The battles for control of the White House in 2016 will not be fought over issues such as abortion and gay marriage, as much as anybody wants to believe otherwise.
I wrote earlier that the GOP and conservatives need to adopt, at the very least, an attitude of respect towards gay marriage. But is it an issue that is going to turn the tide of the 2016 election? Of course not. The media would have people believe gay marriage is a major issue but to the majority of the populace it isn’t. Look at any opinion poll ranking the most pressing issues according to the populace — and gay marriage is nowhere to be found.
Abortion will also not factor into the 2016 race, and the people looking to dispel social conservatives from the GOP are in for a rude awakening if they truly believe it will pave the way to victory.
The problem the GOP has with social conservatism is not social conservatism itself, but rather the players involved. It was Bobby Jindal who said the GOP needed to stop being “the stupid party”, and there was plenty of stupid to go around in 2012.
We all know what happened with Todd Akin. Claire McCaskill was toast in that election. Then Akin got the bright idea to talk about “legitimate rape.” He was trounced.
Richard Mourdock was a shoe-in after defeating Richard Lugar in the GOP primary. But then he went and used the words “rape” and the phrase “gift from God” in the same sentence. Granted, the media unfairly portrayed Mourdock as saying the act of rape was a “gift from God” when he was clearly talking about the baby. That’s irrelevant. They are terms that should not be used in the same sentence, and it killed Mourdock’s chances. He wound up losing to a pro-life Democrat in a state that Mitt Romney won by ten points.
And while not central to the 2012 election, the Virginia state legislature’s decision to require vaginal probes before getting an abortion (it never made it into the final bill) created an uproar that just served to be a large distraction.
That said, these screw-ups were not the reason Romney lost in 2012.
It was class and the perception that he didn’t care about people that cost Romney the election. The evidence is in the numbers.
Let’s start with class in terms of income. The shift in the attitudes of voters from 2004 to 2012 (2008 was more of an anomaly because no GOP candidate was winning that year) is pretty apparent.
In 2004, George W. Bush lost to John Kerry in the demographic of those earning less than $50,000 per year by 11 points (55-44). In 2012, Obama trounced Romney in that same category by 22 points (60-38). That is a huge gap. It’s also important to note that GWB beat Kerry amongst those making $50K or more by 13 points (56-43) while Romney only beat Obama by 8 points in that same income group (53-45).
If we expand the income to $100K a year, GWB lost to Kerry by a single digit in 2004 (50-49). In 2012, Romney lost to Obama by 10 points in that same demographic (54-44). People making less than $100,000 per year make up nearly 3/4 of the entire electorate.
Perception is what killed Mitt Romney. I’m talking about the perception of who “cares about people like you.” The exit polls asked about what are the most important qualities in a candidate. There were four in total:
Shares My Values – 27% of the electorate
Strong Leader – 18% of the electorate
Cares About People – 21% of the electorate
Vision For The Future – 29% of the electorate
Guess who won three out of four of these categories? Mitt Romney. On values 55-42, on strong leader 61-38, and on vision for the future 54-45.
However, when it came to “cares about people”, Romney was beaten by a margin of 63 points (81-18). Just over 127 million votes were cast between Obama and Romney in 2012. 21% of that 127 million is approximately 27 million voters. If we apply the polling results to the entire population, Obama won nearly 22 million of those on the question of who “cares about people.”
What if those numbers shifted only slightly? Let’s say it was a 70-30 split instead of 81-18. Look what it does to the numbers.
For the record, Obama received 66 million votes and Romney received 61 million .
18% of 27 million is 4,860,00 votes.
30% is 8,100,000 votes.
That is a swing of a total of 6 million between Romney and Obama.
Do the math.
Shifting back to social conservatism as a whole, it is interesting to note that there are three Republicans who have seen their stardom shine very brightly over the last several months. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul have all had their moments that have been nothing but positive for both conservatives and some libertarians alike. Rubio and Paul are consistently mentioned as potential presidential candidates in 2016.
And there is a common theme among all three men:
They are all social conservatives.
But you wouldn’t know it, because they’re not stupid about it.
This is because we hardly ever hear about their social views, despite knowing what they are. When they do talk about them, they communicate them in a way so that even those who don’t follow politics very closely can easily understand them.
In fairness to Bill, I don’t like the idea of several social conservative groups (who don’t speak for me) making demands of the entire GOP with foot stamping and histrionics. That doesn’t solve any issues.
Still, the battle lines for who wins the White House in 2016 will be fought over who can more effectively communicate their message to middle class swing voters, many of whom, are socially conservative. The focus will not be on just abortion and gay marriage.
A call to “get social conservatives out of the GOP” is foolhardy and will ultimately backfire, thus ensuring GOP defeat for many years to come.