If you are a voter in California, Texas or New York, your vote for President does not matter. Your states are firmly in the camp of one party or the other. In fact, 40 of the 50 states are already decided. When Republicans can only count on states with few electoral votes, increasingly exasperated party members ask, “How can the GOP ever reach 270 electoral votes to win the Presidency?”
The answer is not an easy one; it’ll involve changes to the party’s message, being more inclusive to all viewpoints and being more compassionate in our understanding of the issues affecting Americans across the country.
Looking at the map, a great number of states are Republican namely in the Midwest and the South. Democrats can rely on the West and East coasts, as well as New England and the Great Lakes states. Safe Republican states, those which will absolutely cast their votes for the GOP nominee, total less than 200 electoral votes, while the safe democratic states will automatically give the Democratic candidate over 220 electoral votes. How can the GOP overcome this deficit?
The Republicans have not won a landslide since 1984, with the beloved, nearly sanctified Ronald Reagan at their helm.
Thus, in order to be more competitive and win with the sort of margins not seen since the 1980s the GOP must first enact a shift in messaging.
Based on my observations in the 2011 and 2012 primaries, the party has lost votes by not responding to attacks against candidates and messages; the assaults lobbed against Governor Mitt Romney by his early GOP opponents still resonate with voters and bring up doubts in people’s minds. Instead of defending ideas and individuals, the party has simply tried to direct anger and outrage against the President or Democrats.
The party has allowed itself to become defined by mistakes, poorly phrased, off-the-cuff remarks, sound bites and radicals like Todd Akin.
Republicans must be clear and united in their message, and use language that never decries or derides a group or another ideology. We must not simply speak, but rather communicate with the eloquence of Churchill and the wry wit of Reagan.
It has been noted lately that intellectual purity, the notion that every GOP candidate who runs for office must be conservative on every issue (circumstances notwithstanding) as well as strict conformity to the party platform are valued more in the party than experience or even character.
One needs to look no further back than 2010, when several longtime conservative incumbents, such as Utah Senator Bob Bennett, were expelled because of the Tea Party, which demanded conformity from candidates; those who were labeled “liberal” were banished, often unfairly.
If we are to succeed this year and in subsequent elections, the party absolutely must include every viewpoint, every faction and every ideology in our “big tent.”
Imagine a crowded tent, filled with debate, discussion and healthy disagreement. Those in the tent battling are not humans, but rather elephants. As comical as it is, Republicans are represented as elephants. But our party’s tent is big enough to fit every elephant, whether he or she be Libertarian-leaning, a Republican in Name Only, a Neoconservative or a Ron Paul fan.
For the strength of our party lies not in our “intellectual domination” or intellectual purity on every issue, but rather in our ability to debate issues within our party and present a nuanced, unified argument to the public. This serves the electoral interests of the party and the good of the public.
Romney’s “47 percent” gaffe highlights the third shift the party must enact: the notion of reaching out to all Americans, not only the job creators and business owners.
The GOP plan does not disenfranchise those in lower-income brackets, but the message of the party has been lost on these voters; the benefits of trickle-down economics have not been explained and demonstrated. Party leaders, grassroots activists and candidates must all work on the same sort of messaging and outreach.
This issue, then, is simply tied to branding and messaging. We can never again allow our candidates, our ideas or our party to be lumped into one entity and defined negatively by our opponents, as has been the case in 2012 with Romney.
The media and Democratic narrative detailing Romney as an out-of-touch, obscenely wealthy, unethical businessman has widely been accepted as the man he is, truth notwithstanding.
In future election cycles, we must refute these vile misconceptions and substitute them with truth about our candidates and the principles which define us.
If my party ever wishes to regain its 1980s prominence, we must shift ourselves to an inclusive group that celebrates all points of view, for dissent makes us strong.
If we wish to reach out, our messaging must be clear and targeted to voters; our ideas and strategies are appealing if presented without distortion, and their benefits explained. If it is victory we seek, we must never allow ourselves to be defined by the other side.
This, my friends, is the golden road to 270 electoral votes.
