal immigration (because it is a problem; undocumented workers put burdens on communities, law enforcement, health care providers, and strain the domestic labor market in some industries) must recognize that you have to deal with non-criminal illegals with a sense of humanity and decency. Hell, even Newt Gingrich recognized that. And yet, all Romney did to try to influence the Hispanic vote was rant about Cuba (which might have helped him with a very narrow demographic among Cuban exiles in Florida, but doesn’t seem to have been enough for him to have carried the state) and then point out that Barack Obama failed. Well, okay, but Mitt, what the Hell were you going to do differently? Romney never said anything. He was ominously silent. For all we know, he was going to solve the problem of illegal immigration by lighting immigrants on fire with flamethrowers. He made the first part of a winning argument (Obama lied to you and used you) but then he didn’t follow it up with anything of his own. This was more indicative of his largely negative strategy, but it’s a losing one. Many Hispanics should, by rights, be Republican voters. Many are religious, they by and large have a strong work ethic and they usually side with Republicans on economic issues. I fervently hoped that Romney would pick Rubio, and that Rubio would force the Republicans to address the immigration issues directly, openly and honestly, and come up with a decent solution that didn’t involve mass deportations or other harsh measures. He didn’t, perhaps because he didn’t know how to sell immigration reform to his own party or the country, but it was a mistake. Republicans need to recognize that if they treat illegals like human beings with the same hopes and dreams that brought their own ancestors to America, they need not cede the Hispanic vote to the Democrats. In fact, had Romney done that, I think we would have seen both Nevada and Florida turn red last night.
And Colorado, and perhaps even New Mexico. Hell, even California isn't the liberal powerhouse it seems if the Republicans ever start getting the minority votes that, based on those voters' actual political views, one might expect them to get.
I think they have 2-4 years to get their collective heads out of their butts on immigration or they will lose latinos for the foreseeable future just as they did blacks. Julian Castro, the San Antonio mayor who gave the DNC keynote address, said a few days ago he thinks TX will be a swing state in 6-8 years, because 65% of its population growth in the last census was latino. The Southwest is important, but Republicans have already lost all of it except AZ, and TX keeps them in the game: Without it the largest state they carried was (Dem trending) NC, then TN. Atlanta is making Georgia a lot closer these days, too, so SC begins to look as much like an endangered GOP salient as IN does.
Unless the GOP finds a way forward with minorities soon they will be left trying to cobble together an electoral victory out of a dozen states, most with single digit electoral votes. That is political obscurity and irrelevance.
3. Inflexible positions may play to the base, but they breed defeat. Grover Norquist and his tax pledges have done more harm than good, as have any attempts at “loyalty oaths” that require Republicans to adhere to certain positions. The only political party that ever enforced that level of discipline was the Communist Party, and I doubt the Republicans want to be compared to the communists. To say that Republicans would not permit any tax raises on anyone even if there were $0.10 of tax increases for every $0.90 of spending cuts is not just bad politics, it’s stupid. Politics by nature is about compromise. Each grandiose statement, each Grover Norquist loyalty pledge, each unequivocal promise, erodes the ability of the Party to maneuver in these instances. Romney essentially admitted as much when he refused to go into specifics about which deductions he would eliminate in the Tax Code. Of course, that by itself was a tactical error because it essentially allowed people to worry about the most popular deductions being removed before they knew how a rate reduction would affect their tax liability.
It's interesting how the Republican primaries seem to hinder the Republicans more in the general election than the Democratic ones do... part of that is what I said above, how so many of the Democratic votes and their only way to victory lies in the centre, so even in the Democratic primaries, trying to move to the left will probably lose you more votes than it gains you. And of course Democrats don't have the same near-religious adherence to certain principles that many conservatives have, nor a saint like Reagan to personify those principles. Joel likes to say herding liberals is much like herding cats, but looked at this way, that might actually have its advantages.
In the '70s and '80s it was the other way around, and Dems learned a hard lesson from that. If you have not yet looked up the Democratic Leadership Council, I recommend it, because it is a very instructive piece of history Republicans may be about to repeat. The national party tired of nominating arch-liberals the base loved only to see Reagan and Bush 41 define them as extremists and cruise to general election victory. That was the birth of Americas Third Way New Left, and the death of the old (real) Left. The DLC hails the Clinton elections as vindication, studiously ignoring Perot polling double digits (mostly from conservatives) in '92 and '96. The GOP produced a copycat organization about a decade ago, but it may finally get some largescale support thanks to the Tea Party disasters.
The irony is that the DLC may finally be accomplishing its goal just a few years after its formal dissolution. Pushing the DNC to the center forced the RNC right to maintain its ideological distinction, so outside the Northeast and West Coast much of the GOP is openly far right. It remains to be seen whether the New Left has captured the center on its own merits, but with the national Republican Party fleeing the center to preserve its identity the effect is much the same.
The knock, of which the GOPs highly motivated and reliable base must remain conscious, is that the DLC traded ideological purity for electoral victories consequently rendered meaningless. Clinton brought welfare reform, the demise of labor and protectionism, the rise of "free" trade and stagnant working class wages even as GDP and the DJIA skyrocketed amid the longest sustained economic growth in US history. In many ways it was hard to tell the difference between Clinton and Bush 41, except the former succeeded in passing the NAFTA and WTO treaties where the latter failed. Many noted that risked far left votes Dems needed, but the truth is many of those voters rejected anyone to the right of Marx anyway. The GOP base is historically far more inclined to hold their nose and vote for the party as a patriotic duty.
That may be what kills the Tea Party in the end. Historically, even when the national GOP was fairly far right, it could and did tell its extremist base to sit down, shut up and vote for whom they told lest the Dems atheist commies win. It worked, because GOP voters are just that. Even now they have not stopped voting, only staged revolts and forced extremists on the party during primaries. If the GOP goes back to its old model of closet extremism marketed as centrism with winking indulgence by the base, they could easily pull out of this tailspin without sacrificing any ACTUAL ideological purity.
If not, however, the GOP base could find themselves completely marginalized by restructuring like the DLC orchestrated in creating "Super Tuesday" in the mid-eighties, and have nowhere to go but the catherd. The "better dead than red" philosophy makes the latter a non-option. I did not coin the "herding cats phrase," but have always liked it because it fits; Republicans are not like that, and it is much easier to lock the base out of the process secure in the knowledge they will show up on election day along with all the newly seduced moderates and independents.
Well, that’s really about all I have to say.
I've one thing to add: Snowe vs. Rodham Clinton (yes, I'm stubborn on that point, if it was up to me I'd drop the Clinton entirely) in 2016. It would be so nice to have an election with two candidates to get excited about, instead of zero, for once.
Do not hold your breath; Snowe is justifiably disgusted with politics (though she could completely change the face of US politics if nominated; even I might vote for her.) Hillary, on the other hand, is nearly as old as Biden and, asked after the election about her future plans, her response was "I would like to see if I can get untired." 2008 was her year, and Obama blew it with his amateur hour presidency. Two missed opportunities for the price of one, as it were.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
My own thoughts on the election results
07/11/2012 06:12:26 PM
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it's hard to say romney would have been better when he took every side of every issue
07/11/2012 07:10:25 PM
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Do you think Republicans got the message, or will it take one more unnecessary defeat? *NM*
07/11/2012 07:11:50 PM
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Good points all. Somehow I don't really think they'll take them to heart any time soon, though...
07/11/2012 08:00:56 PM
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Re: Hillary.
07/11/2012 08:13:25 PM
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A lot of people seem to think she will.
07/11/2012 08:26:57 PM
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Biden hinted he was thinking about running. But he looks older, so that might benefit her.
07/11/2012 09:18:49 PM
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Um
07/11/2012 09:50:08 PM
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Oh. I must've missed that.
07/11/2012 10:03:28 PM
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Well there has been a slightly more important US politics story for the media to cover of late
07/11/2012 10:18:28 PM
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Snowe? Seriously? Chris Christie is far more likely.
07/11/2012 09:52:25 PM
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Chris Christie *was* far more likely. I expect his party to eat him alive after Sandy.
07/11/2012 09:59:17 PM
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Yes, but Christie gained the respect of a lot of moderates for that.
07/11/2012 10:20:08 PM
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Moderates don't vote in the primaries *NM*
07/11/2012 10:21:50 PM
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Enough of them vote to ensure a Christie victory in a GOP primary.
08/11/2012 05:09:24 AM
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Has been seen as not entirely Republican for quite a while, I think.
07/11/2012 10:08:15 PM
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Dems went through this a generation ago when Reagan branded extremists and made "liberal" a slur
11/11/2012 06:10:00 PM
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It will be interesting whether the GOPs financiers convince its primary voters you are right.
11/11/2012 05:07:43 PM
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