There are some pretty obvious disconnects in public
sentiment and election results, and as a conservative it is something that I
tend to worry about. I am not a loyal
Republican, but 9 times out of 10 the person running with the (R) next to
their name is more likely to represent my view on the issues most important to
me. Being who I am I’m willing to ignore
a lot of the other issues candidate “X” and I are likely to disagree on: Gay Rights, Creationism, etc. Yes folks I’m a social moderate, and not
because I hate god, but because if I am going to rally for my own personal
freedoms I have no intention of trying to strip others of theirs.
First of all, I believe I should start with a couple examples
of the disconnects I reference earlier. When
polled Americans overwhelmingly cite the economy as the issue that concerns them
the most(1), and yet BHO was elected over Mitt Romney despite the
fact that Romney consistently performed better in the “who do you trust to
handle the economy” category(2).
At present, the second most important issue to Americans is the federal
deficit(1), and no matter who you support most rational people can
agree on this point: it is unlikely that
President Obama is going to cut spending enough to materially reduce the
deficit. So, despite running four years
of trillion dollar deficits (no, 2008 doesn’t count, but projected 2013 sure
does) the nation went back to BHO. In
addition, there’s a new Pew Research poll out today that shows that a majority
of Americans believe the federal government is a threat to their personal rights(3). In fairness this only flipped recently, I’d
speculate as a result of the gun control debate, but even as far back as March
of ’10 the split was 47/50. Lastly, on Election
Day, the President had an approval rating under 50%(4). The point of all of the above is not to argue
that there’s statistical proof that Mitt should have won by X.X%, but to make
the point that there’s an anomaly that drove Democrat success in November ’12.
I have several views on what the causes of the anomaly may be, but
for the sake of brevity I’ll stick with the two that I believe are both the
most prominent and impactful. First, many
voters can’t overcome their disdain for “Republicans” no matter how bad the
economy may get. Second, the average
voter simply isn't well informed enough to represent their views at the ballot
box. I’d also note that where these issues
overlap is where we see the greatest impact of said anomaly.
Now this shouldn't come as a surprise to most of you reading
this, but Republicans have huge, largely self-imposed, image and social policy
problems. I can’t tell you how
consistently surprised I am to find out that a large number of Democrats (not
Indies, registered Democrats) agree with me on the issues of deficit spending
and the economy. Citing the previously
discussed poll those two issues encompass nearly 80% of what Americans deem as
their “most important issue…”, which in theory means Mitt should have done
quite well flipping Dems. However, when
asked why they vote “D” I almost always get the same response: “I just can’t
vote for a candidate who is so socially appalling”. When explored further there’s always some
combination of not believing in evolution, standing against gay marriage, or reproductive
rights. Ironically, I don’t think any
one issue is particularly damning; however, I believe that by constantly
painting themselves as socially backward they've created an image problem that
is greater than the sum of the parts. In
essence, if it were just about Pro-life/choice I don’t think the GOP would have
nearly the problem they do, but because they consistently show themselves as “out
of touch” (yep, it links to that too) they manage to lose votes despite how
people align to core issues like the economy.
I will take a moment here to say that I always try to remind people that
gay marriage isn’t a federal issue but a state issue, and that no matter who is
elected we’re still going to teach evolution in schools, but in the end the
mistrust that comes from these concerns overrides the “logic” that it isn’t
really important.
My second topic concerns the uninformed (low information)
voter. This group comprises the casual
voter who shows up once every four years and votes based on TV commercials. You know this person, they think that the
fact that unemployment is down from 10% to 7.9% means we’re on the road to
recovery, or that Romeny’s platform is to take birth control away from our daughters,
or that ObamaCare is going to give them free health insurance. Now I don’t have any stats, but I’d be
willing to bet that 10%-15% of voters fall in this category. What’s troubling is that I don’t think we
have the means at this time to really impact this problem.
Side note, I've always liked @RBPundit’s views that we need
a grass roots machine to tackle this issue: http://www.therightsphere.com/2013/01/happy-new-year-im-exhausted/
The media leans left (yes, being nice here) and at the
present it’s taboo to be a Republican.
We can scream all we want about common sense and issue education, but in
the end this goes right back to point 1.
As long as the right has such a profound image problem we’re going to
lose a decent chunk of these voters to the left because they aren't going to
dig deep enough to get through the party stereotypes
Now folks, here the part that’s hard to accept regarding the
Right’s image/issue problems: If we’re
to be honest with ourselves…we should totally get it. We all look at certain qualities in employers,
friends and mates that are automatic deal-breakers. For me this social backwardness stereotype isn't
but I can see how it could be. Look back to 2004 when exit polls showed Kerry winning
in a landslide because, as it turns out, voters didn't want to admit to a
pollster that they voted for Bush! Now,
before everyone gets mad and accuses me of pandering to the center I want to be
very clear: I’m not saying we should
pretend to support socially progressive views, I’m saying that that we need to
be tolerant and honest about what’s really important. If you don’t believe in marriage equality
that is your prerogative, but I don’t believe it should be a cornerstone issue
when voting in a primary. Politicians
are who we train them to be, and a candidate will always need to appeal to the
base if they want to get elected. If
that base requires them to cling to either religious or outdated social
principles we’re going to be in trouble.
Again, you don’t have to support it, but you can choose to make it a
non-issue.
In the end this all circles back to, and for anyone who
follows me on twitter (@JHarri31) you've heard it before, we are not losing
elections because we aren't being extreme enough. We are losing elections because we’re scaring
away moderates and independents by calling rape babies a gift from god. If you’re such a “hardcore Republican” that you
won’t vote for a candidate because they support marriage equality then you
really should reexamine your priorities.
At the rate we’re going the only way we’re going to get a fiscal conservative
in the White House is for the economy to get so awful that the average voter
can’t ignore it. That said, don’t forget
that $4T in new debt and 8% unemployment wasn't enough…
So, here it is folks, if we want to take back the White
House and the Senate we need to be the party of self-accountability that we
claim to be and start thinking about what we want to hold our candidates
accountable to. We may not like it, but
I believe we need to take a long hard look at what we hang our hats on
politically, and consider whether the economy, deficit spending, and gun
control are worthy sacrifices to push against marriage equality and for debates
about creationism.
