by Nikhil Dyundi
There is an old adage that oppositions do not win elections, governments lose them. Clearly, there is a lot of truth in this; after all, it is only the government that can actually do things. The administration has the record to be judged.
But let us be in no doubt about what happened yesterday: yes president Obama won, but more than anything else, the Republicans lost. They lost, not only the presidency but failed to retake the senate in a year when both should have been a lock.
They achieved this improbable feat because of one simple fact: their base is batshit insane.
As a result, no vaguely competitive candidate stepped forward for the presidential nomination, leaving them with the weakest representative in decades. Electable, centrist senate incumbents and prospective candidates were brushed aside to make way for a variety of fruitloops who couldn’t stop talking about rape.
It’s hard for US journalists to report the underlying problem with the Republicans.
A mix of natural timidity combined with some genuine fear of the wrath of the wingnut trolls mean most broadcast and print media in the US opt to split the difference between the parties and report the situation as if both are equally culpable for the nation’s ills. As if this were politics as normal.
It’s not. For the past twenty years the Republican party has been headed hard right and they have now got to a point where nothing is normal.
The evidence of humanity’s evolution, the laws of biology when it comes to rape, even basic arithmetic that says you can’t lavishly increase defence spending while cutting taxes and expect the deficit to go down – all are disputed by the mainstream Republican party.
The lunatics are running the asylum and after last night, they are going to get really, really mad. Because part of being a lunatic is not understanding why people disagree with you. The crazies know they are right, so the only explanation for losing an election is that the undiluted purity of the message was not communicated to the electorate.
The compromisers interfered with the good word and confused the voters. The liberal mainstream media (boo, hiss) deliberately distorted the Republican platform to help get their guy back into the Whitehouse.
For the Republican base, the conclusion will be simple: the candidate was the problem. Romney wasn’t forceful or clear enough about his conservative values. The liberal media were always in the tank for the Democrats, what was needed was someone who could cut through the bias to the voters.
The prescription for future candidates, presidential or otherwise, will be equally simple: they need candidates who will shout louder, both ideologically and literally. Only through the power of righteous shouting will the Republicans overcome the naysayers and liberal unbelievers to save America.
For the health of American politics, it would have been better if the Republicans had picked Rick Santorum as their candidate, or indeed anyone authentically of the right. A Goldwater level defeat would have been the type of unequivocal judgement that might, just might, have shocked enough of the Republican party back to its senses.
But Romney? He gives the crazies a scapegoat.
For the next four years, expect even more extreme policies, madder candidates and, if at all possible, less co-operation in Congress. For anyone interested in American politics, best get some ear plugs, the Republican noise machine is about to turn the amp up to 11.
Nikhil Dyundi is a registered Democrat and a political consultant
Tags: Nikhil Dyundi, Republiicans, tea party, US presidential election 2012
So, no change there then. Same ol President; same ol Congress and Senate. Same ol problems regarding the economy. Same ol Right Wing with its head stuck firmly in the sand wanting to lurch even further to the Right and refusing to acknowledge that the US has changed in its demography. Reminds me a bit of Britain. If a GE were held tomorrow, here, it would deliver another Coalition; and the same goes for 2015.
But therre is hope for the Republicans in that they become a more inclusive Party and shed their ultra right wing. It would be a pity if they disappear altogether, because they do have some moral family values, but they need to embrace HealthCare and Workfare and Regulate Big Business more and pay their taxes and redistribute wealth more fairly.
This seems more like venting than a rational blog. I suppose the irony is lost on Dyundi that they call Republicans crazy and then write crazy garbage themselves.
I was in the US for the first debate and what the left wing media (BBC et al) did not report here in the UK was that Romney slaughtered Obama. Romney actually had some ideas on the economy where Obama was the usual “hope, change….blah blah”. Remember also that Obama is no friend of the UK, so lefties need not wet their pants just yet.
Discussing Obama when in the US with some American friends I said he was anti-British – their response was “hell he’s anti-American”.
The popular vote still gave the batshit party 48.4 %, not bad for a bunch on loonies.
Without the liberal media bias, and racial effect of African Americans voting Obama, America is probably still a batshit crazy country. You lefties want the Republicans to move to the centre so Democrats will move further to the left. For a concervative like me its more important the Republicans stay as far right as possible than win elections.
Nice try though.
@Ex Labour
Obama lost the first debate then won the next two. He then won the presidency. Handsomely as it turned out.
Smashed the GOP out the Park in fact.
@Scott
Please can the GOP stay far right?
Please! Please! Please!
On current demographics political oblivion for the mad GOP would surely be the only destination.
A good article. If the Republicans pick a “Goldwater” in 2016 they will be slaughtered. A moderate conservative will probably win.
The important point for a Labour website is that a black liberal has won two elections in the United States, which shows that it should be possible for a social democratic Labour Party to win in Britain. US liberals do not need to be New Democrats and we do not need to be New Labour. To paraphrase Obama, we do not need two Conservative Parties.
@Ben M
I note that all the exit polls which asked questions on the economy, jobs etc Romney demolished Obama – handsomely as you like to say. The only reason Obama was voted back in was that Romney lost out on social policy where the black and latino vote put Obama ahead.
These people are probably most of the 47% which Romney pointed out would vote Democrat as they are recipients of state aid. Like Labour in the UK Obama looks after his core voters.
“A moderate conservative will probably win.”
Maybe. Four years mean ten million elderly voters have died and ten million younger voters will have turned eighteen. Gay marriage isn’t an issue amongst younger voters, abortion barely is, immigration is an issue for a large proportion of younger voters (ie, Hispanic) and not in a way that the Republicans will like. Even a “moderate” conservative will have to strike poses on abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage in order to get the nomination. And then be annihilated in the general.
The primary system kills them: they have to appeal to a smaller and smaller pool of Republican activists, and the act of doing that forces them to leave hostages to fortune which destroy them in the real election. Pre-internet, pre iPhone they could get away with this: they could either dog whistle or just speak at small meetings, promise the world to nutters in the caucuses, and then emerge once they had the nomination and pose as a centrist. Not any more…
“These people are probably most of the 47% which Romney pointed out would vote Democrat as they are recipients of state aid.”
Yeah. That 47% includes almost every pensioner in the US. That’s an incredibly stupid strategy for a party whose base is older, more conservative voters.
Demographically, the Republicans face a problem that they have a shrinking base. They tend to be strong in the areas where fewest people live and amongst white, rural voters.
Clearly it is the job of any party to look after its core voters. The Republicans’ problem is that their core is shrinking.
Its not entirely dissimilar here as both parties lose elements of their core and partisanship decreases. I think the next election will show similar division here
Tokyo and Mike raise good points. The republicans – like the Tories – have an ageing voter base and there’s no sign of any great change that would make them attractive to young or minority voters.
OTH, the democrats, like Labour here, are massively out of touch with their average supporter. Labour made a disastrous choice in opposing ‘devo-max’ for Scotland. if they had adopted it Ed could have defined it and controlled it. Instead lots of people (from business leaders to communists) will – over the next two years – slide toward the ‘Yes’ camp.
The Democrats are going to have a similar problem with marijuana in Colorado and Washington and all the other states that adopt similar measures over the next few years. Do they plumo for states rights and the will of he voters or do they stick with the sort of prohibition that built organised crime into a real force in the 1920s?
Labour has actually been there already; Brown’s decision to suck up to the Daily mail over cannabis gained Labour nothing, but cost at least a million votes and probably more. How did that work out? Not so good really given that it gave us a Tory government