A day or so after our post in these pages The Road to Restoration Scott County Republican Central Committee members received an e-mail from Chairwoman Judy Davidson stating in part
“the need to assess how we can better reach out to certain demographics to gain their support and vote. ” . . . “I have established task forces for Latinos, Single Women, Catholics and Young Voters to begin work on this, each led by a member of our executive committee. Each task force will be developing a committee. If interested in working on any of these committees, please respond to this email indicating your specific interest. The executive committee will also be assessing and evaluating all of our programs, and making recommendations for the future. We will also be seeking input from the Central Committee at the January meeting.”
We strongly encourage Republicans to market our conservative principles to different segments of the population in the most appealing way, using or referring to any particular cultural traditions or precepts that we can, and demonstrate how they may well be consistent with, indeed enhanced by, conservative Republican principles. But while we strongly support outreach and education efforts, we reject pandering or abandoning key elements of the platform.
We are not here suggesting that pandering or that key elements of the platform will be denigrated as a the result of these task forces . . . but it is a warning . . . any short term PR gain from trying to be Democrat-lite or corruption of the so called “big tent” concept will result in extensive actual losses from the conservative base.
The big tent concept, if hijacked and distorted by the wrong element of the Party, easily succumbs to hucksterism and shallow performance. Having a big, anything goes, circus tent does not bring people into the show. There has to be the attraction that the show that goes on will be worthwhile, and not just another “entertainment” venue that can be substituted by another party.
Ironically it is not a big tent that so-called moderate Republicans are really after, it is a constriction of the tent to their designs. The attitude toward Tea Party constitutionalists . . . “no tickets for you;” toward serious tax reformers . . . ” get real, go away;” toward traditional marriage proponents, . . . “pound sand.” And so often the demeanor from elements of the Republican Party toward all who are pursuing real federalism and preserving western culture and ideals is one of condensation . . . “we can’t relate to you” . . . “you embarrass us” . . . “take a back seat.”
As regards the ‘ demographics” that are referred to in the memo and targeted for the “reach out,” unless they are pursued according to principle, it will only aggravate the tribalization or aggrievement group politics of America. The Democrats will always out bid us on special favors. However our platform can be convincingly shown to improve social welfare, foster a strong economy, protect our rights and liberties. That needs to be a prime aspect to this outreach effort. And just basic civic and economic lessons could turn a good number of the “demographics” voting Democrat into Republicans.
Another aspect that needs to be addressed is trust. A large element of the “no-party” group, who may be quite conservative on issues, insists that there is no effective difference between the parties. The cause and guilt for such is manifold. They become prey to any superficiality from individual candidates to garner their vote. Enter the Democrat Party. In truth there are differences, there needs to be, and they should be aggressively highlighted and championed.
Hopefully each task force will approach their assignment from the perspective of taking the major themes of our platform (conservatism) as a given and look for the best ways to communicate its limited government, play by the rules, true anti-discrimination, pro-growth and pro-family themes to identified sectors of the population.
We will not get every member of a targeted group nor should we try if it means undermining conservative platform principles and the very essence of what it means to be a Republican. It is similarly foolhardy to distort or apologize for basic elements of the platform in order to achieve some superficial quota, a degradation that will drive more votes away from Republicans than will ever be enticed.
By the way . . . recruiting or appealing to “demographics” on that superficial basis alone, is a great distortion of the purposes of the Republican Party. The Constitution of the Republican Party of Iowa states:
Purpose
1. The purpose of the organization shall be to conduct the activities of the Republican Party of Iowa, to promote Republican principles and policies, and to cooperate and assist in the conduct of national, state and local elections.
Clearly it is about goals and principles, not just electing R’s. More analysis of this process will be forthcoming.
Your assessment of the statement pretty much sums up my thoughts. This basically means let’s be more like Democrats. You’re right reaching out to every group is good obviously, but this reeks of pandering Our county leadership should have been doing this all along anyway!
This is like Hannity freaking out the day after the election and suddenly being open for a “pathway to citizenship.” Or Meghan McCain threatening to leave the party if they don’t stop “concentrating on social issues.” Trust me, being more like Democrats won’t win any votes. Romney barely mentioned social issues ever and lost.