Chris Cillizza - Republicans' Navel Gazing and Why It Matters

[Political Tiger]

Losing 54 House seats, 13 (or 14) Senate seats and the presidency over the past four years has effectively pushed Republicans into the political wilderness with no obvious guideposts to help find their way back.

As expected, the collapse of the Republican brand in the 2006 and 2008 elections has brought out any number of theorists from the woodwork -- offering their take on the proper prescription to heal what ails the GOP.

For the most part, we tend to ignore these amateur (and even some professional) analysts as they usually are pushing either a decidedly transparent personal or ideological agenda.

Not so, Tom Davis who left his northern Virginia seat in 2008 after weighing and ultimately deciding against a run for the seat being vacated by Sen. John Warner (R).

Davis is, without question, a fiscal conservative and socially moderate, but he is, also, one of the brightest strategic minds in the GOP. Need proof? When Davis chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2000 and 2002, House Republicans netted six seats.

Given Davis's reputation -- and the current morass in which the GOP finds itself -- we were intrigued to come across an essay penned by the former Virginia member titled "The Way Back."

In it, Davis convincingly make the case that the alleged takeover of the party by social conservatives has worked to its electoral detriment.

Writes Davis:

"We talked to ourselves and not to voters. We became more concerned with stem cell policy than economic policy, and with prayer in schools rather than balance in our public budgets and priorities. Not so long ago, it was easy to paint the Democrats as the party of extremists. Now, they say we're extremists, and voters agree."

While Davis may be overstating the case slightly, he makes a compelling argument that voter perceptions of the two parties have shifted in a negative way for Republicans as a result of the focus by some of the most vocal elements of the party on gay rights, abortion and other social issues.

With Republicans regarded as "far out" on social issues, President-elect Barack Obama was able to co-opt the vast middle with a message of moderation on social issues and, with that hurdle cleared, speak to that critical voting bloc on the economic issues on which the election pivoted.

Davis's other major indictment of the GOP? The wholesale rejection of attempts to court black and Hispanic voters. "We've long-since given up on the African-American vote," he writes. "We're forfeiting the Hispanic vote with unwarranted and unsavory vitriol against immigrants."

FULL ARTICLE:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2009/01/republicans_navel_gazing.html#more

[Demeter]

1. Bah! GOPpers Only Gaze In Other People's Navels

and usually for prurient reasons.

In GOPperland, the one-eyed man is not king, he is slated to have that eye put out.

[fasttense]

2. They sliced and diced the votes until they were left with no one.

Republicons pitted racist whites against blacks, rich against poor, everyone against liberals. They pissed off so many people in their slicing and dicing that they were left so few votes even the rigged voting machines couldn't get them out of their mess.