Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus announced Sunday that there is about to be a major “Republican makeover.” In announcing results of the GOP post mortem Priebus said he was concerned that focus groups show that voters find the one-time party of Lincoln to be “scary.”
Former Ohio Congressman LaTourette said on Sunday saying the GOP is viewed as a party of “old white men from south of the Mason-Dixon Line”—meaning they disproportionately come from former slave states.
The Republican elephant is going the way as its ancestor the woolly mammoth
The Republicans plan to make several changes including moving up the national convention to shorten the primary season and limit the number of debates so that voters have fewer opportunities to learn how extreme their candidates are.
The party took a beating among all demographic groups except billionaires, those over 65, and white men. Although billionaires will always be with us, there aren't many of them. White men are increasingly becoming a minority group, and those now over 65 will not live as long as those in the 18-25 group, statistically speaking. They can not survive with a shrinking demographic.
The Republican elephant is going the way as the woolly mammoth
To remedy this, Republicans are throwing $10 million dollars over the next two years to pay for outreach to women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and LGBT voters. Republicans think that $10 million should fix the problem.
What Priebus and other Republican strategists don’t get is that their problem with these groups is not a lack of outreach. The problem is that Republicans advocate policies that are particularly harmful to these groups. Without changing their policies, they are not likely to win over these groups even if they spend $100 million.
With the policies that Republicans vote for in Congress and particularly in the state legislatures they control, the only groups they will attract are the ones they already have—the rich, white males, evangelical Christians, immigrant-haters, and people who need to say on a daily basis that they are not a racist..
With their policies, they are looking for love in all the wrong places.
Why would Hispanics vote for a party that bashes them? What is there to like when immigration reform means more immigrants from Europe? Or telling the 11 million who are here that they can stay, but they will never be “one of us” meaning no path to citizenship.
Why would women vote for a party that wages a war on them every day and in every way? Women understand where Republicans stand when nearly all of them voted against the Ledbetter Act, and they regularly kill equal pay for equal work laws.
In the states, Republicans are waging a war on Planned Parenthood where poor women get health screenings. They pass anti-abortion bills not jobs bills. They are systematically making abortion illegal in the states despite the Constitution. Republicans pass forced ultra-sound laws that win few hearts and minds of young women.
Large numbers of Republicans in Congress voted against the Violence Against Women Act. Every week another Republican makes an ignorant and insensitive comment about rape. They seem to be titillated by doing so. How much “outreach” can fix that?
What do Republicans offer African Americans when they spend millions to stop them from voting? Blacks know that the president who emancipated the slaves would not even fare as well as John Huntsman in a Republican primary today.
Republicans deny evolution and climate change, oppose green energy, kill funding for research, cut Pell grants, and raise interest on student loans. How do they expect these policies to entice young people to sign on to their cause?
When they continue to advocate tax policies that favor the extremely wealthy at the expense of the middle class, outreach is not likely to work. People do not knowingly vote against their own self interest.
Finally, how does the party think the LGBT community will embrace them when only three Republicans in Congress support marriage equality? What does it say when the most recent convert, Senator Portman, has been attacked by Republicans for changing his view?
Perhaps that $10 million should be spent on figuring out how to change what the Republican Party stands for, and who it stands for.
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