Well, as you can see by my election prediction, I suck at making prognostications. The bottom line is, the old standby arguments and evidence of the past no longer holds true. The demographics are changing. The Republican party has long relied on white males to win elections, but that demographic is going to be a minority group in the next 10 years or so.
The Romney machine did the best it could to get its voters out, but let's face it, when you have a party that doesn't truly distance itself from politicians like Rick Santorum, Todd Akin, Sarah Palin, Richard Mourdock, and Michelle Bachmann (you might be shocked at some of the things these people, and other people in the party said about women, rape, slavery, and sexual preference, but I decided not to post the insanity) . Social conservatism as it is defined by the right wing of the Republican party is hurting their chances of getting a presidential election to go their way for a long time.
Latinos and young working women voted about 70-30 for Obama. The young people and black Americans came out to vote again. Conventional wisdom says that it would be very unlikely that the youth vote would turn out. The old ways of thinking about politics have changed. 2008 was not a fluke, it's the standard. This is the Democrat vote. The GOP can't beat it unless it makes some changes.
I believe they really need to TRULY be the party of fiscal responsibility. It's hard to be critical of Obama and his free spending ways when Bush and the GOP majority buried us in debt and pissed away a surplus that Clinton and Gingrich had built. Cutting taxes constantly is simply stupid when we have a disastrous budget deficit. Ronald Reagan raised taxes to help with a spend deficit and when things got to moving a bit, he gave the economy a jolt by cutting taxes. We are in for a train wreck with our economy and neither party is taking it seriously enough. The GOP can really set itself a part by offering a plan that makes cuts where they can be done without hurting people, eliminate fraud and waste, raise taxes on the wealthiest 20% for a specific period of time, freeze spending or roll spending back to a previous level, and place ridiculously high taxes on American corporations that take jobs overseas and then bring products back to sell to us. Give business an incentive to come back to bolster the middle class work force. Stop making shareholders the leading indicator if our economy is doing alright.
To deal with the changing demographics, the Republicans are also going to have re-evaluate their process of opposing abortion, immigration, and gay marriage. Now, I don't mean to say that anyone should abandon their principles, but the approach has to change. Stop trying to reverse Roe vs Wade. Third trimester abortions are illegal and that's a good thing, but a woman's body is her own and regardless of how any of us feel about abortion, a person's rights are their own. Not everyone believes life begins at conception. Not everyone holds a religious belief on it. Let it go and work hard to make abortions less likely by being understanding, educating, and offering alternatives. Gay marriage is a civil rights issue that the GOP is wildly on the wrong side of. Trying to amend the Constitution of the United States to deny two consenting adults the same rights as everyone else? Absurd. Again, you don't have to support it, but I would think the sanctity of marriage would better be served by working towards helping more people stay married or not get married in the first place. 50% of all marriages fail and someone thinks that gays will hurt marriage? Nonsense. How can you say you want less government and more freedom and then work hard to legislate people's behavior? That creates less freedom and imposes more government into our lives. Be the party that wants government to do what it needs to do to protect us, build infrastructure, give block grants to states to help the poor and then get out of our way and let us do what we do. Build, sell, and buy.
Anyhow, as a registered Republican, I want the party to be relevant. I think it's important to have more than one party, but we are quickly moving away from that. Personally, I've pretty much become a libertarian. I believe that the party must move in that direction. Move towards promoting personal freedom. Move towards making tough choices in regards to our economic situation. Be a party that can really appeal to people in all walks of life. Change and adapt or die. It's simple evolution. Which many Republicans don't buy into anyhow.
Well, there's that.
