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GOP Angst

The soul-searching, via Politico. A couple of highlights:

“I have looked down at the grave of the Republican Party and this ain’t it,” assured Mississippi Gov. and 90s-era RNC chairman Haley Barbour, “I’ve seen it a lot worse.”

…

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, who has worked at the highest levels of Kentucky and national Republican politics for decades, expressed optimism about the GOP’s prospects for the 2010 mid-term elections, suggesting the GOP losses this year were a result of a toxic stew very much unique to the cycle …

“If you look at the American electorate, and where they stand and what they believe—we’re in good shape.”

…

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty opened up a luncheon speech to his fellow governors by noting that excuses could be made, citing the unpopularity of President Bush, the Iraq war and the poor state of the economy.

But, he continued, such a rationale was “not fair and it’s not complete.” The party’s problem, he said, is far more grave.

“We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the northeast; we are losing our ability to compete in the Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the west coast,” Pawlenty argued, also citing similar problems in the mid-Atlantic and interior west. “Similarly, we cannot compete and prevail as a majority governing party when we have a significant deficit as we do with woman, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes.”

…

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, 48, made a similar case.

“I’m not one who buys the idea that it’s just an aberration,” Huntsman said …

“We’re fundamentally staring down a demographic shift that we’ve never seen before in America,” he observed.

Huntsman singled out the environment as one issue that was doing severe damage to the party, especially among younger voters, supported Obama by overwhelmingly numbers.

“We as Republicans can’t shy away from speaking the word ‘environment,’ and we shouldn’t shy away from speaking the words ‘climate change,’” Huntsman told reporters. “When you’ve got a body of science that already is rendering certain judgments about what is happening in our world, for us to shy away, say it doesn’t matter as an issue, I think is foolhardy, it’s short-sighted and it’s bound to do us damage in the longer-term.”

There definitely are mood problems, communication problems, message problems, though I doubt that will be solved by adopting the nonsense of the left simply because the mood ring glowed blue in 2008. In the case of climate change, for example, you can get on the Democratic bandwagon to shut down the coal industry, or you can try pointing out the serious economic damage that can ensue from buying into a lot of seriously flawed information from a lot of blinkered scientists. As for demographics, all those people have wallets, too. Maybe someone needs to point out you can’t have your pocket picked and stuffed at the same time.

Malkin with some thoughts on GOP redemption: Rollback the Bailouts, Draw a Line in the Sand.

Topics: pols

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:59 am on Monday, November 17, 2008

2 Responses to “GOP Angst”

1. Fatty Bolger Says:
   November 17th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   Embracing “climate change” is not the way forward for the Republican party, that much is certain. What did support for idiotic policies like CO2 cap-and-trade get McCain? Nada.

2. RebeccaH Says:
   November 17th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

   “Similarly, we cannot compete and prevail as a majority governing party when we have a significant deficit as we do with woman, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes.”

   And yet, George Bush had the most diverse administration ever.

   As for the “climate change” bugaboo, perhaps Gov. Huntsman should keep up-to-date with the latest data.

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