What Happened To The GOP in 2012

[Fuzzy Bear]

The GOP didn't realize that White Men are declining as a share of the electorate and population.

There we go again with the left playing the race card. Even if Republicans reach out to minorities, they're still going to be called racists by the media and left.

Well, call a spade a spade, eh what?

Barfbag is heavily oversimplifying things here.  While there are some racists within the GOP, some of their policies, even when they have a racially disparate impact, can be explained without using racism as the reason.  If you have a group of people who largely don't support your party, why bother about the impact your policies have on them?  Also, if there are ways to keep them from the polls, why not?  Not that being dismissing is good politics in the long term, even without the changing demographic situation.  But they can be explained as resulting from hardball politics rather than racial animus.

My point was that even if Republicans reach out to minorities, Democrats will find a reason to call them racists. Regardless of where Republicans stand on the issues, I don't think much can be done to reach out to minorities.

Republicans have troubles wooing minorities because they can't resist the temptation to advocate things that minority groups (and blacks, especially) that they view as "survival issues"; issues that ensure that they will have some protection from racism rearing its head and denying them the ability to (A) survive economically, and (B) be able to defend themselves personally, as well as politically.  When the GOP seeks to dilute or repeal the Voting Rights Act, and couple this with Voter ID laws that have NEVER been an issue until Democrats began electing Presidents again, blacks become worried as to the real intent of the GOP (which has become the party of the Southern White Male).  The same can be said of the GOP's stance on immigration; it is viewed as an attack on Hispanics, and their families, and not just an enforcement matter against those here illegally.

There are a significant number of blacks and Hispanics who could, and would, be "religious right" voters, dependably Republican voters, if it were not for the civil rights and immigration issues that the GOP can't leave alone.  There is a significant black and Hispanic middle class that, aside from the Miami Cubans, are reliably Democratic; would this be true if the GOP could muzzle itself on "affirmative action" and "English is our official language"?  Are these issues really of such importance that Voter ID laws must be implemented in every GOP-governed state as a national initiative?  Is repeal of the Voting Rights Act such a key issue that it has to be out front?  Is illegal immigration REALLY the crisis it has been made out to be?  I don't think so, but the GOP now owns the voters most susceptible to demagoguery on these issues, and it's affected the way they are perceived.  The GOP is late in getting the memo that voting for a black candidate for a major office isn't a big deal anymore.  The reason they don't get a bigger share of the minority vote when there are many more minority voters who would agree with them than who currently vote for them, is that to appeal to their base, they have spent time on issues that do nothing but energize people who will vote for them anyway, and offend constituencies that they could, in time, cultivate as their own.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Obama was picked again not because he was the best candidate but he was the safest candidate. People still don't like what he did on Wallstreet and tax reform package that tilted too much for the capital gains tax, but voters felt comfortable with him. Scared to put a Bain banker back in power. When economy wasn't benefitting GOP, the same mistake they are gonna make in 14 and 16 gonna rely on HCR to get elected.

On a personal level, this was why I voted for Obama in 2012.  I was a McCain voter in 2008, and I am a pro-life moderate if you wish to classify me.  I remember when the GOP presented itself as the party of responsible governace.  It's anti-government stance of today, coupled with their being OK with tax cuts in wartime have caused them to lose that particular mantle over time.

[Fuzzy Bear]

2012 was arguably the weakest Republican field in decades. Why is that. Why did the Republican A-Team decide to sit 2012 out. Obama was at his weakest in 2011, when the Primary race began. It was the perfect storm. Why did Jindal, Christie, Thune, Daniels and others decide against running?

Barack Obama is still one of the canniest campaigners out there. He won a Senate seat despite youth and comparative inexperience. He ran a masterful campaign in 2008, and one could expect much the same in 2012. He had done nothing to get himself defeated. The financial industry abandoned him once they had used him to do what was necessary to prevent the 2007-2009 meltdown from becoming like the 1929-1932 meltdown -- but that did not swing a state.

Jindal, Daniels, and Thune have always been B-team material. Christie did not become A-team material until Hurricane Sandy, and then paradoxically by cooperating with President Obama. 

Had Dick Cheney been healthy and run in 2008 and had he chosen a running mate of substance, the GOP 2012 bench would have looked more formidable.  Cheney, of course, did not run (and was unelectable in 2008 anyway), and McCain's running mate, who would have ordinarily been viewed as an A-teamer was the horrid Sarah Palin, a complete joke.  If Cheney had been the 2008 candidate and picked, say, John Thune as his running mate, then Thune would have been an A-teamer, and would have run in 2012.  The same could be said of Mitch Daniels. (Indeed, if Romney had been the 2008 VP nominee, he'd have looked more like an A-teamer.

The obvious A-teamer was Condoleeza Rice, but the GOP wasn't going to have a pro-choice Presidential nominee any more than the Democrats would put Bob Casey on the ticket.  That's kind of silly, given that the President has very little to do with abortion given Roe v. Wade, and even Bush's Judicial appointees are unlikely to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.