A time of soul-searching for GOP
E. Thomas McClanahanLast week, I kept thinking of those images you see after tornadoes hit towns — homes reduced to kindling, survivors picking through wreckage. That’s pretty much how it felt Wednesday morning.
I believed the predictions that Mitt Romney would win big, especially after uber-guru Michael Barone opined that Romney might even take Pennsylvania. Romney did not take Pennsylvania. Nor did he take the essential swing states of Virginia, Florida and Ohio.
The autopsies will go on for some time, but what looms large for me is the issue of trust. For much of the late spring and summer, President Barack Obama’s campaign pumped out a narrative smearing Romney as a heartless rich guy, an impression Romney did little to counter. Romney got a bump after naming Paul Ryan, who had advanced a smart reform plan for Medicare, as his running mate. This was a signal that if elected, Romney would do the big things needed to avoid a European-style debt crisis.
But big things — entitlement reform and tax reform — are complicated. And in the proposal-and-debate phase, the key details are often of interest only to wonks. Winning a mandate for a weighty agenda requires trust and Romney, despite his surge after the first debate, failed to connect with voters to the degree required. He didn’t stress how his tax-cut plan would have boosted economic growth.
Like many others, I underestimated Obama’s appeal and historical status. The electorate apparently was not willing to fire the first black president in favor of a wealthy man whose proposals were not fully understood by many voters.
Which leaves the country facing continued deadlock with largely the same players, a situation Harvard economist Greg Mankiw likened to Jean-Paul Sartre’s play, “No Exit.”
The play has three characters who arrive in hell expecting to be tortured. Instead, they are locked in a room together. Soon they detest each other and realize their punishment is never to escape.
Close, but perhaps in our case purgatory would be a better metaphor. Escape is possible, but you can’t see how — unless some unknown factor changes. Until that change occurs we face uncertainty. It’s hard to shake the feeling that last Tuesday, the nation made an irrevocable turn toward a more ominous future, one in which the government role is hugely enlarged at still-unknown costs — both in terms of money and a “depleted” national character, as Paul Ryan put it.
If the Obama administration continues to emit budgets with trillion-dollar deficits, if nothing is done about entitlements, if economic growth doesn’t accelerate, control of America’s future will be seized by the financial markets. The case is even more dire, given that the subsidy spigots of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges are slated to open in 2014.
Yet it’s also clear that the Republican Party must change or be left behind by a changing nation. The harvest of the GOP’s anti-immigrant fervor was 70 percent Hispanic support for Obama. Many Latino voters were angered by Romney’s remark earlier in the year that the answer to illegal immigration was “self-deportation.”
Opposition to gay marriage is another loser for the GOP. Maine, Washington and Maryland approved gay-marriage measures by popular vote. Voters in Minnesota rejected a gay-marriage ban. Wisconsin elected the first openly gay senator, Tammy Baldwin.
Fighting this losing battle turns off gays who might otherwise vote Republican and it taints candidates in the eyes of young voters. It’s time to let it go. Gay marriage is gaining acceptance.
For the immediate future, the test for Obama is whether he can redeem the promise of his first campaign, reach for the center — and deal seriously with the nation’s festering problems. How he handles the looming “fiscal cliff” negotiations will do much to shape the character of his second term.
To reach E. Thomas McClanahan, call 816-234.4480 or send email to mcclanahan@kcstar.com.
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
6 months, 2 weeks agoE.T. I like your choice of word “autopsies” when I was thinking of a medical term, too, dissection. I agree many books will come out of this election.
I would focus on the party, even though Mitt Romney himself is also responsible for his loss.
On individual level, Romney is a highly smart and successful businessman, very shrewd, flexible, shifting quickly to where the profit is maximum, no principle whatsoever. That’s how he shifted to the middle and won MA governor. President Obama is a natural, like Bill Clinton, natural in connecting and tuning to the needs and feeling of people. Basically, businessman and politicians are made of different materials.
On the party level, as I repeatedly emphasized before, Republican party got to reform, evolve and change according to the changed demographic environment and to the changed culture norms (women and gay issues). This is 21st century and the trend toward equality, fairness and justice for all is simply irresistible. He who stands against this historical trend must be filtered out of the way.
Mark my word, in a decade or two, Republican party, if it is still around, will be vastly different from what it is now. It will be more like democratic party today.
JR Beillenhouser
6 months, 2 weeks agoYanwen, of course, gets it wrong.
The Republican party needs to run a conservative. Romney and McCain were not conservatives.
I’d propose a more libertarian bent to the party.
Come next election, the economy will still be the problem.
It was wondered in 2004 if Dems would ever win again, now the shoe is on the other foot. Might have been a different story is Orca worked for Romney.
In actuality, Obama won by a narrow margin in several states. This election was not a mandate, it was not a blowout. People need to quit acting like it was.
Mark Hastert
6 months, 2 weeks agoAs long as the Republican party continues to delude itself it will continue to lose elections and members. Michael Barone, George Will, Carl Rove all called it wrong because they wouldn’t get out the echo chamber and listen to anything else but each other. Sam Wang, Nate Silver, Votamatic and all the other data aggregators reported that Romney 1. got momentum when he moved toward the center (and abandoned Tea Party positions) 2.lost momentum after about ten days or so. 3. was predicted to lose by 100+ electoral votes for weeks & weeks. 4.Arithmetic. Old white guys are subtracting and the opposition is adding.
From the comments by our conservative friends it looks like the echo chamber is still in full use.
Johnathon Busby
6 months, 2 weeks agoThe social conservatives will not readily release the levers of power; they will drive the GOP into a regional power before they admit that the trends on their core issues are simply not in their favor. Yawnen is more or less correct; the GOP may (and should) retain its fiscal principles, but must embrace change in other aspects or will continue to become more and more marginalized going forward. A party which refuses to embrace equality, for one example, will not last.
The GOP may “sure don’t need advice from a lib”, but clearly it needs help and advice from somewhere if it hopes to continue to exist as a national party.
Yanwen Xia
Overland Park
6 months, 2 weeks agoJR, “The Republican party needs to run a conservative.” For answer to this path, just look at the fate of Todd Akin and Richard Murdoch. Haven’t people learned something from them?
JR Beillenhouser
6 months, 2 weeks agoReality:
http://twitchy.com/2012/11/11/layoff-bomb-joined-by-hiring-freeze-small-biz-owners-say-i-wont-be-hiring-for-a-long-time/
http://twitchy.com/2012/11/11/death-spiral-hours-cut-workers-pushed-to-part-time-due-to-obamacare-they-keep-cutting-my-hours/
Dave Ramsey: Expect the rich to dig in to survive big taxes rather than invest in the economy. Hope I am wrong. Good luck on new jobs.
Johnathon Busby
6 months, 2 weeks agoJunior; do you think it’s a coincidence that idiots (your word) like Akin and Murdoch are social conservatives?
You can blame the media all day (and will, despite Fox News being the most watched of the big 3). But the horrible campaign is halfway honest; a horrible candidate with a horrible platform would be more so.
You have a lot of solid points about the direction of fiscal responsibility on the state and federal level, not that I expect you to return any such respect to me. That said, business owners don’t have to lay people off; they choose to instead of reducing the returns to themselves (or their shareholders, of which they are one). Fundamentally, it’s a decision about greed and self interest.
As for a “stupid electorate”, I agree the average human being can barely empty their shoe of its contents, but what makes you think that will change much from one moment to the next? You can’t fix stupid, to quote Ron White. You can educate it, but then that increases their inclination to vote Dem…
More over, your assertion suggests the loss was due to intelligence, as opposed to demographic. The reality is, there will be proportionately fewer and fewer white male voters each election. This is a reality the GOP must either deal with, or fade into obscurity.
Mark Hastert
6 months, 2 weeks agoAs I said in my first post Republicans are delusional. It’s just not possible to them that they could have lost because their policies and positions are wrong and were rejected.
They won’t even entertain the idea that if you insult and denigrate all people of color, ethnic groups and women that you’re not going to be elected prom queen.
They won’t admit that everywhere their trickle down economic ideas have been tried they have flopped and that (despite JR’s excusifying) the electorate is not as stupid as they think they are.
George Hunsucker
Northland
6 months, 2 weeks agoJR, the libs will not face reality that Europe doesn’t work, not even in America.
Heading into another recession and all they can talk about is how the R’s need to change…
Pretty damm funny, but it will be great for my gold–-thanks libs
JR Beillenhouser
6 months, 2 weeks agoJohnathon -
There are many idiots on both sides. Anyone who can straight faced say that Pelosi is not an idiot as well is kidding themselves. When you run a bad candidate, you tend to lose. (oh and she is a social progressive)
The audience of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC dwarfs FoxNews. Fox News does beat CNN and MSNBC. Additionally, nearly every print paper in the country is also liberal. And each have decided not to report the bad about Obama.
Regarding your comment about greed. A business owner wants to make money. Why put in all the time. These guys don’t work 9 to 5 like many of their employees, they live their business, and expect to paid in relation to that work. Why put up with everything if you don’t get rewarded.
In regards to you, I think you are a intelligent, yet misdirected person. A pretty typical 20 something who thinks they know more about life than their years could possibly enable. Once you get older and have kids and are forced to settle down, I guarantee that you will see things in a much different manner than you do now. You’ll realize that those social conservatives that you love to rail against are pretty good people who have a greater understanding about society that you can possibly perceive at this point in your life. Statistics show that as you get older, you get more conservative. Married women supported Romney by a great margin, because they are concerned about their children not just themselves, like the single woman who supported Obama.
Johnathon Busby
6 months, 2 weeks agoYeah, Pelosi… yup. What you said, really.
Still, blaming the media is pointless, given the options available to conservatives, and the traffic to those outlets (Fox, Drudge, etc).
Regarding business owners, I’ve much less negative to say about the person who owns and lives off of, say, three stores they own. They do work. But what you describe is an investor, and an investor is someone who expects to be paid for doing no work.
Your last paragraph is condescending in the extreme. If you’re going to write me off due to my life circumstances (whatever you perceive them to be, whatever you suppose them to be) then I must write you off on the same count (As a technical point, I grant the trend of age being tied to a more conservative lean… till they need social security.) Meanwhile, my points are as presented. Address with them, or admit the inadequacy of your position.
George: I’m all with you on fiscal responsibility as a nation. Now, can you give me equality for each and every person? Cause I would flip like a coin for a GOP candidate who could both balance a checkbook and treat gays as equals under the law. The churches can believe whatever they want to, private institutions that they are.
Mark Robertson
6 months, 2 weeks agoTom, I’m usually agree with you, but Republicans dropping their opposition to something called same sex marriage would be crazy on so many fronts. Family is the foundation of society. Marriage between a man and a woman is what brings about a family. Marriage is in trouble these days because of all the assaults on it. The push for something called same sex marriage is one of those assaults. It is a right and wrong issue, as most issues are. Republicans should continue to oppose the abomination called same sex marriage, simply because it’s the right thing to do. Under your logic, Tom, to ostensibly increase support among women, should Republicans also drop their opposition to killing children in the womb, partially out of the birth canal, and, as with the case fo Obama, even after a “failed” abortion, where the child survives? Obviously not. Standing on principle is the right thing to do. If you compromise on principles, why even be in politics. Educating the citizenry is the way to go, not bowing to the citizenry. Thank you. Mark Robertson Independence
JR Beillenhouser
6 months, 2 weeks agoJohnathon -
The traffic to Fox is Drudge is dwarfed by that of the liberal media. To say there is equality is laughable. Now in the future (near future) there will be because people don’t believe the old media anymore.
Business owners, live their business. They work hard and expect to get the benefits of that work. That has nothing to do with investing.
Regarding the paragraph you have an issue with, the truth hurts. Ask anyone in their 50s about their views when they were in their twenties and you will get the same response. People in their 20s think they know it all, but the opposite is more likely. I’m not saying this at a 100% rate, but most 20 somethings have entirely different outlooks once they have actually lived life more. I was told the same in my 20s and had a similar response as you. Then when I got older, I realized the reality of it. And I’m not writing you off, because I think you are representative of a lot of people your age. But you personally owe about $210,000 at this point in time in government debt, and you just elected someone who will increase that to about $310,000 because you want people to have free contraceptives. When put that way, it seems like you have your priorities backwards, doesn’t it?
In terms of Gay marriage, I could care less. I think the government should get out of the marriage business. Most conservatives would be fine if this was a civil union and the government did those, but gays are not fine with that anymore, they want to redefine marriage.
George Hunsucker
Northland
6 months, 2 weeks agoJon….
I have REPEATEDLY SAID that I have no problem whatsoever with civil unions whereby people who love each other can enjoy life together. What I do not support is the “term” marriage which I view as between and female and a male. I think your side views calling the relationship a marriage somehow makes it normal, while I view it as abnormal….
JR Beillenhouser
6 months, 2 weeks agoObama just burned his Gay Marriage supporters and will not try to get a fed law in his second term.
Mark Lewis
6 months, 1 week agoMr. McClanahan, Mr. Romney is a heartless guy. Let me cite two examples. First, the 47% comment. Second, the corporations are people comment. The Obama campaign did not use those statements to paint Mr. Romney as heartless. He did so on his own. Next, sir, your statement referring to Paul Ryan’s statement regarding the re-election of President Obama will cost the country a “depleted national character” is offensive in the worst way. The inference is that President Obama lacks positive personal traits. The president is not a negative leader; nor is he a person of questionable character. He is our president and deserves our respect as he works to improve the economy, and to bring people together. You insinuate, sir, that it is not worth the trouble to do so. Shame on you.