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“The definition of insanity is doing the
same thing over and over again
and expecting different results” Albert
Einstein
In the end, it was another
Democratic Party rout. On Election Day,
President Obama defeated Mitt Romney by over three million popular votes and
126 electoral votes.
The President won every
battleground state except one and ushered in to Congress two more Democrats in
the Senate and at least seven more in the House. While Obama recorded seven
million fewer votes than in 2008, Romney was one million votes shy of reaching
John McCain’s losing total.
Although it was not a landslide,
it was nowhere near the nail biter that many GOP pundits and consultants were
predicting. In fact, many of these supposed geniuses were forecasting a Romney
“landslide.” How foolish do Dick Morris and Karl Rove look today?
In their post-election analysis,
many of these same “experts” are giving poisonous advice to a party in serious
trouble. They are recommending the party move in the direction of Democrats on
issues such as illegal immigration, gay marriage, drug use, taxes, abortion to
name a few. Following such advice would be the death knell of the Republican
Party.
To succeed, the GOP must stand
for principles that are starkly different from the Democratic Party; otherwise
there is no compelling reason for any voter to support the Republican Party.
Unfortunately, the Republican Party is controlled by the moderate, “country
club,” establishment wing, also known as Republicans in Name Only (RINOS).
This controlling faction is
opposed to a true conservative ever getting the nomination of the party. The
party establishment has successfully destroyed every conservative candidate for
the nomination since Ronald Reagan.
The result is that the Republican
Party has lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections.
The RINOS have given us Gerald Ford, Bush Sr. and Jr. Bob Dole, John McCain
and, most recently, Mitt Romney.
As is custom, in the last primary
season, every viable conservative candidate was savaged by the party elite who
backed Romney’s candidacy. They were joined by the Fox News commentators,
powerful pollsters like Karl Rove and Dick Morris, and influential columnists
like George Will and Ann Coulter. All of them claimed the Romney was the most
electable candidate, and, in the end, all of them were quite wrong.
After a billion dollars wasted on
feckless advertising, Romney could not even match McCain’s pathetic level of
support. He did not inspire or motivate the conservative GOP base, and, thus,
lost a quarter of the evangelical vote on Election Day. These voters knew
Romney was uncomfortable with social issues and had switched his position on
everything from gay marriage to abortion.
In the general election, Romney
did not employ the same hard ball tactics against Barack Obama that he
effectively used against his GOP opponents in the primary season. Like John
McCain in 2008, Romney’s kid glove treatment of the President was an utter
failure. There is no better example than in the last debate, when Romney played
nice with the President and agreed with many of his positions on foreign policy.
Tragically, he refused to criticize the President for his deception and
disastrous handling of the Benghazi
terrorist attack.
Romney’s campaign was the
political equivalent of a football team playing the prevent defense, trying not
to lose, but not trying to win. This led the GOP nominee to disregard the “Fast
and Furious” scandal and the President’s decision to give amnesty to millions
of illegal aliens under the age of 30. Worst of all, the President’s unpopular
plan to socialize healthcare was not attacked by the Romney campaign, thus
wasting a powerful issue. As the father of socialized medicine in Massachusetts, Romney
was the worst possible candidate to criticize “Obamacare,” so he solved that
problem by ignoring it altogether.
Romney tried to make the entire
campaign about one issue, the economy. As a result, social conservatives were
given no reason to vote. The grassroots movement that delivered the House of
Representatives to the Republican Party, the Tea Party, was completely ignored
by the Romney campaign. Tea Party favorites, like former Alaska Governor Sarah
Palin, were not even invited to the party’s convention in Tampa. To add insult to injury, Ron Paul
delegates were rudely treated in Tampa
and many of them were denied credentials to the convention. The Romney team
wanted a “unanimous” convention, but it was a counterproductive tactic as
disgruntled Ron Paul supporters did not forget this disgrace on Election
Day.
Will the GOP ever learn? The
correct response is not to become more like Democrats but to nominate a
candidate with courage who will embrace the conservative principles outlined in
the Republican platform. In contrast, Mitt Romney treated the platform like it
was the bubonic plague.
The quest for 2016 now begins and
this will be an effort to see whether conservatives can stay within the GOP or
find a new home, as recommended by former presidential candidate Herman Cain.
To survive, Republicans cannot
allow the beltway, establishment wing of the party to dictate who will be the
next nominee. If so, it guarantees another loss, like Romney and his
predecessors.
The next nominee cannot be
another moderate flip flopper, but someone who can communicate powerful
conservative principles while energizing, not insulting, the base of the party.
The next nominee needs to embrace the Tea Party movement and use this
enthusiastic group as the foot soldiers for the next campaign.
Over the next four years, the
last thing the Republican Party should do is move more to the political left,
which is already owned by the Democratic Party. Even though this was another
painful defeat, Republicans should not abandon their time tested principles;
instead, they should finally start to proclaim them.
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