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What happened to the GOP in California?
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:11 pm    Post subject: What happened to the GOP in California? Reply with quote

California--one of the state's leading the recovery and the innovation economy--now appears to have a supermajority of Democrats in the legislature. What happened? Interesting article:

Quote:
The GOP challenge: Looking to California for lessons on how to change
By Patrick May and Matt O'Brien Staff writers San Jose Mercury News
Posted: MercuryNews.com


As California goes, so goes the nation.

Republicans who missed the lesson of the Golden State's shift from friend of the Grand Old Party to Democratic super majority may be giving the state another look amid the soul-searching a day after Barack Obama's solid defeat of Mitt Romney.

Just as the GOP years ago backed itself into a political-minority box in California by appealing to a vocal but shrinking base of white male voters while alienating other groups, many Republicans on Wednesday admitted they now face the same outcome on a national level unless they radically alter their strategy.

"The national Republican Party is following the path of the California GOP, which means they're doomed unless they can find a way to reach not only Hispanic and Asian voters, but also women and even gays and lesbians,'' said Terry Christensen, political science professor emeritus at San Jose State University.

Not since Bob Dole's 1996 loss to Bill Clinton has any Republican, or any candidate, ranked as poorly among Latino voters, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center, and never has it mattered so much.

The nonwhite voter turnout on Tuesday reached a record 28 percent, and the Latino turnout a record 10 percent. Exit polls Tuesday showed that Obama won a startling 71 percent of the Hispanic vote and 73 percent of the fast-growing Asian-American electorate, while Romney carried 59 percent of the white vote.

"When Pete Wilson was (re)elected governor of California by essentially running against Latinos, I remember saying, 'They've just given away their future,''' said professor John Elwood at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. "Ever since then, consultants have been telling the GOP they've got to do something different or their future is gone."

California's Latinos were becoming steadily more Republican throughout the 1980s and early 1990s until state voters passed Proposition 187, the 1984 Wilson-backed measure to exclude illegal immigrants from nearly all public services, including public schools, said Stanford University political scientist Gary Segura.

That divisive, racially-charged period turned the tide of California politics, with more than 1 million Latinos registering to vote in the next six years and most siding with Democrats, Segura said.

That "created the California we have today," said Segura, with Democrats running all branches of government.

After Obama's victory Tuesday, built solidly on support from Latinos and other minorities, Republicans are now left looking at California as a warning of how a narrow game plan must be broadened to appeal to a changing electorate.

Obama didn't simply thump Romney in Tuesday's election, by winning Electoral College-rich battleground states like Ohio and Virginia. He exposed the faulty wiring of a Republican party that must win over Hispanics, Asians, women and young people as Obama did so dramatically in the polls.

Along with strong majorities of black, Latino and Asian voters, Obama won 60 percent of voters under 30; among women, the president took 55 percent of the vote; while Romney won 52 percent of men.

Romney could have learned from the mistakes of friend and fellow business executive Meg Whitman, who just two years ago lost a gubernatorial election after moving right to win the primary and alienating California's growing Latino electorate, said Arnold Torres, a Sacramento political analyst and strategist.

"Romney took what happened with Whitman and repeated it," Torres said.

Republicans could also have learned from the success of George W. Bush, who won 40 percent of Latino voters in 2004 thanks, in part, to a more inclusive tone and less partisan approach to the immigration debate, Torres said.

Instead, "I think the Republican party made a decision, and they were very well aware of it, that they can try to win this election without the minority vote, to push that white vote as best they can," Torres said. "If you look at those rallies, there was no color, no rainbow, nothing except white voters."

Those televised images weren't lost on voters like Janice Pennisi, a third-generation Italian-American from Walnut Creek who voted for Obama not necessarily because she thought he was the best candidate -- but because the idea of voting for Romney was a complete turnoff.

"I couldn't relate because he just seemed to represent rich, white men to me," she said. "Going forward, Republicans ... need to come back more to the center if they ever hope to get my vote."

Republicans lost some Latinos with their threats to repeal Obama's health care reform, according to the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. Conservative stands on abortion and same-sex marriage lost ground with younger voters who have more liberal social views, and some Republican candidates' high-profile gaffes about rape offended scores of women of all backgrounds.

Romney's tack to the right on immigration during the primary and comment about "self deportation" may have been his defining problem for Latino voters, according to polls that measured how Latinos viewed the election.

The hard question for Republicans is whether they're willing to modify some of these positions to attract a wider range of voters. On Wednesday, some pundits continued to insist that isn't necessary.

"No doubt the media will insist that Republicans must change, must sprint to the center, must embrace social liberalism ..." Fred Barnes wrote on The Weekly Standard blog. "All that is hogwash, which is why Republicans are likely to reject it. Their ideology is not a problem."

Former Bush speech writer David Frum tweeted a different message: "First step toward Republican recovery in 2016: insult fewer people."

Contact Patrick May at 408-920-5689 or follow him at Twitter.com/patmaymerc. Contact Matt O'Brien at 510-293-2465 or follow him at Twitter.com/mattoyeah.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a lot of truth in the above commentary. I have to wonder though whether Fox News is prepared to change their message and focus on a more center oriented outlook and agenda, or whether they will continue to fan the flames of a far right oriented agenda. I think that we all know that in the next 4 years that the Obama Administration is going to ramp up to address our illegal immigration problem. Can the Republicans reshape their party to embrace immigration reform? I'm thinking that if they can't, their numbers and support will continue to dwindle.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just going by the stated topic, part of the problem is the GOP's tolerance and inclusion of the far right's obsession with social issues. The federal government already has its mitts (chuckle) far enough, arguably too far, into everybody's private lives; we don't need Uncle Sam into our pants clear up to his elbows. Every time some interviewer, moderator, muckraker, rabblerouser, or activist asks any presidential candidate his position on legislation regarding abortion, gay marriage, Ten Commandments posting, free Fluking rubbers, evolution, bible passages, and dozens of other such nationally unimportant issues guaranteed to repel ideologues, the right answer for both political and national reasons, IMO, should look something like this:
"I'm sorry, Mr. Stephanopoulos, but that should be a state issue, not a federal one, for several reasons. We already have plenty of federal laws on that issue, states are closer to the people and are thus in a better position to meet local needs and interests, and a wide variety of state approaches gives individuals greater choices in where and how they wish to live. The federal government's job is to address issues only it can address, such as national security, the national and global economy, and a few limited such issues truly too big for a state to manage. My administration should not and will not take strong stances on issues that can be handled at state levels without conflicting with the national interest."

The short version: "RTFC".
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"legislation regarding abortion, gay marriage, Ten Commandments posting, free Fluking rubbers, evolution, bible passages, and dozens of other such nationally unimportant issues guaranteed to repel ideologues..."


What the hell? Nationally unimportant issues? Our character from the Great Northwest is the poster child for bogus "states rights" nonsense that would Balkanize and weaken our nation in so many different ways. States should have the right to limit our liberties and freedoms? Coming from a guy that grew up in Alabama, it's no smaller wonder that he would rally around and promote nonsense.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Colorado is now both houses and Gov under the Democrats. The analysis here is that voters went party line and the Democrats rode Obama coat tails.

Also, there are elements of what Mac's article suggested. Hispanics are becoming a force in Colorado. They now join women and younger voters to reshape the electorate. Colorado used to be a gimme for Republican Pres. candidates.

This is not, necessarily, a good thing. The mixed legislature and a centrist Gov. was working pretty well for Colorado. (unless you are gay and wanted to be married).

The Repubs blew it on social issues and immigration here. Now, leaders of both houses are gay and the Gov. has already indicated he will sign a civil union bill which was blocked by Repubs in the last session. When will the Repubs get over gay marriage?
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When they dump the biblethumpers at the federal level.
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windoggi



Joined: 22 Feb 2002
Posts: 2743

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

isobars wrote:
Just going by the stated topic
Why don't try reading the post under the stated topic. Or are you chicken?
_________________
/w\
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mac



Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17736
Location: Berkeley, California

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CB--I agree completely, and for someone who refuses to participate in an actual discussion, Isobars got it close to right. Pandering to the religious right, and their casting the ability to control the private social behavior of those who don't share their religious views, is a significant part of the Republican party's difficulties. So is amateurism. Government will not ever be as efficient as business, and will always need shaking up. Having an understanding of what government does that is important, what it does because it was once important--but isn't so much any more--, and having the patience to actually reform government takes something more than a 2 year term in the House of Representatives from a Tea Party district.

The name calling of women, and the description of the Catholic bishops of denying birth control to non-Catholics who work at their charitable institutions as religious freedom are huge problems. Not many Catholics in this country listen to the Catholic bishops--and even fewer agree with their ideas from the Spanish inquisition.
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coboardhead



Joined: 26 Oct 2009
Posts: 4303

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From the Denver Post

Quote:
In addition, Republican Mario Nicolais of Lakewood said the GOP is on the wrong side of equality for gays. The spokesman for a pro civil-unions GOP group, Nicolais correctly predicted in May that the fallout over the death of a civil-unions bill in the House would make it harder for the GOP to maintain the majority. Democrats picked up at least five seats Tuesday night, knocking out four incumbent lawmakers.

"I know that there are a lot of Republicans who have said, 'Look, why do we even have to talk about this? Can't we just talk about jobs and the economy? That's the important part,' " Nicolais said.

"But when people don't trust you to be compassionate about the people they love and the people they want to spend their lives with, they're certainly not going to trust you to be compassionate about jobs and the economy."


This Republican Legislator has it figured out.
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isobars



Joined: 12 Dec 1999
Posts: 20935

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Compassion", as a national policy, is neither a goal or a path to freedom and national success. It's why liberals are called bleeding hearts, and slavish devotion to it leads to an unearned entitlement mentality followed by national bankruptcy, a la Greece. What is both "compassionate" and sustainable, at the federal level, is providing an adequately regulated framework that at least allows, hopefully encourages and enables, every citizen an equal opportunity to become as successful as he desires. That's capitalism, not Marxism or fascism or socialism or just giving STUFF to people so they will vote for your party. Feeding a stray dog is not compassion; it merely enables its subsistence ... just like prolonged unemployment benefits and tax "rebates" for people who choose not to earn enough to pay taxes. Every dog needs a home and most people need a job, and "compassion" is giving both a chance at that home or job, not just tossing it a bone and shoving it out of the way. Jobs and the economy aren't about "compassion"; they include identifying (or creating) a need, supplying a product or service which meets that need, hiring people to produce that product, and running the company well enough to keep it in the black so those jobs are sustainable. Keeping unproductive workers out of compassion for them harms everyone, for several obvious reasons.

Last edited by isobars on Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:23 pm; edited 2 times in total
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