GOP Pines for New Messenger

Further confirming the GOP's denial of reality is a piece in the Washington Post that looks at the recent gathering of Republicans at the Republican National Committee’s three-day winter meeting.  The focus of the meeting was on finding a new messenger, especially for the 2016 presidential ticket.  No matter how good a candidate may be in terms of personal qualities, if her or she is peddling crap and pushing policies that are alienating voters, hello, they are going to be unsuccessful.  This is the fallacy of the GOP's quest for future success.  The fact that Tony Perkins, the president of the hate group Family Research Council - who by the way has past white supremacist ties - played a major role in drafting the GOP's "social issues" 2012 party platform underscores the clueless nature of these people.  Younger voters are leaving religion in droves and minorities clearly see the racist policies of the GOP, yet someone who is like a combination KKK Imperial Wizard/Grand Inquisitor drafted significant portions of the GOP platform.  And they wonder why they lost?  Here are some article highlights:

CHARLOTTE — The official slogan for the Republican National Committee’s three-day winter meeting here was “Renew Grow Win.” But it did little to resolve the bigger issue for the battered party, which could have been summed in one word: How?

If there was an undercurrent of hope at the gathering, which was the first of the party’s central committee since the election, it was in the fact that there is a rising generation of GOP leaders, some of whom are getting buzz as possible presidential candidates in 2016.

Somewhere from this diverse group, Republicans say, could emerge a Moses-like figure — maybe several of them — to lead the party out of its wilderness.

Many here pointed to the 30 Republican governors as having the potential both to set the party on a new course and produce from their ranks a successful 2016 presidential candidate.  One of them, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, gave a keynote address here where he warned: “We must stop being the stupid party. It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults.”

Clinton did more than sharpen the Democratic Party’s talking points. He also helped reorient its philosophy, taking it in a more centrist direction on issues from crime to trade to welfare.

That sort of ideological shift is something that few Republicans are willing to advocate at this point. They still insist that the problem is not what they believe, but how they express it. 

“We do not need to change what we believe as conservatives — our principles are timeless,” Jindal said. “But we do need to reorient our focus to the place where conservatism thrives — in the real world beyond the Washington Beltway.”

Much of that work centers on addressing the GOP deficiencies that were laid bare by the 2012 election. They include a message that turned off swing voters, women and minorities; weak candidates who in some cases repelled those groups; and voter-turnout machinery that seemed decades behind that of Obama’s operation.

All of those things combined to limit the Republicans’ reach and their appeal. Rather than broadening their base, they deepened the perception that they are a party that stands on the side of wealth and privilege.

The GOP's real problem is that voters are not as stupid as they think them to be.  Policies and programs are what decides hoe votes are ultimately casts.  As long as the GOP's policies favor the wealthy, right wing evangelical Christians, and Tea Party extremists, voters will still see right through "improved messaging."