Republicans Differ on Why Party Fell Short

[question everything]

From the WSJ

(snip)

"While some will want to blame one wing of the party over the other, the reality is candidates from all corners of our GOP lost tonight. Clearly we have work to do in the weeks and months ahead," (Cronyn) said. Other Republicans blamed forces other than the GOP itself—the media, Mitt Romney's campaign strategists, Hurricane Sandy—for President Barack Obama's re-election and the party missing a ripe opportunity to win control of the Senate.

(snip)

In the Senate races, critics said the GOP squandered a tremendous advantage in a cycle where many Democrats were up for re-election in conservative states.

The loss of Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri on Tuesday, and in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado in 2010, was blamed by many analysts on the selection of tea party-backed candidates who were too conservative to win a statewide general election. Instead, some Republicans now say that party leaders have to do more to ensure strong, more centrist candidates are put on the field and to support them in primary elections.

(snip)

On the presidential level, however, some conservatives say Mr. Romney's defeat resulted from the GOP establishment placing too much emphasis on their own view of what makes a candidate electable. Leaders of the tea-party movement and other conservative activists argue that he wasn't conservative enough to galvanize the party... For Ralph Reed, president of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, the election results underscore the need not for the party to be less conservative, but to find a way to sell its conservative message to a broader, more ethnically diverse audience.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578105334012558100.html


(If you cannot read the whole article by clicking on the link, just copy and paste the subject line onto google)

[Recursion]

1. Republicans fear their base; Democrats despise their base

Or, more to the point, both parties have stronger representation at the right end of their spectrum than at their left one. Both parties' leadership want to run as moderate a candidate as possible, but a moderate Democrat can get through our primaries much more easily than a moderate Republican can get through theirs (if there had been no GOP primaries, Romney could probably have won on Tuesday).

My point is, think of how many people on DU keep screaming that we have to nominate a Real Progressive (tm). That's exactly what movement conservatives are saying right now (or the mirror image of it, at least), and they have significantly more control over the nominating process than the Democratic wing of the Democratic party has over ours.

[question everything]

2. Indeed. I don't have problems with Obama, but I think that Hillary

would have better dodged the mines that were thrown at him. Perhaps even better handled Congress and may have achieved more with, yes, concessions. But many on DU in 2008 were not going to vote for her were she the nominee. For all I know, many "progressive" stayed home now because Obama was not far enough to the left for them. (Obviously you would not here about it on DU).

And I have to ask myself why we, Democrats, like to shoot ourselves in the foot. Staying home in 1968 because we did not trust Humphrey enough on Vietnam, but got Nixon. Many voted for Nader in 2000, that caused us to lose Florid and resulted in so many dead and injured in two wars and missed the opportunity to concentrate on Afghanistan and perhaps having a better co-existence by now.

[sadbear]

3. My guess?

All republican congressmen will be getting Rosetta Stone for Christmas.