Our political Quote of the Day comes from the Pew Research Center’s Andrew Kohut, who notes that some of the poor election results for the Republican ticket was due to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney being an extremely weak candidate — and the fact that Americans are basically moderate:
Postelection talk of “lessons learned” is often exaggerated and misleading, and so it is in 2012.
A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, that the growing size of these voting blocs represents a decisive challenge for the Republican Party.
Both points are true, but most observers are overstating the gravity of the GOP’s problem. In particular, they are paying too little attention to how weak a candidate Mitt Romney was, and how much that hurt Republican prospects.
He gives details and then at the end of his Wall Streeet Journal piece writes:
In short, the current American electorate is hardly stacked against the Republican Party. But Republicans should recognize that, on balance, Americans remain moderate—holding a mix of liberal and conservative views. They generally believe that small government is better and that ObamaCare is bad. But the exit poll shows that 59% believe abortion should be legal, 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and a surprising plurality support legalizing same-sex marriage in their states.
Threading the ideological needle with this electorate is vital for the Republicans in the future—and for the Democrats, too.
Indeed, the bases of BOTH parties (uh, oh, here come the tiresome “false equivilency” police before I even hit “PUBLISH” on this post) often diss moderates and say the word sneeringly. But, in reality, both parties need moderates because the base of neither party could win elections totally on their own.
The huge error of Republicans in recent years with Fox News and on many conservative websites is to assume their party can work to actively purge moderates or make their arguments in a way that displays concept for those who may be more moderates. The Democrats — during this election year at least — seemed to be wooing moderate voters and it work: Obama won moderate voters handily.
Romney tried in the end with his stunning position shifts during his first debate with Obama, but by then his image was cooked — and moderates turning on Fox News, talk radio or reading some of the statements made by some of the GOPers who went down to flaming defeat didn’t help the GOP with moderate voters.
And, in particular, didn’t help Romney.
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.