It had to hurt. I know it did because I watched it play out on television with Karl Rove in emphatic denial of the election projections. I watched scores of my conservative friends and others ask themselves what is wrong with this country? I watchd Glenn Beck announce that "sometimes god sucks," and that there is a "sickness" in this country.
While the pundits, experts and blowhards attempt to rationalize the outcome of this election, I tend to sit back and think about the future.
I made it no secret what I wanted the outcome to be, and yes, I am pleased, so far, with the result. You see there is more that needs to happen. The reasons why the Republicans lost this presidential election have been touted to everything from being out of touch with younger voters, women and minorities, to Mitt Romney picking the wrong running mate, to Romney himself being either too centrist, or too right wing.
To start with Romney's problem wasn't that he wasn't right wing enough. Basically this would state that more extreme right wingers on the presidential ballot, in particular Virgil Goode (Constitution Party) and Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), took the votes that Mitt Romney needed to win. This isn't the case. Statistically speaking, the math doesn't work out like that. If you add their totals to Mitt Romney's total, you still end up with Barack Obama winning the election. In all of the battle ground states Obama won the majority of the vote (that's more than 50% for those of you not mathematically inclined), therefore it was impossible for Romney to win those states if he garnered the votes he supposedly lost to far right opponents. I might add that Obama didn't need Florida, and at the time of this writing they are still tallying votes. In New Mexico, the state in which Gary Johnson was governor, Johnson only posted 4% of the popular vote. Obama won a majority of the popular vote there so even with Johnson's votes Romney would not have won. The bottom line is, Romney would not have won even if he was more right wing. It may have been something that chipped away at his final tally though.
There is the idea that the "gimme stuff" crowd, or those on government assistance, of some form or another, ended up being the majority of the voting block, and therefore, won the election. The problem is that even with the most generous of math, meaning you total everyone on welfare, then add everyone on food stamps, then add everyone on SSI, and or Social Security, then assume none of these demographics intersect (which they do quite a bit), then assume that they are all voting (which didn't happen), and voting unanimously for Obama (which also didn't happen), you can, incorrectly I might add, come up with a voting block that is %37 of the population, about 115 million.
Here's the problem. about 121 million people voted. That block of 115 million, if it were accurate, would have been about 95% of the total popular vote. Obama only won the popular vote by a scant 3%, so that rules out the idea that those on public assistance voted unanimously for the President. According to most exit polls, about 40% to 41% of those that voted made below $50,000 per year. Despite the old welfare queen urban legend no, you cannot make 50k on public assistance, so our public assistance demographic is in the lower end of that range. 60% of that 41% voted for Obama, meaning out of the entire electorate, not even 25% both made under $50,000 and voted for Obama. Add to that, of those making less than $30,000 per year, Obama won 61% of the vote. To put it in perspective, if you assume, very generously, that Obama's main vote came from 20% of voters and assume that they are even exclusively a demographic who live on hand outs, then factor in the percentage of the electorate who cannot possibly live on handouts (those who make more than 50k), those who voted for Romney, about 31%, of the 50k plus block would have nullified the generously overestimated 20% of the electorate that was the Obama "free loader" vote. Basically, you are stating that 20% of the vote won the election for Obama, with 80% of the vote to play with. What?
Romney lost significantly among women, minorities, and voters under 40 years old. He lost with significantly with non protestant voters, 60% of whom voted in favor of Obama, thus neutralizing the Evangelical vote. Basically the core of Romney's votes came from white males over the age of 40. This sort of trend was repeated in other races through out the country. To say the least, in a society, that is being ruled less by so called "old white guys," and is seeing the increasing influence of empowered women and empowered minority groups, the Republican party is seeing its demographic shrink.
Many in the GOP continue to point the blame to the electorate. The data I see says something quite different. It shows a party that is out of touch, that has dated rhetoric, and, above all, attempted to put forth a candidate, that it didn't wholly believe in, in order to perform the already daunting task of unseating an incumbent president.
I consider myself a conservative. I believe in limited government and self accountability. The problem for me is that the party I used to belong to has focused more on attracting a fringe element, such as the religious right, racists, and homophobes, that have no place in a party that is supposed to be for those who seek individual sovereignty, and limited government. The party has sought more to counter act the left under the guise of serving their constituents, then actually serving those who elected them. True Republicanism doesn't have to be the antithesis of the Democratic Party ideology.
One of the results of this election may be the eventual splintering of the GOP. There are many, like me, who want to escape the will of the Tea Party faction, and the religious right, in order to steer the party more toward the center. Many of us want to get away from the bile these extremists and obstructionists.
We have allowed the liberals to be the signal barers for issues of personal liberty that should have been ours to sponsor from the get go. We've allowed them to champion issues of individual sovereignty, such as reproductive freedom, civil rights, sexual preference, anti-prohibition, and anti-censorship, in the name of courting a religious fanaticism, and fighting off a red menace, that doesn't exist. We've allowed these factions to make us look out of touch, belligerent, and like buffoons to the press.
We've created enemy lines in our own nation by allowing incorrect usage of terms such as communism, socialism and fascism, in order to castigate well meaning opponents as enemies of the state in which they serve for their support of issues that aide our aims in enhancing personal sovereignty. We've become, not so much the vanguard of limiting government interference in the personal lives of the electorate, but the proponents of institutional abandonment.
The key to Republican success is simple. We embrace the ideals of individual and personal sovereignty. We ditch the religious right, for their ideals about sexual freedom, abortion, censorship, prohibition and what not fly in the face of personal sovereignty, and limited government. They also alienate a good portion of voters. We distance and disassociate ourselves from right wing media, who are not as much true conservatives as they are anti-liberal, and divisive. As always, we also speak for fiscal rationality, and attempt to eliminate the idea of running under budget deficits.
The idea is that Republicanism, supports individual freedom and liberty. Any legislation would either enhance those freedoms or would be voted down. One's personal liberty should not interfere with another's. For this we use the idea our nation was built on, majority rule, with minority rights protected. For instance, one's health enhances one's personal liberty in that one is not tied down with medical bills.Therefor legislation to reduce pollutants, would in fact be an enhancement of the majority's personal liberty. Education creates freedom of opportunity and personal independence, therefore legislation to improve education, enhances personal sovereignty. Civil rights isn't a matter of big government interference, it's a matter of enhancing personal sovereignty, just as ending slavery of all kinds was at the inception of the party.
The idea is something that crosses the divides of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexual preference. It creates a diversity of a opinion within our own party, and refocuses us back on the core principles that Republicanism was founded on. It doesn't put us in direct opposition to everything the Democrats stand for, it just makes us different. It changes our coalition, makes it stronger, and encompasses the will of those who seek freedom. It will attract a new breed of Republican that will supplant the irrational tea party/evangelical coalition. In due time, it would change the face of a party that is in dire need of diversity and thus change its reception by the public. Most of all, it would help to grab the demographic that did determine the election, that being 35% of voters who consider themselves conservative or moderate, that ended up voting for Obama.
Now the question is, who am I fucking kidding?
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