Sunday, March 24, 2013

Republican Post Mortem Report

After the 2012 wipeout, the Republican National Committee has issued a "What went wrong and how do we fix it" (aka Growth and Opportunity) report.  It came to me yesterday.  I skimmed it.  It's wordy.  It's full of nice sounding but non specific verbiage, repeated over and over again.  It fails to grapple with the key issues.
   Number One key issue is the women's vote.  We lost the woman's vote to Obama by a margin of 10%.  Right there is the whole election.  Ten percent of half the population is more the all the Hispanics, and all the gays put together.  Republicans have to figure out what has to be done to regain the woman's vote.  Does the party have to drop it's anti abortion stance?  Does it have to offer free contraceptives to all?  How many women care about charter schools?  Do we need to support charter schools?  Teachers (mostly women) are dead set against charter schools.  Are there enough mothers who care about charters to offset all those unionized teachers?  How many women care about an opportunity to join the infantry?  Does maternity leave (or paternity leave)  have any resonance with woman voters?  Do women want the right to carry concealed or do they want to take the guns away from the bad guys? 
  Grow and Opportunity report simply doesn't deal with woman's issues. Probably too controversial.
  Number Two key issue is the youth vote, youth being everyone under 30.  Youth care deeply about the internet, specifically the ability to download neat stuff, music, and movies.  They hate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.  They hate the current copyright law that extends copyright forever.  They don't like taxing sales over the internet.
   Young folk are universally in favor of gay marriage.  They see it as a fundamental right, and opposition is seen like racial prejudice or antisemitism.  And,  most young folk see nothing wrong with abortion.  
   And where does the Republican Party stand on any of these issues?  Who knows, Growth and Opportunity report is silent.  Again, probably too controversial.
   Until the Republicans debate these real issues and come to some conclusions, the Democrats will win to next election.


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