My children grew up very political household and from an early age helped on literature drops and working the polls on election day. In those days, I was a city committee member for the Republican Party of Virginia Beach and precinct captain for the Alanton precinct in Virginia Beach, a Republican bastion. Now, like both of their parents and most of their extended family, my children vote a straight Democrat ticket. I have been asked "how did all of this happen.?" My short handed response is that the Christofascist take over of the GOP drove us all away. A new study provides a more detailed answer as to how the GOP drove away young voters. Politico looks at the phenomenon. Here are some article excerpts:
A new postmortem on the November elections from the nation’s leading voice for college Republicans offers a searing indictment of the GOP “brand” and the major challenges the party faces in wooing young voters, according to a copy given exclusively to POLITICO.
The College Republican National Committee on Monday will make public a detailed report — the result of extensive polling and focus groups — dissecting what went wrong for Republicans with young voters in the 2012 elections and how the party can improve its showing with that key demographic in the future.
It’s not a pretty picture. In fact, it’s a “dismal present situation,” the report says. The 95-page study, which looked at the party’s views on social and economic issues, as well as its messaging and outreach, echoes a March report on the election debacle issued by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, which presented a devastating assessment of the party’s current state of affairs.
The study slams some Republicans’ almost singular focus on downsizing Big Government and cutting taxes; candidates’ use of offensive, polarizing rhetoric; and the party’s belly-flop efforts at messaging and outreach, even as the report presents a way forward and, at times, strikes an optimistic tone.
In the report, the young Republican activists acknowledge their party has suffered significant damage in recent years. A sampling of the critique on:
Gay marriage: “On the ‘open-minded’ issue … [w]e will face serious difficulty so long as the issue of gay marriage remains on the table.”
Hispanics: “Latino voters … tend to think the GOP couldn’t care less about them.”
Perception of the party’s economic stance: “We’ve become the party that will pat you on your back when you make it, but won’t offer you a hand to help you get there.”
Big reason for the image problem: The “outrageous statements made by errant Republican voices.”
Words that up-for-grabs voters associate with the GOP: “The responses were brutal: closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.”
Leaders of the organization will publicly release the study on Monday and will present their findings privately to Republican officials and outside groups, though current CRNC Chairwoman Alex Smith declined to specify who would be there.
Again, what is so damning is that these comments came from Republicans, not Democrats or independents. And driving this losing agenda is the Christofascists and the Tea Party, the two groups that the GOP overall seems only too willing to prostitute itself to,
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