After an election loss, recriminations are inevitable. Everyone believes they know what went wrong and who is to blame for it. Conservatives in the Republican Party are blaming the corruption and apostasies of senators like Ted Stevens (R-AK) for the party’s tarnished image, while more elite conservative opinion-makers like Kathleen Parker and David Brooks are arguing that the party must head left, and specifically jettison social conservatives, to appeal to a broader base of the electorate.
Most of these arguments are not credible. For instance, the latter group cites poll evidence showing that such-and-such demographic groups, who had voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, all of a sudden switched to supporting Obama and other Democrats. That is a true observation, but it does not necessarily follow that the GOP should act more Democratic to appeal to these groups. The problem is that all demographic groups favored the Democrats more this year than they did last election. The GOP lost ground among men, women, all educational and income levels, minorities, and age groups. There is no group here that can be targeted for a specific appeal, no Rovian strategy that will woo a particular demographic. The GOP simply lost.
This blog is no longer active as of October 31, 2011
