Don Roach: GOP Relevancy for Dummies

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Don Roach, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

I hate losing. I hate losing passionately. I don’t think I’m a particularly sore loser, I just hate going toe-to-toe with someone and not winning especially when I feel I was the better man. That’s how I felt when I woke up November 7th last week. It was a sad day. In the aftermath of the elections everyone and their brother is offering up reasons why Republicans performed so poorly. Some are calling it a shift away from core traditional values. Some are calling it the year of the woman. Some are talking about the increasing power of Latino voters.

Romney and McCain were too moderate

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However, most national pundits are not talking about the fact that the Republican party in 2008 and 2012 put forth very moderate presidential candidates who did not inspire the Republican base. Meanwhile, Democrats gave us a very liberal candidate in both elections whose base was energized (twice) to come out and vote for their candidate.

I’d argue that both McCain and Romney were the wrong candidates from the party because they had to shift right during the primary – contrary to their historical political records – and then shift back to the left in the General Election while attempting to shore up the conservative base via a conservative pick for Vice President. Barack Obama didn’t need to shift his positions in like manner and correctly called out both McCain and Romney for their duplicity.

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Republicans are not making themselves relatable

I think Republicans are suffering from a lack of what I’ll call relatability. Democrats are defining te terms of the debate and marketing their solutions better. That might be a tough pill to swallow, but it’s the truth. Rhode Island Republicans are not connecting with voters and the race between Brendan Doherty and David Cicilline is illustrative of this point.

In 2012, Doherty spent significantly more than John Loughlin in 2010 and yet lost by a larger margin than Loughlin. Doherty is also more moderate than Loughlin and so, one would think, he would have been more appealing to left-leaning Rhode Island. Unfortunately, Doherty lost to Cicilline by a larger margin than Loughlin which blew my mind.

What explains the margin differential? Is it the Obama wave and should we compare Doherty’s race with the race in 2008 where Patrick Kennedy defeated David Rogers 64 to 36? Doherty received 41 percent of the vote in 2012 so was this progress? Others would suggest that redistricting helped Cicilline as well. In 2010, Providence accounted for 11 percent of the total vote and Cicilline won 69 percent of the vote compared to Loughlin’s 27 percent. In 2012, Providence accounted for 13.3 percent of the vote which is about a 21% increase above 2010 concentration figures. Despite being socially more liberal than Loughlin, Doherty received only 18 percent of Providence’s vote. 18 percent. Less than 2 in 10 people in the city of Providence – the city whose financial foothold was nearly toppled by Cicilline - voted for Brendan Doherty.

I think that’s nuts.

What the voter believes is the only thing that matters

But, it doesn’t really matter what I think; it does matter what voters believe.

I’d like to repeat that because this is why Republicans are losing in this state: it doesn’t really matter what I think; it does matter what voters believe.

Cicilline put on a full scale barrage to scare voters away from Doherty, by misrepresenting his positions on Social Security and abortion. Doherty and Rhode Island Republicans in general have not done a good job of combating these mischaracterizations. And when we don’t, we lose because voters believe what the opposition says about us.

Politics is marketing, it’s not necessarily about who has the best ideas. It’s about who can communicate and connect best with the electorate. As Republicans we need to be better, we must get better. It makes no difference if we have all these great ideas and no elected officials. And frankly, why should the electorate trust us to execute if we can’t convince them to vote out a regime that gave us 38 Studios, the Providence “hurricane”, and many similar atrocities?

Republicans need to become soccer moms and dads

I mean if politicians can get away with that and more, then what does it say about us as politicians? I know some of you will want to blame voters, but if you continue to do that enjoy losing elections. Voters are people who elect politicians says Captain Obvious, and Rhode Island Republicans have done a piss poor job of understanding the electorate and speaking to them. And so they don’t vote for us and we have only ourselves to blame.

Instead, we need to be at the soccer games, senior centers, and kissing babies. We need to be in the midst of the voter not talking about what Democrats haven’t done, but what we’re going to do to improve our collective community. We need to set the terms of the debate. And we need to do it again, and again, and then some more.

I’m confident that Rhode Islanders can vote for Republicans; we’ve seen it with Lincoln Almond and Don Carcieri. We just have to hit the reset button and do things differently than we have in the past. I don’t want to have more mornings like last Wednesday and the only way to avoid them is listen to what the electorate is telling us and adjust accordingly.

Don Roach is ready to listen. You can reach him at [email protected] .

 

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