The Republican reality check begins
“We haven’t won a decisive presidential election in 24 years,” says Reince Priebus — the first name is short for Reinhold — in his office. George H.W. Bush’s election in 1988, he points out, was the last time Republicans carried California, New Jersey, Illinois or Pennsylvania. (He could have accurately added another large state, Michigan.) With so many electoral votes off-limits, Republicans have to carry almost every tossup state to win…
In particular, Republicans have to do better with “low propensity voters.” In Wisconsin, where Priebus was a successful state party chairman before coming to Washington, 550,000 more people voted in the presidential election than had voted a few months earlier in an election to determine whether Republican Governor Scott Walker would be recalled. Republicans won the earlier race but lost the second (and also lost a Senate seat they thought they had a chance at).
Priebus worries that if they don’t improve their showing among these infrequent voters, they might find themselves in a trap where they do well in low-turnout midterms and then become overconfident about presidential elections.
Blowback
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After all the republican party has done to shaft its constituency, it can Go.To.Hell.
KickandSwimMom on February 26, 2013 at 5:57 PM
Republicans focus on ideas and hope people will show up and vote.
Democrats focus on the voting process itself and flood the polls with their supporters.
The GOP cannot keep ignoring the fact that Democrats control the polls in the few key counties in the few key swing states.
That is all you need nowadays.
NeoKong on February 26, 2013 at 6:00 PM
I read the article in full. This is the first hint I’ve had that the GOP might actually learn from their defeat, at least on a tactical level. There are mostly good ideas here, except for stinkers like this:
The whole reason insurgent candidates hurt Romney was because he was a terrible, terrible candidate. If the anointed front runner is actually a good candidate (in reality and not just on paper) then insurgent “joke” candidates won’t harm him at all and will find themselves utterly steamrolled.
Remember that Herman Cain’s campaign was originally a vanity campaign and was thrust into the forefront by conservatives desperate to find an alternative – ANY alternative – to Romney. “Papering over” things with rule changes won’t work if the anointed front runner is a horrible candidate.
Doomberg on February 26, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Tough to win when your party stands for nothing.
I resisted for so long, but 3rd party is the only way to go. GOP is lost.
Ca97 on February 26, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Reality check, not likely. The conservative answer to why elections are lost, is always the same: their candidates weren’t conservative enough. So the prescription is always the same: double down.
Like a drug addict in denial.
keep the change on February 26, 2013 at 6:03 PM
We’ll know they’ve learned something when they close the primaries.
Kataklysmic on February 26, 2013 at 6:04 PM
Also it can be argued W.’s win in 2000, though losing the popular vote, was a pretty sizeable victory given that the President in office at the time was popular, his sitting VP was running on that record of prosperity from the previous 8 years – and Bush still won. Impressive.
Since then we have had poor candidates. W. in 2004 on a not so great record (W), McCain in 2008 (L), and Romney 2012 (L).
How about the GOP try nominating a good candidate for once?
Ca97 on February 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM
That’s just crazy talk! /s
Stoic Patriot on February 26, 2013 at 6:11 PM
Funny thing is, we keep running candidates further and further to the left and yet we still keep losing. But to bozos like you I guess Romney is a “right-wing extremist archconservative.” In the real world, we have not run an unabashed conservative since Reagan.
Doomberg on February 26, 2013 at 6:14 PM
Whey does Reince Priebus still have a job? His job performance was worse than the hapless Michael Steele. The GOP hasn’t learned anything.
sauldalinsky on February 26, 2013 at 6:19 PM
…a libertarian and former 5-term DemocRAT NC congressman…
Knott Buyinit on February 26, 2013 at 6:20 PM
Ninnies don’t win against charlatanic thugs who really want to win.
Schadenfreude on February 26, 2013 at 6:24 PM
You have just nailed the rainbow haloed saviors spending habits.
antipc on February 26, 2013 at 6:28 PM
When did this become a thing? It’s just used to make our situation look SO much more dire than it is. 24 years sounds worse than the 8 years since our last win. The 24 number is also used to stretch out the time, even though there have only been 6 elections in those 24 years.
thebrokenrattle on February 26, 2013 at 6:49 PM
Pretty well describes Ozero’s spending habits, doesn’t it you 10-pound sack of stupid?
MelonCollie on February 26, 2013 at 7:02 PM
Were Mike Pence and Ted Cruz terrible, terrible candidates? Because Romney outperformed them, just like he outperformed almost every GOP Senate candidate.
Blaming Romney is just sticking your head in the sand.
Jon0815 on February 26, 2013 at 7:11 PM
“We haven’t won a decisive presidential election in 24 years,” says Reince Priebus — the first name is short for Reinhold — in his office.
Ugh, not this wretched canard again.
“The GOP has only won the popular vote once in the last 24 years!” Yeah, and if Obama had lost, the Democrats would have won the popular vote only once in the last 40 years.
You can make a case for the imminent doom of the GOP, but you immediately undermine your seriousness with the tarot card nonsense.
HitNRun on February 26, 2013 at 7:27 PM
Anybody who thinks that 20+ GOP primary debates is a good thing is either an idiot or closet liberal. Especially if they mostly conducted by liberal representatives of biased networks and other “news” organizations.
cicerone on February 26, 2013 at 7:31 PM
The base doesn’t even like voting for the repubs. The last time anyone enjoyed voting for a candidate was in 1984.
Panther on February 26, 2013 at 8:12 PM
You’re right that Romney was a terrible candidate. But I disagree with your point for two reasons:
1) The excessive number of debates did not serve a legitimate candidate vetting purpose. Instead, they just provoked the candidates to viciously slime each other, which served only to mortally wound the nominee by tanking his favorables and forcing him to exhaust his entire primary war chest defending against attacks. This left Romney unable to fend off a summer full of attacks by Obama, which ultimately finished him off..
2) Proportional primary voting is bad. To win the presidency, you need to win states, not congressional districts. When you let people “win” or “lose” primaries based on CDs, it creates an artificial “tightness” in a primary horse-race that isn’t really there. Thus, we had to endure the Bataan Death March as Santorum chased Romney from primary to primary, diluting Romney’s vote totals despite knowing it was virtually impossible for him to take the lead.
Outlander on February 26, 2013 at 8:32 PM
1. It’s not clear to me why Ponnuru thinks making up the difference in e.g., Colorado, by better turnout is “implausible,” given (a) a lot of people think this election was won because of turnout, and (b) this 5 pt difference that so worries Ponnuru is only 140,000 votes. Well over a million sat home in Colorado; and RP thinks there aren’t another 150,000 Republican votes sitting home?
2. In any case, it’s an empirical question that Ponnuru raises and given that no Republican group is answering — even attempting to answer? — what happened on Nov. 6, my guess that turnout plausibly mattered is as good as Ponnuru’s conjecture that it didn’t and can’t.
3. Preibus may have something of an idea about what has to change. This much is clear. Republicans can’t pop up every other September and expect to get their message out to “low propensity” voters when Democrats have been hammering nonstop since the last election. I liked “Road Show President;” but it was there for a day and went away. Liberals always have a message for “low propensity.”
4. Speaking of “low propensity.” Ohio operatives were on Hewitt’s show trumpeting that Republican early voters were more “low propensity” than Dems, suggesting that our heavy hitters were coming out on the 6th. Something went wrong, and I still have seen no attempt to explain it.
5. I wonder if Mr. Ponnuru or Mr. Preibus have any suggestions for what to do about ceding the messaging war to Democrats from April to mid-September. Red Rock was wonderful; but how many low information voters in Colorado had been bombarded for 6 months with Romney doesn’t care about women with cancer and he’s a tax cheat and felon? Republicans still haven’t learned the lesson of the Clinton War Room…that was “shock and awe.”
EastofEden on February 26, 2013 at 9:09 PM
Thanks to the GOPe shafting many of its constituents for half of a decade I think Americans should look to the TEA Party for advice.
DannoJyd on February 27, 2013 at 1:52 AM