What’s a Repurblican?
posted at 9:41 am on April 13, 2009 by Patrick Ishmael
“Repurblican” is a portmanteau of the words “urban” and “Republican.” If you’re a city-dwelling GOP-er, you’re a Repurblican. So why do I use it as an alias? One thing I believe that the GOP must do to get back on track is reach out to city-dwellers, which is by far one of the Party’s weakest demographics each election year. In St. Louis City, for instance, it’s typical for the GOP to lose city-wide elections 80%-18%, or worse.
That’s wholly unacceptable. The City is not going to be where a majority of our supporters are, at least in the short-term. And yet, there are hundreds of thousands of potential votes in urban areas that deserve the GOP’s attention and aren’t getting it; close the voting gap in St Louis City to, say, 75%-25%, and Republicans are going to win the state of Missouri comfortably almost every time, instead of relying on blockbuster turnout from our outstate bretheren as an offset to urban landslides.
Tailor the message; the GOP should have a reform agenda for urban areas. Devote the resources; the McCain campaign didn’t have a single campaign office in St Louis City in 2008. It should have. Follow-up; appealing to urban centers is a long-term project that Republicans can’t let up on.
The GOP cannot leave half of the country to the vast echo chamber of more of the same broken policies that is the Democratic Party, resigning vast swaths of accessible urban voters only to assess which Democrat candidate will do the least damage to their hometown in lieu of an alternative GOP-er. Republicans need to give city voters a choice, personal and ideological, and to do that it must engage city-dwellers.
We won’t be winning cities any time soon, but we have to start somewhere.
(A special thanks: As the editor of two other blogs and contributor to a third, I know how hard it is to run an entertaining and informative website, and I’m stoked to be a small part of one of the most entertaining and informative in American politics. Thanks, Hot Air, for the opportunity to act like I’m a big deal. Oh, and O’Doyle rules.)
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I hate the sound of the name. I reject it.
MadisonConservative on April 13, 2009 at 10:11 AM
I’m devastated, MC.
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM
How about mixing “conservative” and “cosmopolitan”?
Conservapolitan?
Sounds like ice cream.
MadisonConservative on April 13, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Bouquet-o-flave conservatism, eh? Maybe we can just call them “Cosmos” for short. One of the bloggers at the Repurblican Blog actually started his own site called “The Consurbative” — which is of course a combination of “urban” and “conservative.”
Portmanteaus for everyone!
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 10:42 AM
I like Larry Elder’s term Republitarian much better.
Disturb the Universe on April 13, 2009 at 11:02 AM
LOL
Speakup on April 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM
It sounds like a dyspeptic cat.
SarahW on April 13, 2009 at 11:47 AM
Whatever you call yourself, you are correct. We need to contest the Left everywhere. Good luck!
Mr. D on April 13, 2009 at 11:48 AM
I had to go find a dictionary for that one.
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM
The answer to the absurd margins in urban districts is to stop vote fraud. Those aren’t real votes that the dems are getting. Perhaps we should fund poll watchers, though we will need armed guards to keep them safe.
Vashta.Nerada on April 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM
It sounds like a Moderate conservative metrosexual. And you KNOW how I hate those!
upinak on April 13, 2009 at 11:56 AM
Mwa.
MadisonConservative on April 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Was that a kiss?
upinak on April 13, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Heh.
BadgerHawk on April 13, 2009 at 12:11 PM
If it’s good for you, well…it’s good for you. I can already hear the left calling us “Repurbs.”
On the other hand, I don’t disagree with your point.
Speechlesstx on April 13, 2009 at 12:18 PM
not to worry repurblican.. the winds of change are a blowin’ something fierce and one way or another, we will all be ‘urban’ and driving around in our very own Gov’t Motors trash can on wheels and waiting in line for cheese.
gatorboy on April 13, 2009 at 12:18 PM
My buddy is Maryland Conservatarian.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on April 13, 2009 at 12:21 PM
Funny you should say that; my job during the 2008 election was to find, train, place, and communicate with Missouri poll watchers. Certainly voter fraud is an issue that must be watched, and we were on the lookout for it. But the wide margin in the cities this year in Missouri — which is all I can speak to with any specificity — weren’t the result of rampant fraud. The GOP just isn’t making its appeal to urban areas.
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 12:27 PM
First things first – props for the Billy Madison reference. If ever there were a movie that deserved an Oscar, it’s probably not that one, but it’s still a classic.
—–
I agree that the Republican party needs to do a better job of winning over urban voters. The question what’s the best way to do that?
After the 2000 primary when Bush beat McCain, my friend in NY told me that she had no idea how Bush had won because everyone she knew wanted McCain to win. I asked her how many of those people were Republicans and the answer was “none”. After the 2004 election, a different New Yorker told me they were sure that Bush stole the election because they couldn’t find anyone that had voted for him.
For whatever reason, many people in large cities never meet Republicans…or at least never meet any that are willing to admit it.
Perhaps what we need is some form of ‘evangelical’ inspired Republican movement where we go door to door to teach people about Republicanism. Not just during elections when we’re pulling for one candidate or another, but, an educational push so people will know what the GOP is actually for and what they have (and have not) done.
The flip side of this is that Republican leaders need to start following through on their stated values….
JadeNYU on April 13, 2009 at 12:31 PM
No, that was a peck.
A kiss from me would be a bit too x-rated for this site.
MadisonConservative on April 13, 2009 at 12:32 PM
I believe MO requires a government issues photo ID before a person can vote. That puts them miles ahead of most other places. Of course, my sister got asked for ID in CA because the lady saw she was registered Republican. My sister still had a MO driver’s license but was a legal CA resident (and tax payer). The lady saw her MO license and said, “Why don’t you vote in MO instead if you’re going to vote Republican?”
I urged my sister to file a complaint with the election board, but, she doesn’t care enough about politics to deal with that sort of stuff.
JadeNYU on April 13, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Nope, no photo ID required, although that may change if this gets on the ballot.
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 12:36 PM
The libs have been using the slow boil technique to get their agenda across, so I’ve no problem using it against them. We do have a tough row to hoe educating urban dwellers.
But the libs have given us some great opportunities. Such as their nickle and dime government funding strategies, failing schools, and in places like NY job flight.
Iblis on April 13, 2009 at 12:52 PM
I would say this is true, raise the Urban GOP vote but I would use different methods.
1. Give them a reason to turn out and vote. Running another RINO isn’t going to fuel turnout and sure as hell won’t get people to vote GOP unless the Dem is in a bad place with corruption.
2.Seriously fight the voter fraud. Bring lawsuit after lawsuit and require photo id everywhere.
3. Get rid of early voting, it just makes fraud easier.
Rocks on April 13, 2009 at 12:58 PM
Many minority voters in the cities agree with social conservatism, yet it isn’t enough to pull them in. I think that on many issues from which Republicans could gain votes in the city, from gun rights to the need for a smaller social “safety net” (aka saying no to mommy-state) to the gay marriage and abortion issues, and especially including SCHOOL CHOICE, we could do so much better if we simply had voices who seem more like city dwellers than the GOP usually runs – without watering down the message. When the GOP runs city folks, too often they are RINOs who sell the conservative message short. If we articulate a true conservative alternative intelligently and common-sensically, I don’t know about majority status, but we could pick off enough votes to make us much more competitive in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, and other states that are red with small blue centers.
bcm4134 on April 13, 2009 at 12:59 PM
I know he’s only one man but if we had more people like Zo out there we’d be doing a lot better!
bcm4134 on April 13, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Not to belabor the point, but Michael Steele is the exact opposite of the face the GOP needs to reach city voters. Yes, he is black – so what? He is the exact opposite of many urban would-be Republicans. He is well-off, he is hesitant about social conservatism, and he ain’t a great spokesman.
Again, many city voters have a natural attraction to the GOP on social issues – many of them are hard-working or religious folks who have not yet climbed up the ladder (give them a couple generations). They like family values. They just aren’t sure the GOP stands for them. And we don’t need to become statists to change that perception, either. Why even bother to exist if we do that?
God bless Ari Fleischer’s editorial today. He does sound like he’s whining that the rich have to pay too much. I agree with him, but he needs to couch his proposals not in terms of making sure the poor pay their fair share, but in terms of lowering taxes for EVERYONE. No need to lie, but just marketing. The GOP is tone-deaf on how to market THEIR PRINCIPLES to non-traditional GOP demographics. Their solutions are 1) Try anyway, and sound as tone-deaf as Hillary Clinton singing the national anthem, or 2) Change the principles, eliminating the distinction between themselves and Democrats. Given the option between real and pretend Democrats, voters will choose the real thing.
bcm4134 on April 13, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Who needs cities anyway? What useful purpose do they serve?
There are no more bands of marauding Indians attacking sparsely-settled outposts.
(And we need a counterpunch for critics of “sprawl”)
landlines on April 13, 2009 at 3:41 PM
To echo what bcm4134 said above, I think that one thing that conservatives/republicans could do to help decrease the margins in metropolitan areas is talk about education, and specifically voucher programs and charter schools. When I was at CPAC in February, I saw an education activist (I forget her name) speak, and she talked about her work with charter schools, and how during the whole ‘stimulus’ bill debate, she received dozens of calls from families who she had helped to get their children into charter schools that were worried sick that the ‘stimulus’ bill would end the voucher programs that got their children out of failing inner-city schools. These are the kinds of families and people that the GOP should target if they want to win in urban areas.
dglenn on April 13, 2009 at 5:02 PM
How are non-Saint-Louisans supposed to know what “outstate” means? And are you gonna use our secret definition of “hoosier” too? Is Olivette urban?
Al in St. Lou on April 13, 2009 at 5:19 PM
Huh? “Outstate” includes areas that are predominantly outside urban areas. It’s sort of the definition of “outstate”. You thought it was a St. Louis thing? Geesh.
“Urban” is anywhere there’s a major city. St. Louis and Kansas City are “urban.” If you don’t live in St. Louis proper or Kansas City proper, you’re probably suburban, exurban, or rural, and not urban. We’re just talking about definitions here. Olivette is not urban. It is a suburb.
Is it really that complex? And who said anything about “hoosier”? I’ll be sure to have AP put you on the Troll Bridge short list. Top flight stuff you’re tossing out here.
Repurblican on April 13, 2009 at 6:36 PM
sounds like a rugrat saying Republican while belching up his/her Pablum… are you sure you want to go that route with a name?
MNDavenotPC on April 13, 2009 at 8:00 PM
Can I get one of those little umbrellas in mine?
The Monster on April 13, 2009 at 10:58 PM
Uh, nope, in my experience, only St. Louisans use “outstate.” I never heard it in New Jersey, New York, or Texas. It doesn’t appear in the American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, or onelook.com. I’ll admit my other two questions were jokes, but “outstate” is a regionalism, as is the St. Louis use of “hoosier,” which kind of makes bringing it up defensible.
Al in St. Lou on April 14, 2009 at 5:48 PM