GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney got more white votes than any other GOP presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988 and he still lost. He trounced President Obama among white males, senior citizens, rural voters, and self-identified Christian evangelicals and he still lost. GOP ultra conservative congressional and senate candidates and incumbents were heavily bankrolled, got lots of media ink, and in more than a few cases seemed to be shoo-ins for election. And they still lost.
Yet, in the deluge of soul searching, hand wringing, and finger pointing at what went so haywire for the GOP with the election, one would never know that any of this happened. The parade of GOP hardliners peddle the delusion that Romney and GOP ultraconservative candidates lost because they weren't conservative enough, or their self-inflicted gaffe wounds did them in. They denounced and slough off any talk from the GOP party leaders of re messaging, mounting an aggressive outreach to minorities, even Hispanics, and do a reversal on immigration.
This is more than a stupendously high flight of fancy that the GOP can win future national elections if they hue to hardcore conservative views and back candidates that do. It's pure self-serving delusion. Now here's the reality. Every conservative GOP candidate since Barry Goldwater's wipe out loss to LBJ 1964 has spouted hard conservative line in the primaries, and then quickly moved to the center when they want to win. Romney much too belatedly did the same. He softened his positions on immigration, was silent on gay marriage, soft pedaled his touted budget whack of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and did a photo-op at an inner city charter school. If he hadn't done that he would have come close to being the Goldwater of 2012. It would have been an Obama landslide.
There were tip-offs of that real possibility. A 2011 CNN poll showed that a big majority of Americans had a more unfavorable view of the Tea Party than they did when it burst on the scene in 2009. A poll nearly later found things had gotten even worse. Half of Americans said the more they heard about the Tea Party, the less they liked it. A bare one quarter said they liked it the more they heard.
The disaffection crossed all income and educational lines, and that included lower income whites. Before Obama's win and the GOP losses numerous polls and surveys repeatedly showed that the majority of Americans want Congress and the Obama administration to work in tandem to solve the big ticket problems of the economy, joblessness, and debt reduction, and stop the saber rattle of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that has been the trademark of the GOP egged on by the Tea Party. The majority of Americans is now supportive of gay marriage, immigration reform, and is appalled and ashamed at the naked racial pandering, bigotry, and birther and school transcript attacks on Obama.
Even if Romney had won, the 2012 election would likely have been be the last national election in which a GOP white male candidate could win by relying exclusively or primarily on conservative white males, and rural and outer suburban white voters. The nation's racial and ethnic, and gender demographics that GOP hardliners laugh away, were evident before this election in states that Obama won in 2008 that for decades have been gimmes for the GOP. For a brief moment a decade ago, GOP leaders had a faint notion that times were changing and that the party had to get out front of the ethnic and gender changes to be competitive nationally. Bush spouted diversity and had a bevy of black faces on and off stage at the GOP national convention in 2000. His appointment of Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales and an aborted attempt to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court was a veiled attempt to put window dressing to his diversity pitch.
In 2004, Bush went one step further and partially reversed the GOP's long standing rock ribbed opposition to any softening on tough immigration crackdowns. He embraced comprehensive immigration reform, spent millions on Hispanic voter outreach campaigns, and courted Mexican government leaders. It worked. Bush got more than forty percent of the Hispanic vote and low double digit support from African-American voters in the must win states of Ohio and Florida. This was just enough to assure his stay in the White House.
Tea Party leaders and GOP ultra-conservatives are banking that they can recapture the momentum that they appeared to briefly have in 2010 when they captured a crushing majority on Congress. There are still lots of Americans that despite the consequences of the draconian government cuts Tea Party leaders still say must be rammed through Congress, think the idea of smaller government, iron lock caps on spending, and debt reduction are noble goals worth fighting for. Tea Party types can still from time to time play the subtle race and gender card to appeal to some whites. Meanwhile GOP hardliners will continue to win some local elections in, mid America's suburban and rural areas, but winning the race for the White House will be permanently off limits to them. Though this won't stop them from peddling their delusion that the America they longingly pine for no longer exists.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a frequent political commentator on MSNBC and a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica Network.
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