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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus gestures while speaking at the National Press Club in Washington Monday, March 18, 2013. The RNC formally endorsed immigration reform on Monday and outlined plans as part of a strategy to make the GOP more "welcoming and inclusive" for voters who overwhelmingly supported Democrats in 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Why the new GOP playbook focuses on the wrong things

BY Josh Kerns  on March 19, 2013 @ 1:16 pm

The GOP is abuzz after party leaders offered a highly critical review of their performance in the last presidential election, and are promising big changes to help bring more voters into the tent and reverse the losses. But a leading political analyst says the Republican National Committee's new playbook, the "Growth and Opportunity Project Report," focuses too much on tactics and strategies.

"What it does not focus on is the Republicans potentially changing the message and stance on issues and I think that's a much more difficult, in depth problem to tackle, I don't think they've come to terms with," said David Mark, editor-in-chief of the highly respected Politix blog in an appearance on KIRO Radio's Andrew Walsh Show.

RNC head Reince Preibus unveiled the report Monday, saying Republicans need to do far more to reach minority groups and connect more with the middle class, and called the November election "a wake-up call."

"There's no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren't inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; and our primary and debate process needed improvement."

"So, there's no one solution," he said. "There's a long list of them."

The report found voters consider the GOP "scary" and "out of touch," a party of old, white guys.

The playbook is recommending hundreds of fixes including a $10 million marketing campaign, a shorter primary season, fewer debates and an earlier convention to help the eventual nominee get a jump on the general election. But Mark says the report is strangely silent on issues like gay rights and abortion, focusing only on immigration.

"The message of the report seems to be we could have won this election with Mitt Romney as the nominee if he'd just had a better field operation and done better at getting people out to polls," Mark said.

While Preibus said the party will pay millions to hire hundreds of paid staffers nationwide to recruit Hispanics and other minorities, Mark countered the GOP seems to not realize many of them care far more about other issues such as social service programs like Medicare, Social Security and health care rather than immigration.

"That's something Republicans don't seem to want to change on and that's a big problem for them," he said.

That divide could further erode the GOP's shrinking base. Mark pointed out voters are now 72 percent white nationally, down from 87 percent when Bill Clinton was elected in 1992.

"For now, they can still win elections. The problem is in the future, years down the line they're going to be left with nothing, no kind of political support," he warned.

The challenge facing the GOP is reminiscent of the internal struggles Democrats faced after losing three straight presidential elections in the 1980's, which led to a number of compromises within the party that ultimately led to Clinton's election.

But making such changes could be more difficult for the GOP, Mark said, because the party remains sharply divided internally. He pointed to the various factions within the party from moderate Republicans to staunch conservatives willing to compromise - such as House speaker John Boehner - to the uncompromising tea party wing of the party. He said if they can't make peace among themselves, they'll be hard pressed to retake the White House in 2016.

Josh Kerns, MyNorthwest.com Reporter
Josh Kerns is co-host of KIRO Radio's Seattle Sounds (Saturday nights 7-8) and a digital content producer for MyNorthwest.com.
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Comments (8)


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  • hnuh wrote...
    03-19-2013 wrong focus...
    March 19, 2013 12:27 pm
    What would a leftist dooshbag reporter know about GOP messaging? Listening to people who haaaaaate your guts tell you anything is stupid to its core.
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  • Cbrew wrote...
    hnuh
    March 19, 2013 12:59 pm
    Not listening to Poll after Poll after Poll is stupid to it's core... organizations adapt or die... If the Republican Party doesn't become an organization of free thinkers, of people with common sense agendas, with the American People coming before Politics... it will die.
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  • hnuh wrote...
    @Cbrew...
    March 19, 2013 2:35 pm
    Becoming Democrat lite has already had the effect of weakening the Republican party nationally. Bush was Democrat lite. McCain was Democrat lite. Romney was straight up Democrat until he had an opportunistic change of heart. On a State level Republicans have had much more success over the last several election cycles as the destruction leftist ideas have has become more and more apparent to local voters. Your post demonstrates my point... listen to polls taken by people who haaaaaate your guts, filtered through media that haaaaaates your guts and viola! Democrat lite! Sure loser competing against the full strength brand of handouts, class envy, sloth and amorality.
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  • DesertRez wrote...
    Oh so
    March 19, 2013 2:49 pm
    the solution is to jettison all of the key positions...good idea!

    The party will improve when young smart guys like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan jettison old farts like McCain. A path to legal immigration and/or work visas is a good start. The gun ban stuff is going to kill the D's in the next cycle.

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  • JW1984 wrote...
    When you are right and you still lose...
    March 20, 2013 12:41 pm
    ...than it IS the "tactics and strategies" that are your problem, not substance. The GOP platform is correct, even though many republicans hypocritically deveate from it. Supply-side economics leads to more overall prosperity and social well-being than Keynsian economics, and far more than socialist economics. This is a fact, just as indisputably as 2+2=4. If you can't convince someone of it, than you need to change your communication, not your position. It's just like teaching math to a child. When it comes to social issues, there is a little more gray area, but let me just say that I admire the man who is willing to go down with a ship they know is sinking rather than compromise their values. I would rather go down fighting for the conservative cause than contribute to its watering-down in an attempt to stay alive. Why? Because in the end, I will be able to take pride in knowing that I WAS RIGHT.
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  • sghouse wrote...
    If FISCAL conservatives
    March 20, 2013 3:03 pm
    ..of whatever party don't get control of our runaway federal government then none of these arguments will matter at all. Look at Greece, Cyprus, and much of the rest of Europe that has traveled this same road already. We are headed for a crash of epic proportion and the gimmee's don't give a crap as long as they get their EBT or Obama 'fone'.

    Frankly, I believe within my children's lifetime, the USA as we know it will no longer exist. What will replace it I shudder to imagine.

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