Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Social Conservatives to GOP Establishment: We Told You So

We all knew this was coming even before even before the defeat of the Romney/Ryan ticket on November 6th: the conservative Kool-Aid drinking element in the GOP would blame the loss on the party's failure to be conservative enough.  In the alternate universe of these folks, they refuse to understand that a majority of Americans do not want what they are selling and that, if anything, Romney's pandering to them helped set the stage for the loss of both the White House and Senate seats the GOP had hoped to gain.  Thus the GOP establishment is faced with the prospect of a civil war with people who are at best out of touch or, more likely half insane (OK, perhaps totally, insane).  An article in the Washington Post  looks at the recriminations now flying fast and furiously.  Here are excerpts:

Evangelical leaders and conservative activists have a simple message for establishment Republicans about Mitt Romney’s failed presidential bid: We told you so.

After nearly two weeks of listening to GOP officials pledge to assert greater control over the party and its most strident voices in the wake of Romney’s loss, grass-roots activists have begun to fight back, saying that they are not to blame for the party’s losses in November.

The conservative backlash sets up an internal fight for the direction of the Republican Party, as many top leaders in Washington have proposed moderating their views on citizenship for illegal immigrants, to appeal to Latino voters. In addition, many top GOP officials have called for softening the party’s rhetoric on social issues, following the embarrassing showing by Senate candidates who were routed after publicly musing about denying abortion services to women who had been raped.

The dispute began to take shape soon after Obama was declared the winner and Republicans, who had hoped to claim the Senate majority, lost two seats. Two days after the election, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told ABC News that the Republicans’ mission was to appeal to nonwhite voters: “How do we speak to all Americans? You know, not just to people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans?”

More problematic for Republicans is the drift of Hispanic voters into the Democratic fold. Obama won among Hispanic voters by 44 percentage points this year, up eight points from 2008.

Korn warned that two reliably Republican states worth 49 electoral votes combined could become swing states if demographic trendlines continue. In 2004, George W. Bush tied in the Hispanic vote in Texas and lost in Arizona by 13 percentage points. Romney lost the Hispanic vote by more than 40 points in both states.

[M]any senior party officials have reversed course and suggested that they should at least support the DREAM Act, which would allow the children of illegal immigrants to avoid deportation. Such a move would spark a huge internal fight with some conservatives. 

The 2014 Senate races will serve as a test for establishment control of the political process. For the third consecutive cycle, Republicans will begin as heavy favorites to gain a large bloc of seats, and some party leaders want a bigger role in choosing those nominees. In 2010 and 2012, Republicans say, bad nominees in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Missouri and Nevada cost them what should have been easy victories. If those seats were in GOP hands today, the Senate would be deadlocked at 50-50.

Some outside groups, however, stand ready to fight for the most conservative nominee, pointing to Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) as examples of rising stars who won Senate races without establishment support.

The Democrats can only pray that the evangelicals and conservative win the civil war and help speed the GOP to a permanent minority party status where it belongs until the Christofascists are somehow driven back into the political wilderness.


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