Posted on 09/25/2013 4:34:49 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Ronald Brownstein argues that Republicans need to win over a larger share of nonwhite voters if they are to remain competitive in future presidential elections. Brownstein suggests “comprehensive immigration reform” as the kind of policy Republicans need to make gains among nonwhites. The victory of Tony Abbott in Australia indicates that Republicans can grow their party without obeying the wishes of liberal journalists. Republicans don’t need to move left on immigration or abortion. Republicans need to shift their focus from high-earners to the middle-class and people who are struggling to join the middle-class.
Brownstein argues that winning over the “missing white voters” who sat out the 2012 election would not be enough for the Republicans to form a winning coalition, but Sean Trende (who first wrote about the missing working-class white voters) made the same point. Mitt Romney underperformed with working-class white voters. Romney also underperformed with Asian-American and Latino voters. Romney performed worse than McCain among Asian-Americans and Latinos despite Romney having the benefit of better conditions. You could look at Romney’s weak performances among both working-class whites and nonwhites as entirely separate and that, in the future, Republicans have to choose between either making gains among working-class whites or making gains among nonwhites.
But you can also look at Romney’s weak performances among working-class whites and nonwhites as linked. In the 2012 exit poll, 53% of the respondents answered that Romney’s issue agenda would primarily benefit the rich. Presumably, many of the working-class whites who stayed home felt the same way (even if they were not willing to vote for President Obama either).
The Kaiser Family Foundation found that African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans are more likely than whites to lack health insurance. John Logan found that, due to residential patterns, middle-class and affluent African-American and Latinos (and even middle-class Asian-Americans) are more likely than middle-class whites to live near people who are struggling economically. African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans are all more likely than whites to support Obamacare.
Part of what is happening is that the median nonwhite voter is ideologically to the left of the median white voter, but that is not the whole story. On issues like taxations vs. spending or abortion, a larger percentage (though still a minority) of African-Americans and Latinos support the conservative position than voted for Romney in the last election. Just like with working-class whites, Romney underperformed. Romney’s failure to address people’s concerns about health care coverage, his obsession with the high-earners who “built that”, and his contempt for the 47% who had no net income tax liability likely hurt him among both working-class whites and with persuadable (and even right-leaning) nonwhites across the income distribution.
Romney’s failures and Tony Abbott’s win point to a different Republican party strategy than the one Brownstein suggests. You don’t have to support every Tony Abbott proposal, but maybe he can teach us a few things worth learning about how to win as a pro-life, free market conservative. The 2012 Republican strategy was to start with the priorities of high-earners and the business lobbies and then try to craft a rhetoric to sell a high-earners-first agenda to the middle-class. The high-earners “built that” and, if their taxes were cut, then those high-earner job creators would create you a job. Also Republican believed that you could build that too, and when you did, they would have a tax cut waiting for you. Brownstein’s suggestion for growing the Republican party is to find the common ground between liberal journalists and the Chamber of Commerce. The irony is that Brownstein’s suggestion would make the GOP’s agenda even more like that of the business lobbies.
Or Republicans could follow Abbott’s example and build a conservative agenda around the priorities of the middle-class (and those who are struggling to join the middle-class). Republicans shouldn’t copy Abbott’s agenda. They don’t have to come out for paid parental leave. But Republicans need a middle-class agenda for America’s political context. Republicans could propose tax reform that would cut taxes on middle-class parents. Republicans could propose their own health care reform that would secure access to health care for working families at a lower cost than Obamacare. Republicans could support an immigration reform that would make our immigration system work better for struggling workers of all ethnicities. Republicans don’t have to move left to grow the party. They have to show how a conservative party can prioritize the concerns of middle-class families.
Agree.
I know! How about lower taxes, lower gas prices (more drilling and refining!), less regulation, lower inflation ...
Amen!
Make it easier to start a small business than it is to get welfare.
You have got that right. We should reward companies that keep or bring back jobs to the U.S.A. and kick the butts of those that export them. Fourteen million Americans out of work and these bozos still call for immigration reform? Who do they think they are kidding.
What we need to do, is make America jobs-friendly, and part of that is done by re-jigging our tax code.
For too long we have rewarded sending jobs overseas.
Americans need to reward BUILDING THINGS IN AMERICA.
We need our tax code to encourage American jobs.
Stop sending jobs elsewhere.
Bring jobs back to America.
“Brownstein suggests “comprehensive immigration reform” forget that! There isnt any way you can gain more votes by passing that then you will lose from it.
I have always thought that a business friendly Republican party with lower taxes on the rich would stimulate the economy and help everyone. But, now I see the Chamber of Commerce and all of the other big business cretins lined up for amnesty which in reality is a Democrat trick to make themselves the majority party. I have competely changed my mind. The more we lowered the taxes on the rich the more they have become Deomocraps and the remaining rich Republicans are increasingly feckless. And lo and behold we have a reputation as being party of the rich. We have accomplished nothing else in recent yers accept lowering their taxes and look at what happens. All of media except Fox news is left as hell because the same wealthy Republicans are feckless. They don’t need to deal with us any more. They just take our lower tax ideology and then deal with the Democraps. As long as the media is controled by marxists and the border is unsecure, I say we deal wth the Dem’s instead of our party elite and hold them to their promise to raise taxes on the wealthy. That will put them both in their place.
What do Republicans really stand for? What are they committed to? Why should anyone vote for them?
The GOP long ago left the Reagan road and took the low road instead. Now they are lost in the wilderness with no gas left in the tank.
Yep. It is going to be a very long couple of decades for fans of classic Milton Friedman/Laissez Faire Reganomics.
We can debate the relative merits of that, but the plain fact is it’s become a No Sale to the vast majority of our populace.
There’s a populist train hurtling at us down the tracks. Either try and steer it in a rightward direction of find yourselves being run over by it.
Conservatives need to clean the DC sewer of RINOs come 2014 and 2016. They need to visit the RINOs in DC and offer to help them pack, ya think?
More power and autonomy to families
less power to govt.
Yep! Separation of school and state.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.