@brickbacon I don’t do quote city, so I’m not going point by point in my response to you.
Whites are 72% of the population, that some whites also identify as Hispanic is only marginally important to this discussion because I was talking about percentage of the voting population which is defined by exit polling. Defined by exit polling because we have a secret vote, and we also do not require people to specify their race when they register to vote. Thus, the only means we have to ascertain the racial makeup of the voting population is from exit polling. For the purposes of the exit polling I looked at (which was Fox News exit polling for 2012, the only reason I picked Fox News is it was the first such list I found through a google search), nationally people asked “Are you: White, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Other” 72% responded white, 13% black, 10% Hispanic/Latino, 3% Asian, 2% Other." So firstly, I don’t know any white Hispanics who don’t consider themselves white, because that’s a self-identified group and by its very nature none of them would be white if they didn’t identify as white.
It would also appear based on exit polling, that people who consider themselves white Hispanics are most likely calling themselves white in a poll that asks them to pick and choose, since the number of respondents identifying as white is very close to the total white population of 72%, and blacks also responded very close to their proportion of the population (the 2010 Census is the last census we’ve had and it shows 12.6% black population, I’ll dismiss all other numbers until 2020 as being less statistically reliable.)
If you want to argue minutiae of numbers all day, we can do so, but I fail to see much point. These numbers have multiple interpretations and unless you’re willing (as I am) to accept that then we’ll do nothing be go back and forth on these numbers until one of us gets bored.
I never claimed the GOP just needs a few minor tweaks here and there to fix its problems.
The reality of a two party system makes the demographic problem an issue if the GOP doesn’t change, but history suggests it doesn’t make it a serious problem long term. Long term meaning 40-50 years. What’s more likely, the GOP doubles down and by 2050 only whites vote for the GOP and they have no acceptable mainstream positions, or no one party can possibly hold all the minority groups, a good chunk of the women and the white men without fracturing? I posit that in a minority-majority America, it is all but impossible for all minorities to be in one party for more than a couple generations. The reason is the same reason the era of good feelings ended in the 19th century, you can’t get everyone in one big party without factions developing, which leads to party splits. Worst case scenario, the GOP is so inept it remains out of power until a much larger Democratic party has fracturing due to the fact that any party too large will be unable to maintain a united front.
In a multi-party system or a proportional system things go down much differently, but in a two party system a growing number of disaffected Democrats would have no option to remain relevant aside from going over to the other party. Now, the timing on this up to debate, and will be influenced by how the GOP responds to the issues. We could be looking at a multi-generational one party rule like the Liberal Party of Canada had, or it could be turned around in a few election cycles.
My belief is if the GOP does exactly what it did in 1994, it will again have success. I don’t mean the specific policy approaches, but the strategies. The GOP in 1994 said, “we want to campaign only on issues that 70% of Americans support.” They did, and they won Congress, and while they didn’t win the White House in '96 they laid a lot of the groundwork that helped Bush win in '00 and '04. The GOP is allowing sub-50% issues to dominate both the political discourse and its rhetoric.
I’m mostly over the race discussion, because the reality is that right there. Race is almost irrelevant, if your party focuses on a collection of issues only a minority of people support (no tax increases for anyone, aggressive anti-immigration, no abortions for any women under any circumstances etc) then the answer is quite simple: you need different issues and different positions on those issues.
I really regret even bringing race up, because it gets minorities here so bent out of shape, and I don’t genuinely believe any group votes massively along racial based lines other than perhaps blacks who I think are more easily pandered to and influenced because they are more geographically concentrated in urban centers. The demographic problem is real, and I wanted to point out that Romney or any other Republican needed to win more minority votes in the future, I used some bad examples to illustrate that.
However, the demographics aren’t racial, but political. Romney lost among both self-identified liberals and self-identified moderates, and that’s 66% of the population right there. Blacks and Hispanics aren’t born Democrat or Republican, nor is there any genetic component to them voting a certain way. It’s important instead to focus on the fact that the GOP platform and candidate failed to appeal to a large number of voters and resulted in an electoral defeat. The strategy to reverse that is simple enough.
If I was leading the GOP I’d identify strengths and weaknesses, then how we can emphasize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses.
Let’s say x% of the Hispanic vote went against us because of things like Arizona’s anti-immigration law, self-deportation and other such foolishness. Let’s see how much of the vote we lose by reversing our position on those issues. I don’t have the money to put a poll out in the field, but I’d suspect the GOP loses few votes on that issue as those voters who strongly support that stuff to the point of making political decisions over it are probably voting for the GOP anyway. These voters are like the environmental lobby to the Democrats, passionate but basically enslaved. They have no other option, and thus they can, to some extent, be screwed and still vote for you.
Let’s say x% of middle class Americans voted against Romney because of the 47% comment, refusals to raise taxes on the top 1% and etc. Well, almost certainly the Democrats will always want to raise taxes more, so as long as you propose a reasonable tax increase it’s unlikely any of the wealthy turn on you, they have nowhere to go. But it will certainly attract more voters, make the party look more in touch and etc. It’s also easy to politically justify without making it “we want more middle class votes, so we want to soak the rich to a degree.” The Democrats can do that, because they are used to that sort of thing, but it’s a harder thing as a Republican. All you have to say is, “in 1988 when Reagan left the White House the percentage of taxes paid as a portion of GDP was X, and now it is much lower, while we would love to keep everyone’s taxes low, in this time of economic hardship we must raise our total tax burden. Given the disproportionate economic suffering on the shoulder’s of the middle class, we only feel that we can support raising these taxes on the top x% of tax payers.” That gets you votes and also gives the Norquist types little maneuvering room because you’re still the lesser of two evils.
I won’t go through every issue, but there are several issues where core Republican philosophy is still popular and in the majority, and there are several issues where we can outright reverse policy without it affecting our core beliefs or hurting us with our base. There are other issues of our core philosophy we can tweak to a minor degree and become much more acceptable. Romney had to campaign on the concept of not increasing anyone’s tax rate, period, and in fact reducing it. Tie that in with his wealth, his detached nature, his 47% comment and the history in private equity and the fact is that tax position which was the only one of the two options advocating rich people actually paying less in marginal rates makes it almost impossible to convince anyone that Romney cares about anyone other than the rich.
An interesting breakdown in the exit polling is: “Which ONE of these four candidate qualities mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?” 27% said Shares my Values, 18% said Is a Strong Leader, 21% said Cares about people like me, and 29% said Has a vision for the future.
Obama lost every single one of those categories (42% on values, 38% on strong leader, 45% on vision) to Romney, but he won “cares about people like me” by 81% to 18%.
I’d argue that the current GOP, as it has campaigned and conducted itself, strongly emphasizes minority viewpoints, meaning viewpoints that are unpopular. And because of that, the GOP is unpopular, won a minority of the votes, and is out of power.