The Hill
By Niall Stanage
January 14, 2016
The
front-runners for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz,
are casting aside the lessons of the GOP “autopsy” that was intended to
prevent Republicans
from losing the White House in 2016.
The
autopsy report, issued by the Republican National Committee (RNC) in
March 2013 after Mitt Romney’s losing campaign and titled “the Growth
and Opportunity Project,”
was intended to help the GOP set itself up for victory after losing two
presidential elections in a row.
In
both cycles, GOP candidates lost badly to Barack Obama among minority
voters. The former Illinois senator also defeated Romney in 2012 and
Arizona Sen. John McCain
in 2008 among women and voters under the age of 30.
Now some Republicans fear their party is making the same mistakes.
“To
win the White House, a political party has to make folks feel welcome
and show that it cares about their daily life,” said Henry Barbour, who
was one of five authors
of the 2013 report.
“Attempting
to appeal to only one segment of the population is bad for governing
and even worse for winning a general election. And that’s what Trump and
Cruz are largely
doing.”
Those
two figures will be center stage once again on Thursday evening for the
sixth GOP debate, in North Charleston, S.C. , which could mean even
more heartburn for party
figures who would like to see Republicans strike a more moderate tone.
This
season’s debates have been unusually fiery, featuring combative
exchanges about immigrants, Muslims and sexism, with Trump at the center
of the storm.
The
fight that is raging over the direction of the Republican Party has
been evident in the aftermath of the GOP response to the president’s
State of the Union address
on Tuesday evening.
South
Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was chosen by GOP leaders in Congress to
deliver the party’s response. Haley, the 43-year-old daughter of Indian
immigrants, won praise
for her handling of the controversey over the Confederate flag last
year following a mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston.
On Tuesday night, she jabbed at Trump, talking about the need to resist
“the siren call of the angriest voices.”
But
while Haley earned some plaudits, including from the Obama
administration, the blowback from conservative activists on social media
and elsewhere was fierce.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Back in 2013, the RNC report warned that minorities “wrongly think Republicans do not like them or want them in the country.”
It
said “young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the
party represents,” suggesting the GOP was in danger of losing the fight
for a new generation of millennial
voters.
Noting
the party’s difficulty in appealing to unmarried female voters, the
report said “spokespeople and staff need to use language that addresses
concerns that are on
women’s minds in order to let them know we are fighting for them.”
But
three years after the report’s release, Trump has rocketed to the top
of the GOP race by promising to build a wall on the southern border
while temporarily barring
any Muslims from entering the country.
He’s
also battled charges of sexism. After he clashed with Megyn Kelly of
Fox News at the first televised GOP debate, he complained that she had
questioned him as if she
had “blood coming out of her wherever.”
Cruz
hasn’t gone as far as the real estate tycoon, but he has taken a hard
line on immigration while talking about bombing the Middle East enough
to see if sand can “glow.”
Barbour was eager to contrast those two figures with the other contenders for the nomination.
“The entire rest of our field does a good job of engaging with all Americans,” he said. “That’s critical.”
Yet
there is evidence that the success of Cruz and Trump is moving the GOP
field to the right, just as it forced Romney away from a more centrist
position in 2012.
Last
month, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Cruz, a senator from Texas, tangled
over who had taken the more conservative position on immigration. Other
candidates who have
espoused support for immigration reform, such as former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush, have plummeted in the polls.
Former
neurosurgeon Ben Carson has been on the decline as well because of
questions about his understanding of foreign policy. But his star had
originally risen in part
because of a series of controversial remarks he made, including
referring to Obama as a “psychopath” and comparing ObamaCare to slavery.
Some
of the 2013 “autopsy” proposals focused on the nuts and bolts of
campaigning — field operations, data innovations, voter registration
efforts and the like — and Republican
insiders say that there has indeed been progress made in those areas.
But
the report also focused on messaging and the subject of immigration,
making it plain that Republicans had to do better with Hispanics. It
noted that former President
George W. Bush had won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 but that
Romney had secured only 27 percent.
“We
must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform,” the 2013
report said. “If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink
to its core constituencies
only.”
While
Trump argues he can win new voters to the Republican Party by appealing
to independents and Democrats, a survey released by the Public Religion
Research Institute
in November suggested he was viewed negatively by 80 percent of
Hispanics.
Trump
got his campaign underway with a speech in which he suggested the
government of Mexico was sending “rapists” across the border.
But
the defiance of the autopsy is not limited to Trump. One of the
report’s passages insisted, “We need to go to communities where
Republicans do not normally go to listen
and make our case. We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian and
gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them too.”
Yet
as unrest followed the killings of young black men by police officers
last year, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said that Obama “encourages
this lawlessness.” Referring
to the main activist group that emerged in reaction to the perceived
abuses by law enforcement, the 2016 hopeful also said: “I want the Black
Lives Matter people to understand: Don’t call me for a meeting.”
On
gay rights, the socially conservative Cruz has called the Supreme Court
decision legalizing gay marriage “the very definition of tyranny.”
GOP
strategist Ford O’Connell, who has long insisted that the party must
expand its demographic appeal, noted that the more conservative elements
of the party are ascendant
at the moment.
The
nightmare scenario for modernizers like himself, he suggested, was a
conservative candidate becoming the nominee and winning the general
election because of a “perfect
storm” of pro-GOP factors. Such an outcome, he suggested, would
postpone the hard conversations that party needs to have internally.
“If
they are successful,” O’Connell said of candidates such as Trump and
Cruz, “then those who are arguing to broaden our appeal will be pushed
to the edges of the party.”
Others have a nearer horizon, fearing that the party could be doomed in November with such a nominee.
“We
have some Republican candidates who do a great job of connecting with
voters in a positive, inspiring manner. They are the ones who can beat
Hillary [Clinton],” Barbour
said.
“Of
course, we also have candidates whose tone is negative and divisive,
and they would make it much easier for Hillary to win the White House.”
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