I have been reading all kinds of articles in which various members of the GOP blustered and blithered and bleated about why Mittens lost, and why other "sure wins" lost. I have read all of them with a smirk. The GOP still doesn't GET IT. And that is why they will lose in the next midterm and Presidential elections.
This article gave me a fit of the giggles. With comments like these,
At the Republican Governors Association conference last week, for instance, the favored explanation for the voting public’s emphatic rejection of Mitt Romney had nothing to do with issues or ideology, but only with more effective Democratic Party organizing and communicating. According to Wade Goodwyn, the National Public Radio reporter who covered the GOP governors’ meeting, their post-election mood was not one of shock, but complacency.
“It was widely agreed that nothing needed to be changed except perhaps the tone,” he found. “For example, the idea that more than 70 percent of Hispanics voted for the president because of Republican positions on illegal immigration was rejected by the Republican governors.”
it is completely obvious that the GOP's blinders are firmly in place. Giving the lie to that smug stance,
Florida Hispanics explain why they voted for Obama.
This article contains something important:
Among Latino voters, support for Obama was strong among all major demographic sub-groups. Yet some differences were evident. According to the national exit poll, Hispanic women supported Obama more than Hispanic males—76% versus 65%.
The GOP persists in pretending that "social issues" are "not important," while frantically ramping up their efforts to suppress and disenfranchise women. In Ohio, bitter, angry old men are intent on punishing women for "voting for Obama and Brown."
Ohio newspapers have editorialized against this harsh and dangerous legislation, yet the ducks keep trying to quack. Public sentiment against anti-abortion legislation and the huge gender gap present in the 2012 election don't seem to have made an impression on these misogynistic old fools.
This article made me chortle. At least, this part did:
But asked what message the GOP should take from their losses, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), argued that the Democrats didn't win on the issues, but rather individual candidates had failed Republicans.
"I think we were a unique situation in which our candidate twice said things that he either didn't intend to say or were very well used by the opposition," Coats said, referring to Mourdock, who -- before weighing in on on rape -- had argued against bipartisanship soon after he trounced long-time Sen. Richard Lugar in the GOP primary.
However, I paused when I saw this:
"When we can get baited by reporters to talk about something that's a personal opinion, it really is not something we'd be debating at the federal level. We haven't even decided at the federal level the personhood issue of the child," DeMint said, referring to efforts in many states to confer full constitutional rights on fetuses. "To go from there to exceptions to rape is just not something we need to be discussing. It's basically opinion."
Personhood on a federal level, huh? In spite of the fact that it was defeated by voters in Mississippi, Colorado (in 2008 and 2010, failed to get on the ballot in 2012, and a bill (HB 1130) that the CO GOP tried to sneak through also failed), and Oklahoma, the GOP is going to try it on a federal level? How stupid are these people? The voters emphatically do NOT want Personhood. Not now, not ever. So the GOP is going to try and ram it down our throats? I don't think we'll let them.
Democratic candidates in 2014 and 2016 DO need to confront their GOP opponents on reproductive rights and rape. The real problem isn't the candidates. It's their VIEWS. It wasn't the fact that Akins and Mourdouck spouted crap about "legitimate rape" and "gifts from God," it was that they BELIEVED what they were saying. And voters realized how very dangerous these men would be, if elected. Not only to women, but to families. The GOP adamantly refuses to acknowledge that reproductive rights are an economic issue. Deciding when--or if--to have children, and how many, is a purely economic issue. It also impacts education and careers, not only for women, but their families as well. Babies need to be cared for, constantly. Somebody has to stay home, or there needs to be income for daycare. So obvious, so simple. Yet the GOP pretends that reproductive rights are purely moral issues, and ones that the GOP, pushed to the wall by the religious right, must defend and impose.
This article illustrates my point.
Romney lost women by swallowing whole the Religious Right agenda, including its attacks on overseas family planning services.
The GOP really sucks at math. Evangelical voters make up 26% of the electorate, by most counts. And they are finally realizing that
Abstinence Ed fails. But the GOP is still pushing it. Bobby Jindal said that the GOP needs to stop being "the stupid party," yet Louisiana is now full of Christian charter schools teaching creationism as fact.
The GOP also lost the LGBT vote BIG-TIME. Again, blame the religious right. Bryan J. Fischer's whining and screeching when Mittens hired Ric Grenell not only deprived the campaign of a brilliant strategist, it showcased both Romney's personal wimpiness and the campaign's attitude towards gays--throw them under the bus and run away. I do know that Ric Grenell resigned. But he wasn't allowed to do his job. And the support for marriage equality is steadily growing, not eroding. The GOP refuses to compromise. Same-sex marriage is a huge source of revenue for states.
The GOP dismissed African-American voters as a whole, perceiving them as likely to vote for Obama simply because of his skin color. This is utterly simplistic and stupid. Regardless of skin color, voters are all interested in ISSUES. The economy, jobs, taxes, reproductive rights, etc... and vote accordingly. The GOP's draconian policies were not a good fit for African-Americans. So the GOP lost them, too. Even the evangelicals, in spite of NOM's disgusting strategy.
The GOP also persisted in clinging to outdated and debunked economic policies. "Trickle-down" doesn't work. Tax cuts for the very rich don't work. Supply-side economics don't work. Romney and Ryan's coyness about their tax plan, telling voters that they would reveal it after the election, didn't work. Ann Romney said on TV that "There will be a lot of cuts to some programs that a lot of people won't like," and people didn't like that, either.
Exit polls showed that 69% of voters supported raising taxes on the rich. The GOP is still resisting, and Norquist (why does this unelected clown have any influence?) is still babbling about his pledge, although a few incoming Republicans have refused to sign it, and a couple who did previously have backed away. The GOP's policies are responsible for a lot of the current income inequality in this country, and people want that to change. Unless they adapt their policies to suit the will of the people on taxes, the GOP will stagnate. Exit polls also showed that a majority of voters blamed Bush, not Obama, for the country's economic woes.
Since the GOP shows no inclination to accept or believe in facts, demographics, or public opinion, they will keep running old white men or young brown-ish men with the exact same views as the men who lost in 2012. And they will lose. Again. If they keep presenting their bottoms for the religious right to kick, they have no one but themselves to blame.