Repudiation – GOP should stop “going gay”!
As I sit here in the wee hours of the morning, it is abundantly apparent that Election 2014 is all over except for the shouting. This much ballyhooed “wave election” has turned out to be even more successful for the Republicans than most of us had thought it would be.
As I write this, the GOP has picked up eight Senate seats, with one more likely to flip in the weeks to come, placing the Republicans firmly in control of that body. The House of Representatives has likewise solidified under Republican control, with CNN’s election night coverage projecting over a dozen net pickups for the GOP. While losing one governship (Pennsylvania, the race in Alaska is still too close to call at this point), the Republican Party has held onto every single other governorship it had previously had, and has picked up the executive offices of states like Colorado, Maryland, Arkansas, Massachusetts, and Illinois. All in all, this has been a very, very good night for Republicans.
I’m sure that the world of punditry will be abuzz. While the left-wing media and its sycophants in social media will seek to spin away the significance of this election (in fact, they had already begun to do so before voting had even started), those on the Right will surely, and rightly, point to these results as a clear repudiation of Barack Obama and his Democratic cronies on Capitol Hill. ObamaCare, executive amnesty of illegal immigrants, Benghazi, IRS misconduct, flubbing the war against ISIS and losing Syria, higher taxes and more regulation – the list of things for which the Democrats were being punished goes on and on. The American people spoke very clearly tonight and rejected what Obama and the Democrats have been trying to accomplish.
Just imagine what could have happened if the Republicans had presented a clear, positive alternative to the Democrats, one which did more than just say, “vote for us, since we’re not them.”
However, the repudiation of Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest is not really what I want to focus on in this article. Rather, I’d like to “read between the lines” of this election and note that two other ideas, those advanced by the Republican “leadership,” also suffered at the hands of the voters this evening.
To begin with, this election was, generally speaking, a rejection of the notion being advanced by many in the establishment wing of the Party that the Republicans needs to move to the Left on social issues like abortion and gay “marriage.” Earlier this year, GOP establishment leaders like Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan announced their plan to begin trying to recruit “Young Gun” candidates – socially liberal, and often homosexual, candidates to run under the Republican banner in an effort to “broaden the appeal” of the Party, especially to younger, socially liberal voters. John Boehner backed this effort, throwing money at the candidates who had been recruited to run this year.
However, the voters who were supposed to be impressed by the GOP’s lurch to the Left on “individual choice” issues instead reacted with a collective yawn.
In the race for the open seat in Massachusetts’ 6th congressional district, “Young Gun” Richard Tisei – a gay Republican who has a 100% rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, who (obviously) supports gay “marriage,” and who is “married” to his “partner” – lost by 15 points to a non-incumbent and relatively unknown Democrat. To give this some perspective, Tisei had ran for the same seat in 2012 against a well-known and long-time incumbent and lost by only a single point. It does not appear that Tisei’s choice to flaunt his peculiar lifestyle choice did him or the GOP any favors this time around.
Likewise, in the Oregon Senate race, Monica Wehby, another “Young Gun” recruit who supports abortion and even ran ads in support of gay “marriage” during her campaign, lost her race against incumbent Democrat Jeff Merkley by 17 points. Previously in 2008, Merkley had defeated his Republican opponent by around three points.
Yet another “Young Gun” recruit was Dan Innis, a gay man who supports gay “marriage” and abortion, who ran in the Republican primary for New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district. Innis didn’t even manage to win the primary, losing to former Congressman Frank Guinta. Guinta is pro life and has stated his opposition to gay “marriage,” and just so happened to capture this congressional district back from the Democrats this evening. Obviously, New Hampshire Republicans and unaffiliated voters were not as impressed with Dan Innis’ social liberalism as the national Party’s leadership was, nor did Guinta’s social conservatism prevent him from winning in this increasingly blue Northeastern state.
The only notable “Young Gun” to see any electoral success in this election (at least at the time of this writing) is Carl DeMaio, a gay Republican recruited to run in the race for California’s 52nd congressional district. As of the time I write this, he is currently maintaining a very slim lead (50%-50%, a margin of less than 400 votes). However, let’s keep in mind that Brian Bilbray, a conservative, used to win this district by much wider margins (back before redistricting, when what is now the 52nd district was the 50th). DeMaio definitely seems to be underperforming compared to historical Republican performance in this district.
Now, it is true that there were socially liberal Republicans elected this evening, such as Maine’s Senator Susan Collins and Massachusett’s new governor Charlie Baker. However, we should also note that these candidates were established politicians from the Northeast who were not recruited specifically to make a point about social issues, nor did they seek to highlight their social liberalism during their races.
All in all, the GOP’s “Young Gun” program appears to have been a failure – and they have the voters to thank for it, not the “Religious Right” or “SoCons” or whoever else they usually use as a boogeyman. We should also note that Republican candidates who were socially conservative, along with their fiscal conservatism, won all across the board this evening.
This election was also a rejection of the increasingly common belief of the GOP establishment that Republicans need to run female candidates to face female Democrats. Built around a reaction to the successful demonization of the GOP as fighting a “War on Women” during the 2012 campaign, many Republican leaders have fallen into the trap of treating women as just another special interest group who needs to be appeased by presenting one of their “own kind” to vote for. Coupled with it is the notion that the Republican Party as it currently exists is just for old white men, and that women don’t feel at home in the Party.
This is an interesting, yet false, perspective. Indeed, tonight’s election saw grumpy old white men defeat female Democrat opponents in Texas, Wisconsin, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, and Massachusetts, with another one on the way in Louisiana. And they did so, in each and every case, by getting the support of female voters in their states.
The case of Texas is especially instructive because it involved a male Republican (Greg Abbott) defeating a female Democrat (Wendy Davis) whose claim to fame was her rabid support for abortion and her constant refrain about “female issues.” It got her nowhere, as she lost by 20%. While he wasn’t facing a female opponent in his Senate race, Colorado’s Cory Gardner faced a similar set of attacks about “women’s issues” from his opponent Mark Udall. These attacks failed – Gardner won by 6% in this purplish state.
Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the Republican Party shouldn’t run female candidates, nor that they shouldn’t cultivate women in the Party along with the men. What I am saying is that Republicans don’t need to join the Democrats in treating women like they are some monolithic special interest demographic who needs to be fed a slate of focus-group tested talking points about what “their” issues are and aren’t supposed to be. The GOP doesn’t have to swing left on life and family issues to “appeal to women” or to be legitimately interested in women voters and candidates.
It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of Republican women being elected, after all. Shelly Capito just won her Senate race in West Virginia, and Joni Ernst was victorious in hers in Iowa. Mia Love just took Utah’s 4th congressional district away from the Democrats, as did Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st. All across this country, there are Republican women holding office, and most of them are no less socially conservative than the general run of Republican men in office.
So while the weeks to come will surely feature huge amounts of ink being spilt about what the take-home message of this election really was, let’s not forget to observe that Republican successes had nothing to do with “going gay” or tacking leftward on social issues. The GOP is not winning new converts by going spineless on these fundamental issues relating to our foundational worldview and basis in natural law. It’s time for the GOP to end this experiment in foolishness and instead start addressing these issues in ways that will educate and enlighten those who disagree with us.
