The GOP Needs a Champion in 2016 - Does One Exist?

One thing that is striking about today's Republican Party - besides it's raging racism and homophobia - is its ability to remain utterly out of touch with objective reality.  Given the insanity of the GOP base, perhaps this phenomenon should not come as any surprise.  As the preliminary projections on the 2016 presidential race, Republicans in the House of Representatives maintained in office by carefully gerrymandered districts have a particular lack of objective reality since they do not have to run in statewide elections where the safety net of gerrymandering does not exist and where even efforts to disenfranchise minorities and young voters cannot guaranty an election victory.  In a piece in Politico, Larry Sabato looks at the situation facing the GOP.  Here are highlights:

We are already at the point in this prematurely unfolding 2016 presidential campaign when a glance down the list of prospective candidates can cause most observers to wince. As that seductive and sultry crooner Peggy Lee once sang, “Is that all there is?”

At the U.Va. Crystal Ball, we currently have 11 Republicans and nine Democrats as probable or possible presidential contenders. The Democrats have fewer and more tentative contenders because of the paralyzing gravitational pull of “Planet Hillary . . .

The Republicans have a sharply different problem. They have plenty of wannabes but no obvious general election winner. It’s not that we can’t construct scenarios by which this or that GOP nominee will capture the White House three years hence. Rather, it is that no one on the present list seems able to convincingly combat the growing demographic edge that produces a Democratic lead in the Electoral College.

Republicans probably won’t believe this assertion once they do reasonably well in this November’s low-turnout, red state-skewed midterm election; they’ll fool themselves again, just as they did after their 2010 midterm triumph, when the most frequently heard GOP comment was, “Even my dog could beat President Obama in 2012.”

Maybe Obama will be so unpopular by 2016, or the economy bad enough, that the Democratic nominee simply can’t win. But if the general election turns out to be closely competitive, as most open-seat contests for the White House are, who among the Republicans can redraw an Electoral College map that’s strongly in the Democrats’ favor?

Many Republicans privately worry that there isn’t anybody, but if forced to choose a champion, they will argue it is Jeb Bush. The Bush family’s extensive network of operatives and contributors will certainly be a giant assist to his nomination, and Jeb’s ties to segments of the Hispanic population, plus past success in critical Florida, give him a plausible general election strategy. But Jeb Bush was last on a Sunshine State ballot in 2002, and it’s not difficult to see him trapped in the web of his brother’s very mixed legacy.

 

Tea Party Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas probably can’t do much better than Bush with Hispanics, despite their ethnic heritage, and because of their far-right positioning they may do far worse with other swing groups.

Gov. Chris Christie’s White House hopes could be a bridge too far. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has a shaky libertarian-lite coalition that rhetorically reaches from Edward Snowden to Monica Lewinsky, but may be subject to catastrophic collapse due to internal stresses and contradictions. Then there’s Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; they would offer the GOP a melancholy reprise of the Goldwater landslide defeat of 1964.

Is there no one who can break the stranglehold Democrats have on 70-90 percent of various demographic minorities (African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asian-Americans, and gays and lesbians) and 55-60 percent of women and the young (age 18-29)? These groups, some swelling in size, practically hand a presidential election to Democrats as long as the party’s candidate can secure a mere 38-40 percent of the white vote.

The natural GOP impulse could be to put a minority or a woman on the ticket, so that gender or ethnic identity can pull enough votes to transform electoral reality. The theory is probably flawed. All by itself, a token representative of diversity—especially in the second slot on the ticket—won’t have the juice to undo decades of partisan polarization among women and minorities.

But what about another approach—finding a nominee who doesn’t just superficially demonstrate diversity but has taken a substantive, career-threatening position in standing up for diversity? . . . . Enter Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. Portman attracted national attention in 2013 when he announced that his son, Will, an undergraduate student at Yale, was gay. Portman declared his support not just for his son but also for same-sex marriage. This happened before the key Supreme Court decision on gay marriage, and showed real family values, not the phony ones invoked by many politicians.

Before Portman’s dramatic announcement, I often heard political observers on both sides of the aisle name him as one of the most qualified and able presidential candidates the GOP could muster. . . . Colleagues on both sides of the aisle like Portman, who is low-key and willing to listen, if not agree, with others’ strongly held points of view. Cheap shots and grandstanding press conferences are not in his repertoire.  He’s serious, credible and smart. So why isn’t there more Portman chatter?

There is an easy answer to Sabato's question: the GOP base.  No matter how good of a candidate Portman might be, it is likely impossible that he could win the nomination given the stranglehold the Christofascists and their incestuous cousins of the Tea Party have on the GOP grass roots and the nominating process. 

Will the Supreme Court Save the GOP From Gay-Marriage?

As any number of posts on this blog and pieces in other media outlets have noted, the Republican Party's opposition to gay marriage is a prime factor motivating younger voters to abandon the GOP.  Yet, given the manner in which the GOP has prostituted itself to the Christofascists, it is unlikely that the party can easily change directions on its anti-gay agenda without a revolt by the spittle drenched Bible beaters that comprise a core element of the party base.  So how does the GOP get itself out of this quandary?  A column at Bloomberg.com suggests that the GOP leadership needs to pray that the U. S. Supreme Court rules broadly in the pending DOMA and Proposition 8 cases and establishing a constitutional right to same sex marriage.  Actually, the premise makes a lot of sense.  Here are column excerpts:

Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio repeated a common argument against the idea that the Supreme Court should find a constitutional right to gay marriage: "An expansive court ruling would run the risk of deepening divisions rather than resolving them." 

This is exactly wrong. An expansive court ruling would settle the gay-marriage issue for good, eliminating the need for 20 years of state legislative fights that will be painful for gays and hugely politically damaging to the Republican Party.

Think about what will happen if the Supreme Court does not find a constitutional right to gay marriage. Popular support for gay marriage will continue to rise. A Washington Post / ABC poll out today has support at 58 percent, up from 37 percent in 2004. The trend toward support is accelerating, and support will probably reach two-thirds within this decade. But 30 states have constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriage; repealing these will take time and public effort, and they will persist long after they are unpopular.

Republican politicians will be in an uncomfortable situation: The remaining same-sex marriage bans will be very unpopular, but many in the conservative base will continue to favor the bans, and many Republican state lawmakers will vote against repealing them. And even after marriage equality becomes a settled issue in the north, Republicans will have to deal with the embarrassing problem of southern Republican politicians and voters clinging to their anti-gay laws -- much in the way that the retrograde racial politics of some southern Republicans have created national branding problems for the party in recent years.

A Supreme Court decision imposing gay marriage nationwide will not only make this problem go away, but it will also give Republican politicians a useful scapegoat to impotently shake their fists at. They can say they wish they could continue the fight against gay marriage, but alas, those judicial activists at the Supreme Court have made it impossible. And then, gradually, everyone who cares about stopping gay marriage will grow old and die, and we can stop talking about the issue.

When Republicans argue that a sweeping decision for gay marriage would sow longstanding division, they are comparing it to Roe v. Wade. But this analysis is wrong.

Most court decisions that expand civil rights end up reducing division. Nobody talks about Brown v. Board of Education or Lawrence v. Texas as preventing Americans from reaching closure in fights over school integration and sodomy laws that could have been reached through the legislative process. Partly, this is because the court was moving in line with shifting public opinion on racial integration and gay rights. The same would be true of a decision this year in favor of gay marriage.

Gay marriage opponents are going to lose the fight; the only question is whether they will lose it in a way that is quick and painless or long and ugly. If Anthony Kennedy or John Roberts vote to strike down all the state bans on gay marriage, Republicans will be furious with them, but the justices will in fact have done the party a huge favor.

Personally, I hope the Court hands down an expansive ruling, but not for the sake of the GOP.  Here in Virginia, absent an expansive ruling, gay marriage will be a long time in coming as the Christofascists at The Family Foundation, Liberty University, et al, threaten and intimidate the Virginia GOP to continue legalized anti-gay animus or else face a primary challenge.

Republican National Committee Post Mortem Study: GOP Must Change

Yet another demonstration of the growing gulf between the remaining rational members of the GOP establishment and the delusional, spittle flecked GOP base is a new 97 page report euphemistically entitled "Growth and Opportunity Project" that was sponsored by the Republican National Committee.  The report does a post mortem on the 2012 electoral disaster and  outlines changes that are needed to allow the GOP to prosper and attract a wider range of voters.   It goes without saying that the report (i) does not flat out recognize the Christofascist element of the GOP base for the toxic poison that it is and (ii) still tries to focus on "improved messaging" and better technology rather than admit the GOP's policies are the real root of the party's problems.  It also goes without saying that some of the suggested means of attracting younger voters are anathema to the Christofascists who would rather stone LGBT Americans to death that cease demanding that the GOP cease its official anti-gay jihad.  Metro Weekly looks at the report's release:  Here are highlights:

In an expansive "autopsy" of the GOP, the Republican National Committee released a report today providing a path forward for the party, one that includes gay inclusion, following a series of defeats last November.

Titled the "Growth and Opportunity Project," the 97-page report specifically singles out the GOP's stance on gay-rights issues as being a key contributor to alienation among younger voters and one that must be addressed if national Republican candidates wish to win at the ballot box.

"For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view," the report states. "Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be."

"If our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out," the report continues, adding that disagreement over 20 percent of the issues should not mean the party cannot come together on the other issues. Polling has consistently shown nearly half of conservatives younger than 30 support marriage equality.

"The Republican Party needs to stop talking to itself. We have become expert in how to provide ideological reinforcement to like-minded people, but devastatingly we have lost the ability to be persuasive with, or welcoming to, those who do not agree with us on every issue," the report states.
Although the report makes no mention of marriage equality nor does it specifically argue for the adoption of a national position on LGBT rights, it does recommend campaigning within the gay community and "communities where Republicans do not normally go to listen and make our case."

The release of the report comes the same day Priebus spoke at the National Press Club in D.C. In a striking statement, Priebus volunteered the name of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who endorsed same-sex marriage last week after learning that his son is gay, when asked what "rising stars" in the party could help "rein in the anti-gay and anti-women sentiments."

"I think Sen. Portman made some pretty big inroads last week," Priebus said. "I think it's about being decent. I think it's about dignity and respect, that nobody deserves to have their dignity diminished, or people don't deserve to be disrespected."

Although Priebus would not say if the RNC supported Portman's position on marriage equality, he said it would not impact the committee's financial support of the Ohio senator.

The bottom line is that the GOP establishment a number of years ago welcomed the Bible beaters into the GOP for short term advantage.  Now, the Christofascists are proving to be a metastasizing cancer  that is killing the GOP's long term chances of survival.  The big issue is how does the GOP establishment marginalize the lunatic base on policy issues yet keep the knuckle draggers going to the polls on election day.  A piece in The Week looks at the GOP quandry.  Here are excerpts:

Fundamentally, the Republican presidential primaries are not controlled by social liberals or social libertarians. They're controlled by evangelicals. The activist energy in the party, the energy that talk radio feeds on and then regurgitates for cud, is decidedly not ready to flip the switch on gay issues. (Rush? Mark Levin? Hannity?) The party platform won't be written by devotees on Jon Huntsman. The GOP cannot win the presidency without evangelicals voting heavily. There is no magic coalition for Republicans right now that does not place social conservatives at its core. That may change as the electoral cohort shifts, but we're a few presidential cycles away from that now.

One thing that's certain: Being pro-gay and Republican won't incur a financial penalty. Almost every big donor in the party either actively or tacitly supports gay rights. The rest are libertarian and don't care. The identifiable social conservative rich folks are dwarfed.

Bryan Fischer at The American Family Association, a registered anti-gay hate group symbolizes the problem the GOP is faced with:

Christofascists Continue to Go Berserk Over Rob Portman's Embrace of Gay Marriage

 

Often it seems the best arguments for LGBT rights and gay marriage are the Christofascists themselves  as they unwittingly display just how horrible and hate filled they are by almost any objective standard.  For example, in the context of the pending gay marriage cases, some of amicus briefs filed by the "godly Christian" crowd fairly drip with anti-gay animus and batshit craziness in general.  Nothing helps one's cause more than having outright lunatics and hate mongers as your principle opponents.  And in the wake of Senator Rob Portman's epiphany on same sex marriage, the spittle from the godly set is flying in sheets and the personal attacks on Portman are likely underscoring just how un-Christian the self anointed pious set has become.  A rant in the American Thinker - which describes itself as a "daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans" is a case in point:

In another case in the annals of conservative "adaptation" to yesterday's liberal innovation, Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman has just announced that he now supports faux marriage. The change was motivated, he said, by his son having come out to him and his wife as a homosexual.

Well, it's a good thing his son didn't announce that he was involved in bestiality.  Talk about a pandering parent.

We can also talk here about letting your personal life influence your public policy. If I were a statesman and learned that a child of mine were hooked on cocaine or had joined the Taliban, I wouldn't change my position on drug policy or terrorism. Of course, Portman has said that his son's revelation inspired some soul searching, and, true, life events can spur thought and intellectual growth. But is his decision really the fruits of sound intellectual analysis?

In an interview on his Obamaesque evolution, Portman talked about his "Christian faith," "love and compassion," and the Golden Rule. As to the last thing, I would certainly want others to do unto me as they would have me do unto them (unless they happen to be masochists), and this would include leading me toward Truth and virtue -- not away from them.

The fact is that God and His law come even before family; "Blood is not thicker than morality," as Dr. Laura Schlessinger once put it. And while this may seem a harsh prescription, it is actually the only way to do right by your family.

There's much more of this drivel which clearly shows that the level of "thoughtful exploration" at American Thinker is limited indeed.   No doubt parents who have thrown away their gay children and forced them to homelessness hold views akin to those of the author of this excrement.  To such "godly" folk, we gays truly are not viewed as even human.