Do conservatives even want to win? I deal with that in my latest column on The Week Online:
Is it time to remake the old movie Death Wish — this time starring conservative Republicans who seem to think polls are wrong and that America really loves them and hates Barack Obama?
This is not a joke. Whether conservatives even want to win is a serious question in light of the reaction to the Republican National Committee’s brutally honest “autopsy” on why the party lost the 2012 presidential election. The RNC concluded that the party should change such things as the number of primaries, its image among minority voters, its positions on immigration reform, its ground game — and become less “scary” to voters. It all amounts to this: At least look more moderate. But “moderate” remains one of the filthiest words in the Republican Party, and the feeling is kinda mutual: Moderates voted for Obama in droves.
Indeed, many conservatives are rejecting the RNC’s tough-love report faster than Michele Bachmann running away from a reporter. And it makes you wonder: What are they thinking?
The GOP is divided into two factions symbolized by what New York’s Dan Amira calls “the world’s worst investor, Karl Rove, and the world’s worst vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.