Christine Todd Whitman, a moderate Republican who served as George Bush's environmental protection chief, stated point blank that the Republican party's problem was its "self-imposed captivity to social fundamentalists." Whitman and Robert Bostock, writing in the Washington Post, explained that Obama won because he lured away moderates:
In 2004, Democratic nominee John Kerry held just a nine-percentage-point margin among moderate voters over President Bush. This year, the spread between Barack Obama and McCain was 21 points among this group. The net difference between the two elections is a deficit of nearly 6.4 million moderate votes for the Republicans in 2008.
Whitman and Bostok note that actually social conservatives came out in large numbers for McCain, so it can't be argued that it was a dispirited base that led to the defeat:
Many in the GOP are arguing that John McCain was defeated because the social fundamentalists wouldn't support him. They seem to be suffering from a political strain of Stockholm syndrome. They are identifying with the interests of their political captors and ignoring the views of the larger electorate. This has cost the Republican Party the votes of millions of people who don't find a willingness to acquiesce to hostage-takers a positive trait in potential leaders.
I suppose the folks at Family Research Council didn't much like being referred to as hostage-takers. In their newsletter Friday they responded that most Republicans thought Sarah Palin was the better half of the ticket and argued that the success of the anti-gay-marriage amendments shows the popularity of socially conservative views:
Despite what the centrists claim, it was a social issue-not energy or the environment-that delivered the most sweeping, bipartisan victory in the entire election.Republicans are in this wilderness, not because they spent the last six years embracing limited government and moral values, but because the two parties were almost indistinguishable. The future of the GOP depends on strong leaders who will embrace a positive message of faith and family. Only then will the GOP win the respect of voters.
My own view on who's to blame can be found here.
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These are your social conservatives and this is why McCain lost. He didn't embrace them and rightfully so. This is why John McCain took the microphone away and this is why Sarah Palin scored more points by throwing out the snide hateful comments.
This is who Sarah Palin appealed to.
Associate Press Washington today: "Earlier this week, the Secret Service looked into the case of a sign posted on a tree in Vay, Idaho, with Obama's name and the offer of a "free public hanging." In North Carolina, civil rights officials complained of threatening racist graffiti targeting Obama found in a tunnel near the North Carolina State University campus?
And in a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," said the sign, since taken down"
Republican Party leaders need to focus more strenuously on the serious problems and challenges facing this country in a more responsible way and broad minded way. Palin caused people to focus too narrowly and that cost big time. Unfortunately, many of our elected officials focus more on sound bites and partisan rhetoric instead of realistic solutions to problems and grassroots and average Americans are tired of the same old narrow minded mantras. Party leaders seem to put Party rhetoric ahead of real solutions to problems.
The election showed a trend for broad minded Republicans to become more independent in their political posture, but not necessarily more toward the Democratic Party. They have become disappointed in a narrow minded national posture at a time when that narrow approach is not going to serve the Party well. Our country is faced with huge problems related to the Federal debt and deficit; jobs and economic security; our credit systems; medicare and social security; electrical power needs and alternatives to coal; our reliance on oil for transportation; climate change impacts on fresh water supplies, agriculture, disease, and coastal property; and a badly stretched military organization. Attaching political terms like conservative and liberal to the challenges we face and attacking individuals personally, serves no real purpose other than to divide people and degrades their interest in cooperating to solve the problems we collectively face.
More Americans are steadily moving away from clear political party affiliations and that means the Republican Party base nationally will continue to shrink unless a broader view of problems and possible solutions is taken, especially on those significant issues such as those listed above. Even a few percentage points in the national base make a difference. The single mantra of cutting taxes in the face of rising federal debt and spending just won’t cut it anymore. This is especially true for younger, well educated, politically active voters who are more attuned to and interested in environmental protection and natural resource issues. Party leaders should get their arms firmly around this fact or the GOP will not recover lost ground any time soon.
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