Over the past few weeks you could see that many analysts in the media are now concluding that Republican Party “rebranding” is all but officially dead. It’s not just that the GOP seems to be (again) rejecting any suggestion that it needs to moderate the party slightly, or expand it’s existing coalition by offering a bigger tent. It’s that a big chunk of the party is essentially and almost gleefully making it clear that they don’t feel the party needs to change and just needs to keep on doin’ what it has been doin’ — only do more of it, proudly, defiantly and those who don’t like it can just lump it.
Here are two of the verdicts now coming in. A bit from the latest AP story:
The Republican Party’s road map for winning presidential elections looks hazier than ever as GOP lawmakers and others reject what many considered obvious lessons from Mitt Romney’s loss last year.
House Republicans are rebelling against the key recommendation of a party-sanctioned post-mortem: embrace “comprehensive immigration reform” or suffer crippling losses among Hispanic voters in 2016 and beyond.
Widespread rejection of warnings from establishment Republicans goes beyond that, however. Many activists say the party simply needs to articulate its conservative principles more skillfully, without modifying any policies, even after losing the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections.
Despite Romney’s poor showing among female voters, House Republicans this past week invited renewed Democratic taunts of a “war against women” by passing the most restrictive abortion measure in years.
Despite corporate fears of the economic damage that would result from a default on U.S. obligations, GOP lawmakers are threatening to block an increase in the government’s borrowing limit later this year if President Barack Obama won’t accept spending cuts he staunchly opposes.
Republicans have lots of time to sort out their priorities and pick a nominee before 2016. They may need it.
It’s extensive, so go the the link and read the rest.
Eleanor Clift in The Daily Beast:
The Republican Party in the last month has taken a sharp turn to the right, confounding more moderate voices urging the party re-brand itself after last year’s election loss. A Tea Party rally outside the Capitol Thursday captured the defiant mood with the far right maligning the merely right. Talk-show host Glenn Beck called the GOP “the Whig party,” with John Boehner the head Whig for appearing open to compromise. There were cries of “learn English” when Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart spoke a few words of Spanish from the podium. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, once a Tea Party favorite, didn’t attend the rally. Part of the Gang of Eight working on a bipartisan immigration bill, his name drew loud boos.
What’s going on? Does the GOP have a death wish? Any voter watching this freak show must wonder what happened to all those declarations about reaching out to Hispanics and women, and being more inclusive now that the 21-century is well underway. Recent events suggest that the GOP’s outreach strategy has been shelved, overtaken by a wave of recent polling combined with historical trends that has Republicans convinced that the path to victory lies in—drum roll—doing exactly what they were doing, only more so.
AND:
For a glimpse inside the workings of the GOP, I turned to Ohio Republican Steve LaTourette, who left Congress in January after serving 18 years in the House. He thought his party was on the right path when Republican Chairman Reince Priebus issued a soul-searching report after the 2012 election. “Then the last month something bad happened,” LaTourette said, blaming a flood of new data from Republican pollsters sketching out the stakes for 2014.
In addition to being an historically challenging “six-year itch” midterm election for an incumbent president, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, is more unpopular now than it’s ever been with close to half of Americans 49 percent believing it’s a bad idea according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in early June. The message to Republicans, says LaTourette, “Now is not the time to be more moderate, to shift gears, to be welcoming—now’s the time to double down.”
He thinks it’s the wrong strategic choice. “I agree with Priebus. There are not enough 50-year-old white guys who are mad (at the world) to win elections.” Yet that’s the audience House Republicans are playing to in the way they craft legislation, and in the votes they hold. Thursday’s defeat of a farm bill that in ordinary times would easily pass with bipartisan support is the latest example of Republicans at war with themselves, and with much of the country.
There’s a lot more. Go to the link to read the rest.
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.