40% of the white vote isn't that bad. I saw some figures last night showing percentages of the white vote for every Democratic contender all the way back to Jimmy Carter and the highest was Clinton with 43%. Most were somewhere in the high 30s.

Yep, I saw the same graph (oh gods, the BBC coverage was poor, but was a haven from ad breaks on CNN). I wonder when the last Democrat candidate took a majority of white votes - 1964? Obama got 43% in 2008 as well.

Similarly, the Latino votes was 70-30 in Obama's favour, which was a bit higher than the past, but not out of trend. The Republicans got most of their votes with Reagan and with Bush Jr, and I think in the latter case it was largely his more soft position on immigration that helped.

I'm sure there will be Republican pundits who will say that Romney was not conservative enough. My belief is that it was some of the conservative positions, particularly social ones, that cost the Republicans votes from women (who are the majority of voters), and minority ethnic groups. Evidence for this is in high profile GOP losses from Tea Party (or TP-esque) candidates: Allen, Mourdock, Brown, nearly Bachmann.

The Republicans have two reasons to moderate. Self interest, and the national interest.

This from a friend of mine who occassionally blogs on politics.....

"The Republican tendency to wax nostalgic seems perpetual. This mentality of ‘what it was once like in America’ is backward looking versus forward looking. And, more importantly, ignores the math of what it takes to win a majority. The headline news from this 2012 Presidential Election is DEMOGRAPHY. The country has changed and Republicans need to get over their longing for the past.

Important data points regarding Percentage of Electorate

2008 Hispanic/Latino vote 8%
2012 Hispanic/Latino vote 10%
+2%

2008 Black vote 11%
2012 Black vote 13%
+2%

2008 Young voters 17%
2012 Young voters 19%
+2%

* The white vote is no longer determinative and Republicans need to reach outside the ‘older, white male ’ block if they want to win national elections. Note: In 1988, George H.W. Bush got 60% of the white vote and won election with 400+ electoral votes. In 2012, Romney got 60% of white vote and only got 206 electoral votes and lost popular vote by 2.5 million."

What does reaching out mean?

For one, the GOP needs to change its position on immigration. Romney ran to the right of Perry on immigration which hurt him substantially.

Well, for a start, trying to rein in some of the baser instincts of the base. Women didn't like it when congressional candidates said silly things about rape. Blacks thought they could see dog-whistles in some statements. Latinos clearly don't like the push for 'show your papers' laws.

Before the Republicans start clutching pearls about pandering, they need to take a look at how their stances and statements are perceived.

I think if the Republicans had concentrated solely on fiscal conservatism and the economy, Romney would be the President-elect right now. But there are too many who can't help but inject their socially conservative agenda, and that particularly hits support among those 'minorities' who could actually be convinced on other grounds.

I agree with RJ. Perry is a conservative, but he also realises that there's more to the immigration issue than simply enforcing border controls and trying to expel illegals. For several reasons:

1 it won't actually work as well as people think it will. Or be cheap.
2 the 'American Dream' has for many people included coming from anywhere and making a life, with the opportunity for success. While some people may come over for welfare, most come to work and to participate in the economy. Discouraging that will not be good for your economy
3 real life is messy. Strict application of rigid laws will mean splitting families, which will create resentment
4 measures like the Arizona Id laws will not just hit illegals, they will (and have) affect legal residents and citizens.

"President Obama won the Hispanic vote by 44 percentage points, 8 percentage points more than in 2008. Among the swing states, the president made the biggest gains in Colorado, taking 74 percent of the Hispanic vote, up from 61 percent in 2008. In Florida, President Obama’s gains among Hispanic voters helped him take the state. He won 60 percent of the Hispanic vote, up from 57 percent in 2008 and 44 percent for John Kerry in 2004."

From the NYT article I posted in the other thread.

danivon wrote:Well, for a start, trying to rein in some of the baser instincts of the base. Women didn't like it when congressional candidates said silly things about rape.

To be candid, the press and some Democrats made it seem like Akin was a prototype Republican. He was an idiot. The Democrats gave him about $2M during the primary because they thought (rightly) he was the only Republican McCaskill could beat.

What Mourdock said was misconstrued.

No matter. The issue really is this: why are Republicans being asked about rape and abortion? Why aren't Democrats?

For example, has anyone ever asked President Obama what restrictions on abortion he would approve of?

Those are just dumb questions. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. If it was NOT, then abortion would not be "illegal." It would be where gay marriage is--a State issue, which is where it should be.

A Senator has no control over abortion law. Period. Those questions are just traps that a couple of dimwits were too honest to see. The correct answer is, "I'm not running on abortion or rape. I am running to get government off the back of small business so the economy can recover. I am running to restore sanity to the budgeting process because we cannot continue to borrow $1T annually and expect to remain a viable country."

Blacks thought they could see dog-whistles in some statements.

Because the press and liberal activists pointed to statements and made them what they weren't.

Latinos clearly don't like the push for 'show your papers' laws.

Funny: UN voting observers were shocked . . . to see we don't require ID. It's dumb and it's wrong to allow people to vote when we have no idea if they are citizens or not. If the government did everything like it registers voters, we'd be broke . . . oh.

Before the Republicans start clutching pearls about pandering, they need to take a look at how their stances and statements are perceived.

I'm not clutching at pearls. We've some work to do. On the plus side, barring a coup d'etat, Obama is done in January 2017. The Democrats don't have anyone like him. Some will say Hillary, but she's going to be 69. I can't see that.

To be candid, the press and some Democrats made it seem like Akin was a prototype Republican. He was an idiot. The Democrats gave him about $2M during the primary because they thought (rightly) he was the only Republican McCaskill could beat.

What Mourdock said was misconstrued.

No matter. The issue really is this: why are Republicans being asked about rape and abortion? Why aren't Democrats?

For example, has anyone ever asked President Obama what restrictions on abortion he would approve of?

Those are just dumb questions. Roe v. Wade is the law of the land. If it was NOT, then abortion would not be "illegal." It would be where gay marriage is--a State issue, which is where it should be.

A Senator has no control over abortion law. Period. Those questions are just traps that a couple of dimwits were too honest to see. The correct answer is, "I'm not running on abortion or rape. I am running to get government off the back of small business so the economy can recover. I am running to restore sanity to the budgeting process because we cannot continue to borrow $1T annually and expect to remain a viable country."

I think the answer to this is that Republicans are reaping what they sowed with the 'culture wars' of the last couple of decades. For sure Democrats are now more likely to bring it up as a line of attack against Republican candidates, but they do it because it's a very effective line of attack in a number of cases. It's effective because the dedicated pushing of a hardcore social conservative agenda by an increasingly influential group in the Republican Party has unnerved a helluva lot of voters. This is something the party will have to come to terms with.

I think it may be time for the Republicans to accept that the culture war has been lost and move on. The younger generation is much more liberal about these things and if my experiences with pretty much every younger person I know is anything to go by, they overwhelmingly see the Republicans as the party of the overbearing religious zealots.

Sassenach wrote:I think the answer to this is that Republicans are reaping what they sowed with the 'culture wars' of the last couple of decades. For sure Democrats are now more likely to bring it up as a line of attack against Republican candidates, but they do it because it's a very effective line of attack in a number of cases.

With a willing media and Democrats demogoguery, you're correct.

It's not Republicans who are making these issues central.

Consider the attacks on Romney: he was going to close Planned Parenthood (no, just stop Federal funding). He was going to ban abortion (no, he thought Roe was bad law--so do many Democrats).

The younger generation is much more liberal about these things and if my experiences with pretty much every younger person I know is anything to go by, they overwhelmingly see the Republicans as the party of the overbearing religious zealots.

So "zealous" that we nominated a non-Christian (again).

I will grant you that there are attractions for young people to the Democratic Party. It is great for young men: they can stay in their parents' basements, playing X-box and having the government pay for their girlfriends' abortions until they are 26.

Dr. Fate:

It's not Republicans who are making these issues central.

I think that you are substantially right that the media has a lot to do with the unfair portrayal of the Republican Party. My sense is that the media is biased for a few different reasons and in a few different ways. But that's a given so if Republicans want to succeed, they have to accept it and devise a strategy that wins regardless. It's no different than a situation where the umps unfairly ref a game. Since you can't walk off the field, you just have to deal with it.

Ray Jay wrote:Dr. Fate:

It's not Republicans who are making these issues central.

I think that you are substantially right that the media has a lot to do with the unfair portrayal of the Republican Party. My sense is that the media is biased for a few different reasons and in a few different ways. But that's a given so if Republicans want to succeed, they have to accept it and devise a strategy that wins regardless. It's no different than a situation where the umps unfairly ref a game. Since you can't walk off the field, you just have to deal with it.

Right.

So, rule #1 is to dodge (or attack it a la Gingrich) the abortion question. It's not germane--any more than it's germane to ask a Presidential candidate if he believes in evolution (as happened in 2008).

I have seen a Democrat asked one tough question in my lifetime: when Dukakis, I believe, was asked about the rape of his wife (theoretical). It was dumb and unfair.

This is the common impression though. You're complaining about what you see us underhand political tactics by the Dems and their allies in the media but what you're missing is that the only reason these attacks work is because a lot of voters are genuinely frightened by the Republicans social agenda. Outside of America it's even worse. It's become something of a truism to Europeans that America is full of hardcore christians and Republicans are stark raving nuts. This is totally unfair of course, but it's an opinion that's pretty much universally held by all Europeans who don't take an active interest in US politics, and quite a lot of the ones who do. To an extent the Republican Party doesn't have to give a damn what non-Americans think (although it must make diplomacy more difficult), but I've spoken to plenty of young Americans who have similar opinions. I don't think the Republican Party can afford to let that image continue.

If the media is making these issues 'central', who was it who led efforts to get laws against same-sex partnerships/marriages onto the books of a dozen or three states? Who was it who raised amendments to legislation at state and federal levels to cut funding or availability of birth control?

The media did not create social conservatives. It (and the liberals) are exploiting a perceived weakness for sure, but it's not one they created.