The Virginia GOP's Problem With People

Having just suffered an across the board shut out in the statewide elections where gerrymandered districts do not ensue GOP victories, the Virginia GOP needs to face one of its main problems: people.  Today's GOP simply doesn't like most people.  The Virginia GOP hates gays, blacks, Hispanics and certainly women who want  control over their own bodies.  And the people that the Virginia GOP doesn't like do not like the GOP.  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

Sen. Mark Obenshain’s squeaker defeat for attorney general — confirmed in a recount this past week — could set him up for something bigger but not necessarily better: the titular leadership of a dispirited Republican Party and dibs on its nomination for governor in 2017.

For more than 30 years, the most conservative Republicans have dominated the party’s governing body, the state Central Committee, and many of its subdivisions, the city and county units.

In the 1980s, it was Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson religious conservatives. In the 1990s, it was Mike Farris home-schoolers and Ollie North apologists. In the 2000s, it is Paul-ites and tea partiers. Organizational power translates to political power, assuring these activists the final say in candidate selection.

One would think an electoral embarrassment on the scale suffered by Republicans last month would augur a change in personnel and policy. Not in the Virginia GOP. Setbacks only strengthen the resolve of those on the inside to remain there.

These people are not going unchallenged. . . . . But for Republicans, the primary is a solution fraught with problems.

In 2012, George Allen was nominated by primary for the U.S. Senate seat he narrowly lost six years earlier to Democrat Jim Webb. Allen drew 65 percent of the vote in a four-candidate field. It would qualify as an impressive feat, were the primary not poorly attended.

Slightly more than 200,000 voters participated, compared with the 4,000 who picked this year’s Republican statewide ticket at a convention in Richmond. The Senate primary vote, however, represented less than 5 percent of Virginia’s 5 million-plus electorate.

Primaries are not a panacea for Republicans, particularly when the pool of prospective voters is becoming more perilous. The increasingly diverse electorate, most evident in the Northern Virginia-to-Virginia Beach corridor, is a vote trove for Democrats.

The Republican remedy: more of the members-only politics that got the GOP in trouble in the first place.

Given the dominant profile of Republicans — white, older, lopsidedly male, conservative, and rural — it’s unlikely their primary elections would attract voters different than themselves.

The Republican Party’s problem is one of people. Because it is seen as preoccupied with restricting abortion, cutting taxes, fighting gay rights, and promoting firearms, the GOP is estranged from business, working women and new Virginians. For them, politics seems less relevant.