The Future of the Republican Party
by Robert Costa
For much of the year, Mitt Romney and his advisers spoke about the presidential campaign as a referendum on President Barack Obama's economic record. "Our view is that this is a very simple election," a senior Romney strategist told U.S. News & World Report in June. "It's a referendum on Obama's handling of the economy. " 1 As a Harvard Business School graduate and a former private-equity executive at Bain Capital, Romney was comfortable making a numbers-driven case against the president.
That strategy changed in August when Romney tapped
Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman, to
be the Republican Party's vice presidential nominee. Quite suddenly, the Romney
campaign's message shifted from a near-constant focus on economic matters to a
broader and fiercer debate about a choice between "two futures," as
Ryan often described it in his speeches. "The election is now a choice,
not a referendum; a contest between two clearly and sharply different policy
visions and views on the role of government," wrote Ben Smith, the editor
of BuzzFeed, soon after the Ryan
pick.4 David Frum, a former
speechwriter for President George W. Bush, agreed, noting that with one
decision, Romney put conservatism on the ballot.5 No longer was the election about the politics of
economic data; it was about the size and scope of government.
Many conservative leaders publicly applauded the selection,
because Ryan is a rising star. "It was foremost a shrewd acknowledgment on
Mr. Romney's part that his path to the White House is going to take more than
pointing out the obvious," wrote Kim Strassel in the Wall Street journal.6 But
privately, the reaction was far more mixed. Romney had abruptly injected a full
dose of conservative ideology into a campaign that had been studiously avoiding
ideology. In the political press, there were whispers about whether Romney
could pull it off "American politics is littered with bold and improbable
decisions that don't work out very well," wrote Peter Beinart in the Daily
Beast. "With
this one, the chances of failure look pretty good. Mitt Romney has now tied his
presidential fortunes to Paul Ryan's budget plan. He may say he doesn't endorse
all the plan's specifics, but as a matter of political reality, he already has.
"7
Soon after, the questions began to mount: With Ryan at his side, would Romney
be able to both excite the base and woo the suburban moderates? Would he be
able to balance his appeal as a northeastern businessman with Ryan's fiscal
bravado? At first blush, the juxtaposition of an experienced former governor
with a young and dynamic legislator made for compelling political theater, but
its political viability was a variable that weighed upon Romney's advisers.
Months later, it's evident that Romney struggled to make the
Ryan pick an election-defining moment. Romney and Ryan enjoyed a personal rapport,
but they rarely managed to present a coherent message about what they
represented. At times, both candidates were quite vocal about being a "choice"
ticket, but in other instances, they ducked ideology and reverted back to
Romney's earlier, simpler theme about an economic "referendum." Less
than three weeks after the Ryan selection, Romney barely touched upon
conservative ideology in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. In
short, the campaign never found its political footing. On the stump, Romney and
Ryan largely avoided making major blunders, but they had difficulties
communicating a vision. Whereas Obama ran a full throated and consistent
campaign for expanding the federal government, Romney unsuccessfully strove to
be simultaneously an ideological conservative to his base and a centrist to
undecided voters. Ryan's selection and
its influence on the campaign remains a prism for interpreting Romney's defeat
and thinking about the GOP's future.
At the time of the pick, it was an understandable maneuver
to balance the ticket, but later, it became indicative of an uneasy strategy.
The pair hoped to build a coalition among the GOP's various wings, but,
ultimately, they failed to weave a thread through those groups. The challenge
for the Republican Party in the second Obama term is figuring out how to
succeed where Romney and Ryan could not. How does the party increase its ranks and
raise its poll numbers while sustaining its core principles? In making its case
to the country, does it need to focus more on the Obama record and less on
ideology? Or does it need to explain, more coherently and in greater detail,
the ideological "choice," the core difference between present-day Democrats
and Republicans? Can the party eventually find the equilibrium that Romney and
Ryan sought? As Republicans grapple with these questions and plot a renewal,
they will have to make decisions in three distinct areas: policy, demographics,
and leadership. When Romney picked Ryan, he looked out at the field of Veep
contenders and tried to pick the person who could attract the most support.
According to Romney's advisers, those three areas were also top considerations.
Indeed, Romney's vice presidential calculus, calibrating and strategizing about
how best to move forward, is akin to what the Republican Party will be doing in
the two years before the 2014 midterms.
It is again, as Ronald Reagan said in 1964, a time for
choosing for the party and the conservative movement. The corning debates
within the party about its platform, its constituencies, and its leading
figures, both in Washington and in the states, will say much about its
potential success. The debates will sometimes be heated, but they are critical,
since the takeaway from the Romney-Ryan experience is that the party is in
flux. It wants to blend its Tea Party vigor (represented by the Ryan pick) with
more traditional values (represented by the Romney nomination), but it
is unsure of how to do this.
THE POLICY WARSThroughout the 2012 general election campaign, Ryan frequently spoke about the looming fiscal crisis. He proclaimed the values of the budget he had authored in the lower chamber as evidence of Republican seriousness about the larger spending issues of our time. Even in the swing state of Florida, which is home to millions of retirees, Ryan campaigned hard on the theme of reforming Medicaid and Medicare through policies, including what he calls "premium support," that would encourage more individual control of health-care spending. Part of the larger Romney-Ryan ambition was to lead a legislative charge to overhaul these federal programs, and Romney told his advisers that he admired Ryan's ability to boldly take on the biggest and often most politically complicated problems. But although conservative intellectuals celebrated the tenaciousness of Romney and Ryan on entitlement reform, many retirees were less appreciative. When Ryan spoke to the AARP in late September, he was booed when he talked about tackling the entitlement issue. On Election Day, Romney and Ryan lost Florida after months of leading the president in Florida polls.
The Romney-Ryan entitlement endeavor was a key part of the campaign's
policy strategy, which looked to the intellectual and legislative leadership of
Ryan and his allies in the House as inspiration for the party at large. On
other issues, such as foreign policy and taxes, Romney and Ryan held
traditional Republican positions (a strong, well-funded military; lowering tax
rates), but the campaign's platform generally mirrored the move by House
Republicans in 2011-2012 to shift the party to the right. Now, as Ryan returns
to the chairmanship of the Budget Committee, he will be in a position to
continue the House-driven molding of national Republican policy, but the stakes
and the composition of the debate have changed. The coming policy wars are
likely to be less about how Ryan is positioning the party to take on
entitlements and more about whether the party even wants to lead its policy
agenda with the issue, and whether on other issues, such as taxes and foreign
policy, we will begin to see a drift back toward the center.
"The test will be whether Mr. Ryan . . . can make the
transition from House budget philosopher to governing heavyweight who can help negotiate
a bipartisan deal and sell it to his colleagues," wrote Jennifer Steinhauer,
a New York Times reporter, in late November. But Ryan will not be the only force in the debate
about the direction of policy. As an influential congressman fresh off the GOP
ticket, he'll be a player, but the party is no longer subject to the leadership
of the presidential candidate.
For instance, House Speaker John Boehner, who has led the
Republican conference since 2007, said in a speech after the election that he
is willing to make concessions on tax revenue. This is evidence of an almost
immediate change in the policy talks within the party. Romney and Ryan were wary
of ever discussing a Republican agreement about revenue increases, but Boehner
interpreted the election as a clue to the future. "That is the will of the
people, and we answer to them," Boehner said at a Capitol news conference.
"For purposes of forging a bipartisan agreement that begins to solve the
problem, we're willing to accept new revenue, under the right conditions.
"9
"Not since the 1970s have Republicans been so weak on the tax
issue," says David Weigel, a Slate writer. "Like Romney said,
in his way, they're victims of their own success. They've lowered rates to the
extent that voters don't fret about them. So they're no longer talking about
the Dec. 31 deadline for the tax rates as a Masada, a full-bore defense of the old
rates. They're talking about what they can get if they accede to the Democrats."10 The famous tax
"pledge" many Republican lawmakers have made, working with anti-tax
activist Grover Norquist, now seems to be less of an issue. Before the
election, breaking the Norquist pledge could be a perilous political move. Now,
in the post-Romney era, many Republicans see moving toward more revenue options
as living within the new political reality. They are quickly realizing, as
Lloyd Grove wrote in the Daily Beast, that the "grubby business of
entitlement reform,"11 which they had hoped would be the
central project of 2013, would have to be temporarily shelved as they look to
protect the tax rates established a decade ago.
Beyond the initial policy battles over tax rates and
revenue, Republicans will also have to face daunting questions on a variety of
other fronts.
Social conservatism remains an important part of the
national Republican platform, but some leading conservatives are asking whether
the GOP approach to gay marriage, abortion, and drugs fits the times. "The
speed with which civil unions and same-sex marriage have become debatable topics
and even mainstream policies is astonishing," wrote George F. Will in the Washington
Post after the Romney defeat. "As is conservatives' failure to
recognize this: They need not endorse such policies, but neither need they
despise those, such as young people, who favor them."12 The
GOP Senate candidacies of Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in
Indiana, which were both seriously hurt by the candidates' comments about rape, did
not help the Romney-Ryan cause, and they damaged the Republican objective of
using social issues, especially family values and life issues, to win over
select groups of undecided voters. Look for the debate about social
conservatism in the coming months and years to be just as volatile and
unpredictable as the debate over tax revenues.
Republicans are not likely to abandon their conservative
positions on the key social issues, just as they won't abandon their wish for
lower tax rates, but there will be ample debate in the halls of Congress and in
statehouses about how best to hold onto Republican principles while appealing
to the Obama generation.
Immigration, too, will find itself back in the center of the
Republican debates. "For the party in general, however, the problem is
hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change: border fence plus
amnesty," argues Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. "Yes, amnesty.
Use the word. Shock and awe-full legal normalization Gust
short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement. " 13 The position on the opposite
side of the argument, against amnesty, is just as robust as Krauthammer's.
"Having suffered not one but several humiliating defeats on Tuesday,
Republicans are in danger of embracing 'comprehensive' immigration reform-which
is to say, amnesty-out of panic," wrote the editors of National Review, a few days
after Krauthammer's column was published. "The GOP does need to do better
among Hispanics and other voters, but this is not the way to achieve that-and,
more important, it is bad policy. " 14 On foreign policy, the path ahead is murkier,
especially because Romney's defeat is not blamed on his positions, but rather
on his critique of the Obama administration's handling of foreign crises,
especially the attack on American diplomatic officials in Libya. There is
discussion among pundits about whether Republicans need to move closer to Ron
Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman and presidential candidate. Speaking on
Fox News after the election, Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor and a supporter of
President George W. Bush's foreign policy, predicted that future Republican leaders
would pay greater attention to the Ron Paul wing of the party. 'Tm not a fan of
Ron Paul," Kristol said. "But I do think, analytically, that Rand
Paul [Republican senator from Kentucky and Ron Paul's son] could be a
formidable presence in the Republican Party over the next three or four
years."15 But it
will be domestic policy where the party will see the greatest tension.
Overall, there will undoubtedly be tensions. While the Ron
Paul faction is ascending on foreign policy, the GOP establishment in Congress and
in the party ranks remains mostly committed to the Reagan approach of fostering
American strength in the world and a strong military. To at least some extent,
this will be challenged. And on social issues, the party doesn't seem ready,
for the moment, to jettison its traditional positions on marriage and abortion.
But these positions will also be questioned. As conservative intellectual
Reihan Salam said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in
mid-November, the party desperately wants to reformulate its methods.
"[That] doesn't entail jettisoning social conservatism and cultural
populism, but rather reframing them in the interests of making them relevant to
the lived experience of middle America," he said.16 Ramesh Ponnuru, a National Review editor, concurs. "The
Iraq War, the financial crisis, and other issues specific to the late Bush
years obviously did play a huge role" in the Republican defeats in 2006
and 2008, he writes.
"But it's also true that Republicans weren't even
arguing that they had a domestic agenda that would yield any direct benefits
for most voters, and that has to have hurt them."17 The same was true in 2012.
THE DEMOGRAPHIC DEBACLE
The Republicans' demographic problem, exposed by the 2012
exit polls, is hardly a surprise to party grandees. "The numbers tell a
clear story; the demographics of America are changing in a way that is deadly
for the Republican Party as it exists today. A GOP ice age is on the way,"
wrote Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican consultant, in 2009.18 Though policy debates will
form the center of the Republican transition from the Romney campaign to the
future, finding a way to reconcile the party's policies with the country's
changing demographics will be another challenge. There is a growing concern
within the party that the older white voters who helped elect Reagan, George H.
W. Bush, and George W. Bush to the White House over the past three decades can
no longer form an electoral majority, so the party must find a way to reach out
to minority voters, young voters, and other Americans who have not
traditionally identified themselves as conservatives or Republicans.
According to NBC News, party leaders are citing demographics
as the reason for Romney's defeat in behind-the-scenes conversations with donors
and strategists. "This RNC report of exit-poll data, which NBC News has
obtained and which RNC Chair Reince Priebus presented to GOP senators on
Wednesday, states that 'demographic change' in the United States 'is
real,"' reported NBC's Mark Murray. "It notes that the white share of the
electorate has declined from 81 percent in 2000 to 72 percent in 2008. And it
points out that '3 in 10 voters will be minorities in 2016."'19 But most politicos do not
think this challenge is insurmountable.
"While demographic and population trends are clearly
working against Republicans-Texas as a swing state in 2020, anyone?-the party is
not that far, electorally speaking, from creating a credible path back to 270
electoral votes," says the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza. "Find
a way to make the industrial Midwest-Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin and even Pennsylvania-competitive
again and the map suddenly doesn't look so bad for the GOP."20 That said, Hispanics are
going to see a great deal of outreach from Republicans in the next year, and
the immigration-policy debate will be part of that effort. Republicans are very
worried that states such as Florida and Texas, which have large blocs of
Hispanic voters, may be lost to the party permanently unless a fresh message
can be offered. Still, "outreach is not done in a single awkward
lunge," says Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter. "It will
involve more than endorsing comprehensive immigration legislation, though that
is necessary. Hispanic voters have a series of concerns typical of a poorer but
economically mobile community: working schools, college access, health care, a
working safety net. " 21 The same strategy is also likely to
apply to Roman Catholic voters. This group, like Hispanics, gave the president
strong support, and Republicans are eager to bring them back into the GOP fold.
Catholics represent "more than a quarter of the electorate,"
according to CNN, and have backed Obama for two straight cycles. 22 But while Republican leaders
feel the demographic problem keenly, they also understand that demographics
alone can't take all the
blame for Romney's loss. The shift away from the GOP among certain groups is
seen as a symptom of the larger policy and leadership problems in the party.
"It's clear that with our losses in the presidential race and a number of
key Senate races, we have a period of reflection and recalibration ahead for
the Republican Party," said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the outgoing chairman
of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in a post-election statement.
"While some will want to blame one wing of the party
over the other, the reality is candidates from all
comers of our GOP lost. Clearly we have work to do in the weeks and
months ahead."23 Putting
a Hispanic or another minority politician on the ticket next time, adds Ross
Douthat of the New York Times, won't solve anything unless Republicans
understand the political and economic reasons for the Romney defeat. "Both
shifts, demographic and economic, must be addressed if Republicans are to find
a way back to the majority," he says. "But the temptation for the
party's elites will be to fasten on
the demographic explanation, because playing identity politics seems far less painful
than overhauling the Republican economic message. "24 Nonetheless, something must be done to
address the Republicans' demographic debacle. Romney won white evangelical
voters in strong numbers, and he won churchgoing Catholics easily, too. But
growing numbers of secular, younger, and minority voters are staying away from
the GOP. "A version of his coalition in Virginia-a combination of
minorities, women and younger adults-also helped Mr. Obama win Colorado, Nevada
[and] Florida," reports Michael Shear of the New York Times.25 Addressing demographics will be partly a
matter of policy, partly a matter of politics. Republicans were out-campaigned
by the Obama team when it came to organizing among African Americans,
Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Finding a way to win over these voters will
take time, but it will almost certainly be a major part of the Republican
rehabilitation between now and the next presidential campaign. The party sees
that Romney's model was not sufficient this time, and will be even less so four
years from now.
THE LEADERSHIP VACUUM
Yet before the horse race for the 2016 Republican
presidential nomination begins in earnest around late 2014, the party will have
to fill the leadership vacuum left by the
Romney defeat. Who will step up and become a new national leader for a party in
the wilderness? That is a critical question as the party moves forward. The
early favorites for the 2016 GOP nomination, such as Florida senator Marco
Rubio and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, will continue to be described as
leading figures. Rubio is considered to be a potential point person on
immigration reform, and many Republicans admire Christie as a moderate and a
tough executive. But beyond the pull of certain personalities, the real
leadership debate will be between the Tea Party wing of the party and the more
centrist leadership on Capitol Hill. On policy and on demographics, as
previously discussed, Republicans are adjusting to the election by changing
their tone and approach. The same can be said for how Republicans on Capitol
Hill are adjusting in terms of leadership. Though the top tier of Republican
House and Senate leaders remains unchanged, there are signs that the party is
having internal debates about the tone and style of its leadership.
Speaker Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and
House Whip Kevin McCarthy all kept their spots on the Republican leadership team following the
election, but the House GOP's fourth leadership spot-conference chairman-saw a
fight for the party's future. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of
Washington and Representative Tom Price of Georgia ran against each other for
the position and, although the vote tally has not been made public, McMorris
Rodgers won. Price, a former chairman of the conservative Republican Study
Committee, had the support of Ryan and other Tea Party Republicans but was
unable to beat McMorris Rodgers, a Boehner ally and one of the House GOP's leading
women. "Price, for instance, tied for most conservative House member ...
while McMorris Rodgers ranked 117," according to National Journal's 2011 ratings.26 The early message was that
House Republicans did not want to present an all-male leadership team to the
country mere days after losing among women. It was also a sign that though Ryan
and his conservative allies remain the driving force on public policy, they don't
hold total control.
On the other side of the Capitol, Senator-Elect Ted Cruz of
Texas, a Hispanic Republican and Tea Party favorite, was named vice chairman of
the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio,
an even-tempered Republican who is popular with policy wonks and donors, was
also named vice chairman. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, a low-key
midwesterner, was elected NRSC chairman. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a
soft-spoken conservative, kept his position as minority leader, even though
Republicans had a net loss of two Senate seats in 2012. Moran, Cruz, and
Portman will be major players in the coming year as the GOP tries to win back
seats in the 2014 cycle and build toward a potential majority. Several
Democratic senators will be up for reelection in 2014, and Republicans are
already strategizing about how to win back the upper chamber. These three new
members of the Senate leadership will be parts of the puzzle, but look for
Ryan, Rubio, and other legislators who are not part of the official leadership
structure to continue to influence the party's direction from various media and
other platforms.
For the moment, there is no obvious party leader, either in
the presidential discussion or inside the Beltway. "The party finds itself
in the unenviable position of having to reinvent itself-something most top GOP
strategists and lawmakers agree needs to be done-without an obvious standard-bearer
to carry that message on a daily basis," says Aaron Blake in the Washington Post. "That
could be less than ideal for a party in need of cohesion, leadership and a
steady hand. "27 At
a GOP post-election gubernatorial retreat in Las Vegas, former
Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour said that the party should
take its time in settling on a new spokesman post-Romney. He said there are too
many potential stars to rush to judgment about the future of the party.
"We've got to give our political organization a very serious proctology
exam," Barbour said. "We need
to look everywhere."28
CONCLUSION
When Mitt Romney won the nomination, he first tried to run
his campaign as a referendum on Obama. Then, when he began to slide in the national
polls, he decided to switch to what pundits described as a "choice"
campaign, which put ideology and bold ideas on the ballot, and not just an
argument about a sagging economy and failed stewardship in the Oval Office.
Paul Ryan, as the vice presidential pick, was the keystone to that strategy. In
some ways, Romney did manage to elevate the discussion on entitlements, but he
was not able to successfully build a national majority with his policies or his
appeals to various demographic groups. In the wake of Romney's defeat, the
party is beginning to review his decisions and outlook and to ask itself
questions about where to go on those three issues-policy, demographics, and
leadership. As the 2012 political season closes, the answers are unclear, but
the debate has begun.
Already there are brewing discussions in Congress and in the
states about who should lead, what the party should run on, and how it will
survive in a changing electoral landscape. These are serious questions, and the
post-Romney period will be "a time for choosing" about how the party needs
to evolve.
When Romney tapped Ryan, he had a certain rationale: He
wanted to frame the election as an ideological choice. He knew he needed to be more
than an alternative to a Democratic incumbent who wasn't shy about his desire
to expand the federal government. Romney lost, but the Republican Party will
need to address considerations akin to the ones Romney faced in the course of
his veep search. The party needs new faces and new ideas, but deciding which
faces, and which ideas, will be complicated. As Obama is inaugurated and pushes
his second-term agenda, Republicans will need to do more than elevate one
politician or another into the void.
Before they choose their next nominee, Republicans have to decide,
once again, who they are.
NOTES
1. Kenneth T. Walsh, "Team Romney: Election a
Referendum on The Economy," U.S. News & World Report, accessed December 20, 2012,
www.usnews.com/news/blogs/Ken-Walshs-Washington/2012/06/ 15/
team-romney-election-a-referendum-on-the-economy.
2. Christina Bellatoni and Terence Burlij, "Romney Bus
Tour Begins after Day of Economic Debate," PBS.org,June 15, 2012.
3. Nate Silver, "Referendum or Choice, Which Candidate
Will Show Fighting Spirit?," New York Times, October 22, 2012.
4. Ben Smith, "Ryan Pick Means a New Campaign for
Romney," BuzzFeed, August 10, 2012.
5. David Frum, "Why Ryan?," Daily Beast, August 11,
2012, www.thedailybeast .com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan.htrnl.
6. Kimberly A. Strassel, "Why Romney Chose
Ryan," Wall Street
Journal, August 14, 2012.
7. Peter Beinart, "Mitt Romney's Pick of Paul Ryan:
Bold Doesn't Always Work," Daily Beast, August 13, 2012.
8.Jennifer Steinhauer, "Back on Hill, Ryan Remains a
Fiscal Force," New York Times,
November 18, 2012.
9. John A. Boehner, "Speaker Boehner
Calls for Bipartisan Action to Avert the Fiscal Cliff," Office of the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, November 7, 2012, accessed December
20, 2012, www.speaker.gov/speech/full-text-speaker -boehner-calls-bipartisan-action-avert-fiscal-cliff.
10. David Weigel, "Tax Hike Nation," Slate, November 16, 2012.
11. Lloyd Grove, "Grover Norquist Sees the Fiscal Cliff
and Guns It," Daily Beast,
November 16, 2012, www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/16/grover -norquist-sees-the-fiscal-cliff-and-guns-it.htrnl.
12. George F. Will, "A Reformed Republican Party,"
Washington Post, November
16, 2012.
13. Charles Krauthammer, "The Way Forward," Washington Post, November
9, 2012.
14. "The Amnesty Delusion," National Review, November
12, 2012.
15. William Kristol, Fox News Sunday interview, Fox News, November 11, 2012.
16. Reihan Salam, remarks at the American Enterprise
Institute, November 16, 2012.
17. Ramesh Ponnuru, "The Party's Problem," National Review, November
14, 2012.
18. Mike Murphy, "For Republicans, the Ice Age
Cometh," Time, June
22, 2009.
19. A Time for Choosing 175 19. Mark Murray, "RNC Report Suggest Other
Reasons Why Romney Lost," NBC News, November 16, 2012.
20. Chris Cillizza, "Future for Republicans Is Not So
Bad," Washington Post, November
18, 2012 .
21. Michael Gerson, "Shifting Demographics Will Force
GOP's Hand," Washington Post,
November 18, 2012.
22. Dan Gilgoff, "6 Ways Religious Demographics Could
Determine Tuesday's Winner," CNN.com, November 6, 2012.
23. Michael Cooper, "G.O.P. Factions Grapple over
Meaning of Loss," New York
Times, November 7, 2012, accessed December 20, 2012, www.nytimes .com/2012/
11 /08/ us/ politics/ obama-victory-causes-republican-soul-searching .html.
24. Ross Douthat, "The Demographic Excuse," New York Times, November 10,
2012.
25. Michael Shear, "Demographic Shift Brings New Worry
for Republicans," New
York Times, November 7, 2012.
26. Michael Catalini, "McMorris Rodgers vs. Price:
Leadership Race a Study in Contrasts," National]ournal, November 12, 2012.
27. Aaron Blake, "The Republican Party's Leadership
Vacuum," Washington Post,
November 16, 2012.
28. Karen Tumulty and Dan Eggen, "GOP Governors Back
Away from Romney's Remarks," Washington Post, November 15, 2012.
BARACK OBAMA AND THE NEW AMERICA
The 2012 Election and the Changing Face of Politics
Edited by Larry Sabata
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
ISBN 978-1-4422-2263-2
ISBN 978-1-4422-2264-9
ISBN 978-1-4422-2265-6
Think
back over the past twenty years. Americans have endured three recessions, the
last one being the worst since the Great Depression; the devastating,
life-changing attacks on September 11, 2001; two major wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, the former having become the longest conflict in U.S. history; and many
disturbing acts of domestic terrorism, from the Oklahoma City bombing to mass
killings at high schools, colleges, churches, theaters, and even a
congressional town meeting. The national debt has grown massive and our
spending obligations are crushing, yet the gap between rich and poor has grown,
and the future for the nation's middle class as well as young people seeking
educational and employment opportunities appears dimmer.
Yet the country has just reelected its third consecutive
president, Barack Obama, after the two-term presidencies ofBill Clinton and
George W. Bush.
That hasn't happened since the White House tenures of Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe between 1801 and 1825.
It may be that Americans recognize the world's sole
superpower will face great challenges
regardless of who is in power. Voters also understand that in most cases
presidents can't prevent bad things from happening and should be held
accountable mainly for how they confront their tests and trials.
That helps to explain the reelection of President Obama in
difficult economic times. While there has been disappointment, even among some of
Obama's most fervent supporters, that more progress has not been made in
returning the nation to prosperity, people understood that he inherited a mess
and four years was a short time. Voters also judged his opponent, Republican
Mitt Romney, wanting in critical respects.
The 2012 election was a highly competitive and hard-fought
one, but the result was decisive, especially in the Electoral College. This
book is a first look at this remarkable election-how it happened, what
the voting patterns were, and why the electorate made the choices it did.
Some of the country's best academics and political analysts
have come together to offer their viewpoints in this volume:
• After another
closely contested presidential race, Americans are perhaps more divided than
ever; Professor Alan Abramowitz of Emory University looks at these widening
gaps in American life, partisan and otherwise, and how they manifested
themselves this cycle.
• Professor James E. Campbell of the University at
Buffalo-SUNY examines the fundamentals of this election-the economy, the president's
approval rating, and other factors-and how they helped determine the outcome.
• Rhodes Cook, publisher of the widely respected Rhodes Cook
Letter on politics and former writer for Congressional Quarterly, breaks
down the presidential nominating process and ponders the future of the American
political convention.
• Former Federal Elections Commission chairman Michael Toner
and his colleague Karen Trainer write on the impact of the federal elections
laws on this election, with a particular focus on outside group spending.
• Through mediums old (television) and new (social media),
voters were inundated with political messaging throughout the election cycle.
Media expert Diana Owen of Georgetown University looks at how the press covered
the race.
• My superb colleagues at the University of Virginia Center
for Politics, Geoffrey Skelley and Kyle Kondik, analyze 2012's down-ticket contests
for the Senate and governorships (Skelley) and the House of Representatives
(Kondik).
• We are pleased to feature three of the brightest new stars
in political journalism in this volume: Nate Cohn of The New Republic, Jamelle
Bouie of The American
Prospect, and Robert Costa of National
Review. Cohn does a deep dive into the exit polls to examine the demographics
of Election 2012, while Bouie and Costa look forward to the futures of,
respectively, the Democratic and Republican parties.
• After every presidential election, some are quick to say
that the election signals a major change in American politics. Sean Trende, an
analyst at RealClearPolitics, examines 2012's significance and what, if
anything, its results might tell us about upcoming contests.
• Finally, Professor Susan MacManus of the University of
South Florida finishes with some concluding thoughts about the future of the
permanent American political campaign.
This volume could not have readied so quickly after the
election without the hard work of the contributors, but also the professional
staff of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Those who helped keep
the book on track include Center staffers Kondik and Skelley as well as Tim Robinson,
Ken Stroupe, and Mary D. Brown.
We'd also like to thank Rowman and Littlefield for joining
us in this endeavor; Senior Executive Editor Jonathan Sisk, Assistant Editor
Benjamin Verdi, Marketing Manager Deborah Orgel Hudson, and Senior Production Editor
Julia Loy were all invaluable in producing and polishing the book.
We hope our readers find the book helpful as they put the
2012 election into perspective. The contributors make clear how the face of American
politics is changing, but in the end politics is shaped by the people who care
to participate. The most useful participants are those who have taken the time
to understand why we have arrived at our current juncture as a nation-and this
volume may assist you on that path.
Larry J. Sabato
Director, University of Virginia Center for Politics Charlottesville, Virginia January
2013
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