The GOP Turnout Myth ["Modest Minority-Voter Shifts" Needed]

Wall St. J ^ | November 22, 2012 | KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

[Steelfish]

November 22, 2012 The GOP Turnout Myth To win future elections, Republicans will need more than better get-out-the-vote software. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

To win the next presidential race, the GOP will have to understand what went wrong in 2012. To do that, they've got to come to grips with what did, and did not, happen with turnout.

Even as Republicans have engaged in some agonizing over their candidate and agenda, many have sought comfort in the notion that a big part of the loss came down to simple mechanics. President Obama had a stunning Election Day operation, which turned out his base. Mitt Romney's shop, by contrast, failed to get people to the polls. That explanation is soothing because it suggests that, in the future, all the GOP needs is a slicker piece of get-out-the-vote software.

It's also broadly wrong.

The turnout myth comes from a statistic that has been endlessly repeated: Mitt Romney got fewer votes than John McCain in 2008. This isn't quite true (Mr. Romney this week eked past the McCain totals), and in any event it is somewhat irrelevant. The Romney vote count reflects a nationwide voter turnout that was down nearly five percentage points from 2008. What matters is how the GOP did in the battleground states.

And there? Mr. Romney beat Mr. McCain's numbers in every single battleground, save Ohio. In some cases, his improvement was significant. In Virginia, 65,000 more votes than in 2008. In Florida, 117,000 more votes. In Colorado, 52,000. In Wisconsin, 146,000. Moreover, in key states like Florida, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia, Mr. Romney turned out even more voters than George W. Bush did in his successful re-election in 2004.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Because what ought to scare the GOP is this: Even with higher GOP turnout in key states, even with Mr. Obama shedding voters, Democrats still won. Mr. Obama accomplished this by tapping new minority voters in numbers that beat even Mr. Romney's better turnout.
In Florida, 238,000 more Hispanics voted than in 2008, and Mr. Obama got 60% of Hispanic voters. His total margin of victory in Florida was 78,000 votes, so that demographic alone won it for him. Or consider Ohio, where Mr. Romney won independents by 10 points. The lead mattered little, though, given that black turnout increased by 178,000 votes, and the president won 96% of the black vote. Mr. Obama’s margin of victory there was 103,000.
This is the demographic argument that is getting so much attention, and properly so. The Republican Party can hope that a future Democratic candidate won't equal Mr. Obama’s magnetism for minority voters. But the GOP would do far better by fighting aggressively for a piece of the minority electorate.
And that, for the record, was the GOP’s real 2012 turnout disaster. Elections are about the candidate and the message, yes, but also about the ground game. Republicans right now are fretting about Mr. Romney's failures and the party's immigration platform—that's fair enough. But equally important has been the party's mind-boggling failure to institute a competitive Hispanic ground game. The GOP doesn't campaign in those communities, doesn't register voters there, doesn't knock on doors. So while pre-election polling showed that Hispanics were worried about Obama policies, in the end the only campaign that these voters heard from—by email at their door, on the phone—was the president's”

Summary : Obama got out the minority vote. Romney assumed that he could win with a simple majority of the white vote alone, something the electoral map shows will not be possible any longer for POTUS. Republicans have no strategy to get any of these other voters or at least keeping them from voting D.

I posted this problem many times before this election.

[mo]

Isn’t the Wall St Journal,one of those propaganda organs responsible for contributing to the mess we’re in? While the GOP-e might want their advice, and even take it, I doubt there’s much good or use in it for Flyover Country.

[muawiyah]

Here's the tricky spot in your own analysis ~ not all the white people voted. Not all the white Republicans voted. Not all the white Democrats voted.

You win by getting your voters out ~ not by getting the broad demographics of the population out to vote.

Be very careful dealing with the statistical arguments that tell us we have to kiss latino tush!

They will mix statistics regarding VOTERS with POPULATION statistics ~ and those are two different items.

[SeminoleCounty]

The GOP can forget winning the Presidency if they adopt liberal strategies like Illegal Alien Amnesty...Pandering for Hispanic Voters....and running a Amnesty Liberal like Marco Rubio

For every 1% of the white vote the GOP gets....they will need about 9% of the Hispanic vote to match that. Going after the white vote with solid conservative ideas and principles...and not pandering to ethnics....will win elections

[SeminoleCounty]

The article is not propaganda. She clearly states that obama lost 10% of his support. Don’t be such a knee jerk reactionary. She’s also correct that it would not take much in the way of attracting minority votes to win future elections. Why doesn’t the GOP campaign in minority areas in various forms? Just shifting hispanics by 10 percentage points can make a huge difference.

---

Pandering to Hispanics = Illegal Alien Amnesty, More Big Government

The GOP would be better off attracting 1.5% of the white vote than 10% of the Hispanic vote. A lot easier to do...without compromising core values

Anyone pushing “GOP needs minority votes” is really just pushing Illegal Alien Amnesty and more Government programs. Simple math dispels the “GOP needs more Hispanic voters” myth

[newfreep]

Romney should have hammered Obamski on Benghazi during 2nd and 3rd debates...but chose to ignore to appear safe and nice for the mushie middle.

Romney lost his chance to communicate directly to the electorate and bypass the marxist media’s hiding the treasonous story.

Romney NEVER uttered the word “Socialism”.

And finally, due to his RomneyCare, he could not truly attack ObamaCare’s socialism.

[al_c]

Agreed. But there was one small area in the Romneycare v Obamacare debate where Romney could’ve won some votes .... show a size comparison of the two bills. Romneycare was less than 100 pages while Obamacare was how many?

[iopscusa]

Sometimes one just has to face the truth, the Republican Party is not just stupid, it’s as corrupt as the Rat Party! We actually had almost no choice between the fascist or the corporatist....same old crappy candidates!

[Jake8898]

You don’t have to accept amnesty to attract Hispanics. just email, snail mail them the Republican positions that they have in common with us. Jobs, Low taxes, education reforms and social issues.

[Jane Long]

But there was one small area in the Romneycare v Obamacare debate where Romney could’ve won some votes .... show a size comparison of the two bills. Romneycare was less than 100 pages while Obamacare was how many?

You're right! I didn't even know that. Along with his defense of states rights, this would've been a great comparison/explanation of RomneyCare vs 0Care.

And attacking 0 on Benghazi, socialistic policies, war ending promises, etc. as hard as he hit Newt and Santorum would've been severely helpful.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Here's the tricky spot in your own analysis ~ not all the white people voted. Not all the white Republicans voted. Not all the white Democrats voted.
You win by getting your voters out ~ not by getting the broad demographics of the population out to vote.
Be very careful dealing with the statistical arguments that tell us we have to kiss latino tush!”

Latinos are slowly taking over many key electoral states by reproducing making it harder and harder to win the POTUS unless Rs can get close to 100% of the white vote which they cant. . As we saw O didnt have much luck getting them out to vote in 2010 but a midterm with a Dem as POTUS controlling both houses of congress gave Rs a unusual advantage in 2010 to pick up seats that was totally misread by too many Republicans, that the fight would be easy.

A continued ‘we can ignore all but the white over 50 vote’ strategy will just continue this cult type atmosphere of conspiracy theories (all the polls are rigged as was the whole election) and victimization talk (we just cannot win anymore) with Republicans sometimes holding the House.
And we have seen what holding the house alone is like, Bohner being Os bitch.

Creating EVEN MORE Latino voters with Amnesty without knowing how to get their votes first (as Republicans) is stupid.

[muawiyah]

Most immigrant women of whatever category pine for an American guy with a stable job and good command of English.

The 'mixed' category is growing faster than any other.

Traditionally people who come here have assimilated very rapidly ~ provided there was no big issue dividing them ~ like the Dutch and Germans in Cherry Valley NY didn't intermarry until AFTER the abolition of slavery ~ because as long as the Dutch thought it right to keep slaves, the Germans kept their daughters away from them.

The fact we know that tells you how rare it is for the moustache petes from the Old World to control their daughters, but that's a situation where it happened.

If you know a young American man who is unmarried and just loves really great curry, I could probably line him up with 500 to 1000 possible Indian and Pakistani brides right here in America almost overnight.

There's the future of the Republican party ~ not with the immigrants, but the Indian/American, Pak/American, Mexican/American, etc. kids trapped in an Indian, Pakistani or Mexican family.

The handful of young Indians being paraded around by the Democrats are not what I'm talking about!