Blame Atrios.
He tweeted that he'd checked out the crazy at Red State, so it piqued my interest and I did the same. I occaisionally enjoy checking in with the trainwrecks at those sites.
Right away I saw Erick Erickson's piece, titled, "It Is Time to Throw the Social Conservatives Out of the GOP."
Which was intriguing to me, because I do believe the social conservatives proved themselves an albatross around the GOP's neck this cycle. Now even Erickson's saying it? Yowsa!
Turns out the piece is a psyche. He apparently IS hearing many calls to throw the social conservatives out. But Ericskon is totally one himself, so of course, that's not a tactic he'll endorse. So instead he had to make the case why it's a bad idea. He has some very strange reasoning (of course, I'd expect no less) and some very bad math (ditto).
Mitt Romney won about a quarter of the hispanic vote and a tenth of the black vote.
Those numbers may not sound like much, but in close elections they matter.
A sizable portion of those black and hispanic voters voted GOP despite disagreeing with the GOP on fiscal issues. But they are strongly social conservative and could not vote for the party of killing kids and gay marriage. So they voted GOP.
So, he's arguing Romney pitiful performance with people of color was better because he was stood against gay marriage and abortion (kinda, sorta).
Because some blacks and latinos voted GOP "despite disagreeing with the GOP on fiscal issues."
Now. I can't imagine why he assumes black and latino Republican agrees with the GOP on gay marriage and abortion but disagrees with them on fiscal matters? Oh course he cites no actual links to any demographic polling or research to support such a conclusion.
Is it incomprehensible that some people of color voted for Romney simply because they see themselves as fiscally conservative and believe Romney was the correct choice? (Romney's actual plan to explode the deficit notwithstanding, people of color can be low-information voters same as anyone else.)
And he also adds that had the GOP not abandoned the poor rapey guys, Akin and Murdock, but instead stood by them on principle, it all would have gone so much better.
Yes. Again the problem is not that their principles are repugnant. Like the principle of forcing women to bear their rapist's child. It's that they were ineloquent about explaining their principles unapologetically.
Run with that guys. Seriously. That's totally the lesson to takeaway from Tuesday.