Ramesh Ponnuru disagrees with the idea that Republican rape theoreticians Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were a major cause on the Republican Party’s disastrous Senate outcome in which they lost 25 out of 33 Senate races. Ponnuru rightly points out that Republicans lots of different races that should have been competitive with lots of different candidates. I would also add that many of the defeated Republican Senate candidates had established statewide brands as either establishment Republicans (Tommy Thomson, George Allen) or moderates (Linda Lingle, Scott Brown.) Like Ponnuru said, every kind of Republican lost Senate races this year. Ponnuru argues that while stronger Republican candidates would have won the Indiana and Missouri races, they would still have lost more than two thirds of the Senate seats. The Republican problem wasn’t with the tea party faction, or the establishment faction, or the moderate faction or any faction. The problem was that all the Republicans lacked a strong message that resonated with the public.
Charlie Cook offers a subtle variation on the idea that the Republican problem is too many extremist/Tea Party/social conservative/scary lunatics (I’m kidding obviously.) Cook argues that Akin and Mourdock didn’t just lose their own races. They lost races for other people too. Cook writes:
For every Akin and Mourdock, there is a Scott Brown, a Linda Lingle, or a Heather Wilson who cannot win in tough places, at least in presidential years, because of the face of the Republican Party, a threatening brand to many moderate and swing voters.
This frame is pretty easy to mock. When a Tea Party/social conservative candidate loses it is the fault of the right-wing. When a pro-choice, moderate, I-love-bipartisanship-more-than-life-itself guy like Scott Brown loses a race it is the fault of…some other Republican Senate candidate running a races hundreds and maybe even thousands of miles away. No matter what happens, we will always know who to blame.
But all mocking aside, I think there is a little truth to what Cook is saying. Not a lot of truth mind you. Scott Brown didn’t lose his race by 8% because of Todd Akin. Tommy Thompson didn’t lose his race in Wisconsin by 5% because of Akin. It is absurd to blame Linda Lingle losing her race by 25% on Todd Akin. And yet there is something to what Cook has to say. There probably was a nonzero number of voters whose idea of what Republicans believe was strongly informed by Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment. I doubt this cost Republicans any Senate seats outside of Missouri, but Republicans need help among lots of different kinds of voters.
Pretty much all reasonable observers can agree that Republicans should run better Senate candidates, but better candidates won’t solve the problem. If Republican candidates go down from Hawaii to Virginia, to Wisconsin, to Massachusetts, to Montana whenever any Republican in America says anything stupid, the problem isn’t primarily candidate selection and it isn’t that the Republicans lack a mind control ray to shut up every single candidate who might pop off. The problem is that the Republicans lack a compelling message and/or are unable to communicate with wide swaths of the population. To the extent a Republican candidate finds the voters associating them with Todd Akin, it is because the candidate is not being associated with high salience issues of their own choosing. Since the Republicans aren’t painting a picture of who they are, the liberal-leaning media is painting the picture for Republicans.
In 2010 the Democrats desperately tried and mostly failed to tie Scott Brown to the enormously unpopular George W. Bush. There were reasons for this failure. Brown had a set of issues that played well with the special election voting population of 2010. Brown was against Obamacare and civilian trials for terrorist suspects. For several reasons, those issues were less salient in 2012 and Brown didn’t find any new compelling issues to campaign on. That’s okay, because neither did any other Republican. The 2012 electorate probably also included a lot more voters who had no personal or family history of voting Republican and who had never been exposed to a right-of-center argument at length. To the extent that anyone in this population heard an argument from Brown, it was 30 second ads about how he was such a nice, bipartisan guy. There was also no explanation for how his nice bipartisanship would be of any benefit to anybody. To the extent that many of these voters heard anything about Republicans, it was from entertainment or social media highlighting whatever stupid thing said by this or that Republican.
Don’t get me wrong. Brown and Lingle were going to lose in 2012 no matter what, but we need to get the proportions of the Republican problem right. The lack of a compelling middle-class and working class agenda, and the failure to adjust to changing media consumption patterns is a much bigger problem for Republicans than the political sins of Todd Akin. Solving those problems of agenda-building and messaging would be more complicated, but also more possible than trying to make sure that no Republican ever again says anything stupid.
November 29th, 2012 | 10:38 pm
Pete,
I completely agree with what you’re saying here. Still, Akin is responsible for losing the MO Senate seat. Couldn’t he have been lured into withdrawing from the race by the offer of some face-saving (and well-paid) job at some foundation or other? For that matter, since it was always clear that Akin would be the weakest GOP candidate for that seat, why wasn’t this done BEFORE the primary? At that point, he could even have been offered a lobbying job – which is what I would guess he’ll end up doing now, anyway.
I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the Republicans – apart from the disadvantages they currently face – are just not very good at politics, and don’t even have much taste for holding power. See, for example, the pathetic piece in the Wash Post by one of the bigwigs in the Romney campaign, essentially saying how proud he was to have come in second. The man gives the strong impression that Romney and his people would accept victory if they could just coast into it, but did not want it if it required them to get their uniforms dirty or – God forbid – engage in new thinking.
November 30th, 2012 | 1:23 am
[...] a major cause on the Republican Party’s disastrous Senate outcome in which they lost Source: Postmodern Conservative Category: Blogs and [...]
November 30th, 2012 | 8:42 pm
DJF, Yeah, Akin blew the Missouri seat and his selfishness in staying in was epic. From reading between the line comment at the time, the Republicans offered him everything this side of legality to drop out. He seems to have stayed in because:
1. He is incredibly vain and obtuse.
2. He did win the primary according to the rules and was entitled to stay.
As for the second paragraph. My sense is that Romney and his team would have said whatever they needed in order to win but just didn’t know what that was. I have my own thoughts but I’m not that confident I know either. New thinking would be hard for anybody. If Romney had real principles maybe he could have spent years trying to find creative ways to explain the most attractive version of his preferred policies. But I’ve been watching Romney for over 18 years and I’ve never noticed that he had any principles at all on the matters at controversy in our politics.
It is still possible to embrace new thinking and prosper without being a conviction politician. But that probably takes a sharper understanding of the dynamics of public opinion than Romney ever showed. Bill Clinton had that, but there aren’t a lot of Bill Clinton’s out there.
As for Stuart Stevens, what is he gonna say? That he was outplayed and that his cynical boss was outsmarted? He is a hack trying to maintain his viablity. I don’t respect what he is doing but it is a reminder that while guys like him might have their uses, nothing they say should be trusted.
December 1st, 2012 | 8:12 am
Mr. Spiliakos,
Besides his own vanity, Mr.Akin decided to stay in to salvage his name. He obviously didn’t want to forever be known as the “rape guy” and his position was the last bully pulpit he was ever going to get to attempt such rehabilitation.
Do not discount that politic which is post-Christian does not have the same sense of mercy and forgiveness that even a vainglorious man deserves. One could dislike him remaining in the election while also being disturbed by the glee some took in his existence as the “rape” guy.
Yes, only a prideful fool would have thought he could rescue his name, but it’s hard to fault him for trying to maintain his brand…if this election showed anything to me, it was about the importance of brand to the electorate.
December 1st, 2012 | 8:18 pm
MPB,
“One could dislike him remaining in the election while also being disturbed by the glee some took in his existence as the “rape” guy.”
Sure, but after the initial incident, the greatest gift he could give to those who took glee at his shame was to stay in the race and ensure that the Missouri Senate seat went to a Democrat rather than (for instance) a pro-life woman (though there was no guarantee that would happen either but I liked Ann Wagner’s chances a lot better than Akin’s.)
I don’t blame Akin for wanting to rescue his name. I blame him for putting his pride ahead of his alleged principles when it had become obvious he was politically toxic to the electorate. In most respects, I think that his refusal to leave and thereby concede a winnable seat was worse than his original statement. We all have gaps in our knowledge. We live and learn. We all sometimes say things that come out wrong. I always sympathized with Rick Perry over his slips of the tongue (though not the times when he showed obvious lack of preparation.) Akin had an especially unfortunate combination of the two. But the refusal to leave took place over a period of weeks. He had a lot of time to think things through and selfishness won out (whatever the rationalizations to get there). That is a lot tougher to excuse.
On the other hand:
1. He had every legal right to stay in.
2. He was responsible (very probably) for the loss of a Senate seat, and not the defeat of Linda Lingle, Scott Brown and Mitt Romney.
December 2nd, 2012 | 1:42 pm
[...] Dear Republicans – Pete Spiliakos, PoMoCon [...]
December 4th, 2012 | 4:23 pm
I think Republican Scott Brown’s election to replace the late Senator Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts was a fluke. If Kennedy had resigned when he was dying and groomed or handpicked someone to replace him, it is highly unlikely Brown or any other Republican in Massachusetts could have won that seat. Instead, the Massachusetts Democratic machine seemed blindsided by Kennedy’s death and was unable to find a good candidate.
December 4th, 2012 | 4:45 pm
The R message to working and poor Americans was trickle down theory summed up in the rising tide lifts all boats. Trickle down didn’t work or at least didn’t last. It was comfy for Rs to go there because they didn’t have to do anything but help the financial, entrprenurial and corporate class. The rest would take care of itself.
I actually believe the working class would still embrace it after they witness some harsh justice to those responsible for the last dozen years of fiscal and monetary ineptitude get their due. Until then, expect more electroal punishment from those groups.
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