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The 435 District Strategy
Submitted by Patrick Ruffini on Wed, 11/05/2008 - 14:39
Let's take a look at where we actually gained seats last night: FL-16, LA-6, KS-2, TX-22.
And look at places where we well could have, but fell short: PA-11, WI-8, NH-1.
Notice a pattern here? These all fit the conventional target of weak freshman Democrat (PA-11 excepted) elected in a conservative area. The gains all fit this criteria and they were all south of the Mason-Dixon.
Much is made of the fact that we do not have a single representative in New England, but I am equally if not more concerned about the fact that we seem to be losing our grip on the conservative areas in blue states, as evidenced by losses or too-close-to-call races in MD-1, MI-7, and MI-9. The fact that we backslid 9 points from 2004 in Pennsylvania (tied to an underperformance from final House race polls), and 12 points in Michigan despite the fact that these were "bitter" Hillary states suggests something is seriously amiss. Zell Miller's "a national party no more" could easily apply to the GOP if this continues.
I am beginning to think that looking at House and Senate races and doing descending sorts on Bush 2004 percentages has become a seriously crippling way of targeting House seats. The President won 250 or so House districts in 2004. But building a majority solely by picking seats off this target list becomes seriously problematic. To win 218 races from this grouping, you'd need to win 87% of races. To win 200, leaving a handful to come from blue districts, you'd need to win 80%.
These need-to-win percentages are simply too high. First, you have personally popular Democrat incumbents in many of these seats. And second, any district that was within 10 points of the national median at the Presidential level is (at best) only a lean to one party or another for Congress.
We need to expand the map.
We need to get to a place where we only need to win 60% or two thirds of our "winnable" races. And that requires expanding the definition of a winnable race.
This is not a fifty state strategy. It is a 435 district strategy. Parties and Presidential candidates trade within narrow bands within states. Local candidates trade in very wide bands, enabling them to win "safe" seats from the other party. All the field organizers in the world did not flip Alaska, North Dakota, and Montana at the Presidential level, and states like Indiana, Florida, and North Carolina were either attainable because of the national swing, or next door to Illinois.
We need to contest all 435 seats -- there are some, like the inner cities, that we will never get. But for everything else, we should act like these are winnable seats for Republicans, if not this time, then next time, or the time the seat opens up.
We need to encourage good repeat candidates in Democratic seats. The average second-time candidate who won in 2006 won just 42% in their previous bid. A lot of people figure they won't run if they're not absolutely sure they can win. We need to create a culture, like the one that exists in Britain, where it's expected that you'll have one or two elections to hone your skills as a candidate before winning. Barack Obama was a failed House candidate in 2000.
In many ways, our failure in the House was a failure of recruiting. A Diana Irey could have knocked off Murtha this year. In other ways, we will need to strengthen our focus in rebuilding in the blue states so we can credibly raid seats on the other side.
(2 votes)
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Solid Concept
But this can only happen if the GOP does what the Democrats did years ago. Move to the center.
Yes, you're going to have areas where a hard-core conservative can win no matter what - just like you'll always have areas (Massachusetts) where a hard-core liberal (Kerry) can win no matter what.
But on a national scale, as a national party with a national platform, the party needs to move itself to the center. This is why the Democrats have succeeded where they have - the Democrats getting elected into these conservative areas are themselves centrist Democrats.
It would be a deadly mistake for the national party to stick with moving further to the right, as it attempted to do with its current platform this year. The GOP seems to forget that the country only leans to the right - it is not fundamentally a hard-core right-wing nation.
I've got to disagree. Look
I've got to disagree. Look at Tester in Montana. He didn't run as a centrist, watered-down Republican/Democrat. He ran as an unapologetic Democrat and won in a red state. We need to win with competent governance. We need to be the party of small government, not shitty government, because that's what Bush is. If we can articulate (and, if the American people give us the chance again, run) a lean, efficient government that makes America better we'll win even in Blue districts, like they're doing to us now.
Although, we do need to stop primarying centrist Republicans in moderate districts with fundamentalists, we don't need to move to the center as a party.
the fundamentalists are electoral poison
plz get rid of them, they scare the kitties.
Tester
Tester is also uniquely suited to Montana's political culture. He has strong libertarian tendencies, and while he certainly was, as you note, an unapologetic Democrat, he ran his campaign emphasizing his libertarianism, which played well in Montana, and as an outsider, particularly against the corrupt Washington establishment.
And he won (barely) against Conrad Burns, who had come to represent the corruption endemic in Washington, in particular Republicans in Washington who had become corrupt, big government politicians much like those they originally replaced.
I agree that Republicans need to be the party of smaller, but better government. The few things government should do, it should do well.
there is a difference...
...between partisanship and ideology.
For sure Jon Tester ran as an unapologetic Democrat, but there are plenty of Senate Democrats who are ideologically to his left who are not as strongly partisan as he is. Ron Wyden immediately comes to mind.
Re-read your own words, Zach
"He ran as an unapologetic Democrat and won in a red state."
Okay, if I buy that as true, then that bears out my contention that the country as a whole is not hard-core right-wing, but centrist with a slight right lean.
Then you say,
"we don't need to move to the center as a party"
But if an unapologetic Democrat can win in a red state, that indicates a tendancy to centrist principles. By moving to the right, you run counter to that tendancy.
In poll after poll,
the country is more progressively left than you might imagine.
Sure, you find 60% think abortions are wrong -- but when you figure out that 20% of that comes from black voters, who would fight you to the death before making it illegal... well, you do the math.
We aren't a fundamentally ideological country -- but the War on Poverty was popular. Nixon's EPA was popular. Obama's Health Care will be popular -- though I would, as a liberal, love you to hell and back if you could solve the Wall Street problem without us needing to nationalize the fucking industry.
Please mind your P's and Q's
I know this site has had a lot of growth and a lot of new faces, but please leave the vulgarity at home. If you can't make a point without your probably don't have a real point to make.
your scurrilous objection to my use of Anglosaxon
has been noted, and I hope it will perish in the abysmal depths of your pustulent outhouse.
I'm off my game today. too happy to properly kvetch. if you want more creative use of the english language, I will be happy to accomodate you.
If it has a center-right lean
If it has a center-right lean already, we don't need to move toward it. We lost because we fucked up (Bush, and some others). We didn't loose because or ideology was wrong, we lost because we failed to impliment it in a way that made government work.
Too many Republicans view government as a problem. It's not. If the government is a hatchett, we've been trying to make it smaller by beating it into a rock until it's dull and breaking pieces off. Instead, we need to expertly trip it down until it's a scalpel. When we do that - when we realize we can use government effectively, we win.
Reduce demand
We need to make government smaller by reducing demand for government.
Make more conservatives, more people who want to rely on themselves and look at government as just something that gets in the way and you reduce demand for government.
strongly agree
The right seems like it is becoming beholden to ideological purity in a way the left presently is not. At The National Review, David Freddoso is celebrating the loss of Chris Shays. Sure he is not in line with conservatives on everything, but he fit that district. It would be unreasonable to expect a John Shadegg type to compete there. Say what you will about dailykos, and I know many have, but they tend to support candidates who fit their districts. If Travis Childers was from Connecticut and was running for Chris Shays seat as a Democrat, they would fight him tooth and nail via primaries, however running in Mississippi, they will throw their support behind him.
Chris Shays had an ACU rating of 45 and maybe thats as high a number as can be gotten out of southwest Connecticut. Is it better to give that seat away for the sake of "purity?" Its certainly higher than Jim Himes will get. Shays may not have been there for the right on the social issues, but he was there on the tax cuts and national security. I don't see how a rightward march and purging of moderates can do anything but consign the GOP to the status of "a national party no more"
Absolutely right
Even Reagan warned against the evils of following ideology.
The Youth Vote
What about the youth vote? How can conservatives win teh youth vote back?
Early reports seem to indicate that voters 18-29 vote for Obama 66-32. They made up 18% of the electorate. The Republican Party surely cannot build a competitive national presence while that remains unchanged...
couple things on the youth vote
That 18% is just a shade higher than the 17% the youth vote has been stuck at since 1996. The youth vote was about 21% in 1992. So there wasn't a surge in youth turnout after all.
Obama certainly did win over the youth vote, however. I was looking over old exit polls, and was shocked to see that Bush and Gore ran roughly even among the 18-29 vote (of which I'm a part!) Kerry managed to win the youth vote considerably in 2004, and Obama as you mention took it to levels I've never seen before.
However, if you go back to 1996 and 1992, you see that Clinton did very well with the 18-29 group. Clinton beat Dole 53 to 34 among that group in 1996, with Perot getting 10%.
I'm not sure what to make of these numbers. The only clear pattern I see is that young voters do not seem to like older candidates, especially when the younger candidate is viewed a 'hipper' as well. Bush may have done well against Gore in 2000 for that reason, I seem to remember Bush as having the mroe lively campaign in 2000, and Gore being classified as stiff and bookish.
Of course I'm sure it's more complicated than that. Younger voters are also more idealistic and somewhat less realistic. Obama's 'hope' and 'change' worked. Bush ran as the candidate of change in 2000, remember, and that may have helped him in 2000. Younger voters are more tuned in to what is new, what is different.
Ultimately, though, young voters also get older. The young Clinton voters turned into middle-aged Bush and McCain voters. The democrats won't keep all of these voters, and it's hard to imagine the youth vote being this strong any time soon.
Want the youth? Modernize the platform.
To start with, youth in this country are, more and more, getting college educations and beyond. Better support (especially financially) for education in this country, from pre-K up through college, would get a lot of young people back behind the GOP. Not all, but a fair number.
Second, the GOP has to drop the social platforms of "no abortion for any reason" and "we hate gays except when they vote for us, then we hate them again". The youth in this country have far more liberal attitudes on many social issues than previous generations. This is not to say that the GOP must abandon social issues, but they certainly need to change their approach and their ideas for addressing these issues. Taking the approach of making all abortions illegal will alienate youth. Taking the approach of funding sex education and pregnancy prevention and better adoption services will appeal to youth.
Third, along with that, the GOP has to stop pretending that GOP stands for "God's Only Party." There are a lot of youth out there that are Christian evangelicals, but they are not in tune with the prior generations' stances on many issues. The younger generations of evangelicals are concerned about climate change and environmental issues, being directed by scripture to be good stewards of the earth. The GOP is clearly out of synch on this. Younger generations of evangelicals see wars differently and with a different attitude - again, the GOP is out of synch here. Many of these evangelicals are torn, because the GOP appeals to some sensibilities, but the Democrats appeal to others that are more immediate and more pressing. Denying gays the right to marry pales in comparison to the enormity of the problems of climate change, for example.
Finally, the GOP needs to get more young people into its ranks. The GOP is aging. Look at the average age of the men who ran for president in the GOP nomination race. Anyone under 50? There you go. Sure, you've got your Sarah Palins... but when the average young voter can look at Palin and think, "Hell I know more than she does!", that isn't encouraging.
I'm not terribly worried about the youth vote.
"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
Agreed - to hell with a 50 state strategy...
We've written off entire states for too long... I've been advocating a rejection of Rovian red and blue states in favor of a 50 state strategy, but lets take it further and pursue a 435 district strategy... amen... I'm on board.
And for the love of god, can we please break the southern stranglehold on the party? Its nice to have a geographic base, but I'm effing sick and tired of it being our ONLY fallback... this should be a national party, not a regional one... the fact that republicans used to OWN the northeast, and now dont even EXIST in the northeast is a disgusting shame on our house that each and every one of us should lament.
Oh, right - but its those crazy northeasterners who are ultra-liberal and just won't accept us. ::sigh::
No, there is a specific brand of people they won't accept, and that is those who govern without reliance on common sense, intelligence and pragmatism, but instead focus on faith and values, then end up betraying even those.
Yes, we need a northeast GOP back in the game
I agree. We have to be national. By definition that means a big tent. This lamentable situation makes it well nigh impossible to get back to a solid House majority soon. But please don't let the northeast establishment viewpoint or regional prejudices lead you to blame the south for the predicament, as the REAL FAULT LIES WITH THE GOP PARTIES IN THE NORTHEAST AND BLUE STATES.
The fact is that what has been severely rejected in the past 2 cycles is Big Government Republicanism. small-l libertarians stayed home. some fiscal cons defected (foolishly believing the lies of the Democrats). Think about it. McCain was about as centrist as you could get for a Republican nominee, centrist enough that some conservatives balked ... Yet WHERE WERE THE MODERATE VOTERS TO VOTE FOR HIM? Why did moderates defect to the far more left-liberal Obama?
The fact is that moderate Republicanism has been a dying breed for the simple reason that its reason for existence is so weak. If you are a conservative or leaner you dont want a 'sellout'. For the rest, given the choice between two Democrats, the liberals pick the real one every time.
I think the GOP in the northeast needs to take a long look at themselves and define themselves in a way that gets out of the hole of just being a pale me-too of the Democrats. I asked the question a week ago on this forum - what would be the key items that would sell the GOP in the Northeast? Clean and efficient Government was an answer i got. Its a start but you need more: Accountability, transparency, lower taxes, more choices, welfare reform. Maybe. I ask the question again: What agenda items will sell the GOP in the northeast?
We in Texas have a Texas Republican platform. The Republican party grassroots made it, and the grassroots are happy with it. It's conservative. The elected officials dont fully live up to its level of conservatism (the platform is a cross between Hunter, Tancredo, Paul and Thompson), but it gives spine and meaning to the Republican party. Activists are not supporting candidates out of patronage or historical loyalties but to support our values and our beliefs and agenda. It's a stronger bond built on the understanding of common values and desires.
And guess what? Republican Governance in Texas WORKS! Thanks to lower taxes, friendly climate for business (tort reform, right-to-work, less regs), We had more private sector jobs created in this state in the past few years than any other state in the nation. Compare our solid Texas economy with the disaster in Michigan or the fiscal bankruptcy in New York. We are doing far better at managing our state than the Democrat-run states are.
Why? Step #1 is NO state income tax. So as you look for an agenda - why not this: REPEAL YOUR STATE'S INCOME TAX. Why not make your northeast state party advocate the complete repeal of your state income tax? Too radical? WHY NOT? What do you have to lose? And if outright repeal is too radical, how about this? "REPEAL THE STATE INCOME TAX FOR EVERYONE MAKING UNDER $100,000" We have a robust economy in Texas here without a state income tax and I can assure you, they still spend too much in the schools and on other programs - you dont really need the money.
One thing the conservative legislators did this time around was create a PLEDGE TO TEXAS, to define a ten-point reform agenda:
http://pledgewithtexans.com/
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/10/pledge-with-texans.html
The Northeast GOP should write a gingrich-like "Agenda Contract" for their state. Outline the Top Ten Things they promise to deliver ... what would they be? Obviously, there would be differences with your sothern brethren. OTOH, Guiliani wrote up his "12 commitments" and they were bold and reform-oriented.
Chuck the pale pastels, write a bold reform-oriented agenda that lives up to the core Republican principles of free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, and limited Government. Dont try to import something from other states that wont sell; but DO make sure you learn and focus on common and unifying themes and not useless 'me-too' moderate mush. And then start recruiting supporters and candidates to SELL THE VISION.
Having faith and values is not opposed to have common sense, intelligence and pragmatism; they complement eachother. It has been pragmatism without principles and pandering agendas without core values that got us in the soup. Find those core values that the Northeast GOP can rally around and go for it.
New Hampshire is already there
And has no state income tax or sales tax. (Still has a food tax though, IIRC.)
Patrick, your key point is your last one
It's not a database problem, it is a recruiting problem.
What is the recruiting strategy going forward? There are 252 Dems up for re-election in 2010. How do we find, encourage and ultimately elect candidates in each of those districts?
I live in Henry Waxman's district, and he ran unopposed. Half of his district is suburban and exurban - some of it is even rural, with horse ranches. Surely, we can find strong candidates in even his probably safe district.
It's not a recruiting problem.
Or rather, it is only a recruiting problem insofar as we have failed to engage our grassroot Republican membership into actively participating at the local level. Once we invite grassroot Republicans to participate at all levels and in all positions, the Party will have a much larger database from which to choose the right person to fill the position. The talent is there. We must develop a party structure that will engage the general membership in order to find that talent.
ex animo
davidfarrar
It's an infrastructure problem, too
I was directly involved in only one house race in CT this year; CT 2. The GOP recruited the former commander of the New London sub base to run here. Sadly, his original campaign staff couldn;t raise money or get any press; so they were all fired in mid summer. The new campaign team hired to good friend to do media. Which didn;t get on the air until mid October. The original campaign team also left behind a virtually useless website.
This guy was a very articulate candidate and did not have to lose badly; but poor early staff work dug a hole which was impossible to escape.
This is what scares me about the recent Obama campaign.
Infrastructure definitely matters. Campaigns leave behind a network of people who can come together again for future races.
This probably explains the rot in the CA Republican Party. Bush 41 refused to campaign there, even though Reagan had carried it twice. To be fair, state demographics were shifting. White, middle class voters were fleeing CA for the Mountain West. But even as the state GOP rotted, the state overwhelmingly passed Prop 187 (1994, cut off state benefits to illegal immigrants) and Prop 22 (2000, ban on gay marrige).
I mostly agree with the bottom-up model for building the party. Nothing else we can do, really. Just wanted to agree that cynically neglecting voting blocs can have disastrous long-term consequences. Nowadays we just assume that CA will go Dem. That's a 100+ electoral point swing every year!
Even worse, now we're starting to lose the Mountain West.
Exactly
if you are willing to suffer the immediate sunk cost of staffing in places which are not immediately competitive, you build a wider playing field in the long run.
I am also in agreement that in order to be competitive in less Republican districts we are going to have to accept less conventional and less ideologically rigid candidates. The difference between the GOP and the Democrats is we put our weak links into party leadership and get them nominated from dark red states. They, on the other hand, let them serve their tenure in the back bench.
Behind every good recruit....
is an energetic campaign staff. One wo/man can't carry the campaign on his own. If there are going to be 435 districts to compete in, you're gonna need 435 good campaign managers, and thousands more in support staff. That's going to be difficult without an enthusiastic base who typically become campaign staffers.
Yes, preach it, bro - RUN EVERY RACE
Run every race - state house races, local races.
Why? Concede as little as possible to gain as much as possible. Put the other side on defense as much as possible.
Run not to win this race but to maximize voter contact, get outreach going etc. This has many advantages - making a dsitrict more amenable in the future, getting key supporters ID'd, helping support other candidates in overlapping districts.
We can only play offense if we go into THEIR territory and take stuff. That means running against 'impregnable' incumbents.
Run minority candidates in minority districts, run candidates that could win in urban districts. Get New England candidates. This should be a on the forehead of ever county and state party chair: Make a recruiting commitment to get a good candidate for every race.
Run low-budget races if you dont have the money. I helped a state house candidate do a $10,000 race. He couldnt raise more, so be it, he ran the best race he could. Its enough to do websites, signs, handouts and have an effective email operation. These races need not be expensive in all places, in fact that would be a mistake - allocate your $ based on winnability... but by having a candidate in every single race you are able to exploit any weakness and fund as the oppty arises.
We need to think about running in every single House district race across the nation. Not just House of Reps, but all the State House races in the 50 states. That's 10,000 candidates making voter contact.
Also, lets rerun nearly successful candidates - Andy Harris for congress!
I agree with that.
We need to recruit the most conservative candidates that can possibly win in their district. That will be next to impossible in places like New England (but then again that is why that region is in decline) and hopefully candidates that can articulate the message effectively to their constituents.
Disagree somewhat, Ben
you wrote "We need to recruit the most conservative candidates that can possibly win in their district. That will be next to impossible in places like New England."
No, that's not true. There are six states in New England. Three of them (VT, CT,RI) have Republican governors. A fourth (ME) has 2 Republican Senators. A fifth just gave us Mitt Romney, another Repub governor. The sixth is NH, the "live free or die" state.
We need to nominate Republicans who can win, and quit with this demand for perfect ideological purity. The perfect is the enemy of the ultimate good. Rahm Emanuel understood this, and he recruited conservatives to run as Democrats and win otherwise Red districts. We need to do the same thing - if a candidate is liberal on social issues, or has voted for some tax increases, or anything else, but is still by and large a good Republican and will vote with the caucus on important issues, then support them. We need to banish the term RINO or devolve into a regional, minority party.
Urban Republicans - a 435 district strategy?
First post here - I just registered.
RE: urban districts
Down here in New Orleans, we are running a Republican named Anh Quang Cao in a majority African-American district that went to Obama 5:1. The incumbent is indicted Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA02), who was videotaped taking $100,000 in marked bills from the FBI - $90,000 of which was later found in his freezer. Jefferson won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, even though his Federal corruption trial starts in December. So much for "change we can believe in"...
Though I disagreed with the Axelrod strategy of emphasizing personal narrative over political or moral issues, the Cao campaign may be on to something if the GOP can capture enough interest by telling Anh Cao's story and how it fits in with the new Republican brand that is being built right now in Louisiana. (Remember Indian-American Bobby Jindal is our current Governor.)
Born in Saigon, Mr. Cao came to the USA as a refugee from Vietnam at age eight. He exemplifies the possibilities available to all in this country, as he runs his own law office and is involved in programs relating issues of post-hurricane recovery and coastal erosion.
Points: a) He fits the district's local interests; b) he does not allow Democrats to 'own' the narrative of upward mobility.
If we concentrate on A and B, I think urban districts are attainable as a long-term goal.
http://www.voteforanhcao.com/mission.html
Anh Cao for Congress - Is this for 2010?
If so ... Good job on starting early! These Democrats who are literally criminals MUST be run out of office and we have practically a moral duty as citizens to get rid of them. Thanks for doing this:
http://www.voteforanhcao.com/mission.html
I note that we have had 66% of Asian-Americans vote for Democrats/Obama this cycle, so we have to do better there. Maybe this is one way to do so. With technology, we can make voter contact more efficient.
BTW, there is nothing wrong with personal narrative when it complements an issue-oriented campaign. People vote based on the character, competence and vision of the candidate. McCain had his war hero narrative, and it was stirring when he tied it to his own character and motivation - I truly beleive McCain is a patriot and his life story is a testament to it. The problem with Obama's narrative was that it was a grandiose fiction whereby America is 'healed' only by satisying Obama's personal ambition, and his radical roots were whitewashed in his campaign bio.
LA-GOP is running him now in New Orleans
Our Democratic primary was pushed to November 4 because of a hurricane evacuation a month ago. So, the November 4 election was really a Democratic primary and our general election for the Congressional seat is December 6.
It will be interesting to see how Anh Cao will do on a day that does not benefit from Obama's coat-tail effect. Of course, this is a district that was drawn specifically to be 65-75% African-American.
Even if we do not win, we are raising the brand. I have shown some 22-26 year old friends the web page and narrative (admittedly not a flashy site) and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I have heard: "Since when do Republicans 'work with the poor'?".
One last consideration is that our districts will be redrawn after 2010 when LA loses a district. So depending on the outcome of that, we could have a future winner here being introduced to voters for the first time. (LA-GOP will hopefully be drawing the districts.)
Raising the brand
Even if we do not win, we are raising the brand. I have shown some 22-26 year old friends the web page and narrative (admittedly not a flashy site) and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I have heard: "Since when do Republicans 'work with the poor'?".
Awesome. ... Of course, that "Aha" moment for a non-Republican is a great setup for the fact that a study showed that Republicans are MORE GENEROUS than Democrats with charity, and you can bring up Obama's very tiny charity donations and his impoverished aunt (meanwhile Cindy McCain's aunt is set up at one of their homes on her dime, interesting contrast). That is precisely how we raise the brand .
And I would add that you get to do so much MORE brand raising because you have so many more people to convert!
I'd love to have a Republican brand campaign that talks about "I'm a Republican" and talks about the kinds of people who are Republicans and points out "We pay most of the taxes... We educate millions each day ... We deliver babies ... We create jobs ... we raise our children" ... and gets people to think about how the 33% of Americans that are self-identified Republicans are THE BACKBONE OF THIS COUNTRY. Suddenly more people would aspire to join rather than shun.
And that's the point - RAISING THE BRAND means that in the next LA Senate race, you have a little easier time to squeak by and win, and the other side has fewer votes they can take for granted. Although in this Obama election the African-American vote is as tilted to Dems as ever, we saw in Texas that 3 African-Americans were elected to statewide office - all Republicans. And we now are told that African-Americans helped deliver the vote for traditional marriage in CA. I believe that we can and we should continue to outreach to minority communities as much as possible. Leave No Voter Behind.
Thanks for your efforts.
"helped deliver the vote for traditional marriage in CA"
"Leave No Voter Behind"
Are you sure you mean that?
Yes, leave no voter behind, but keep principles
We are on the side of the people and citizenry and on the side of civilization when we defend traditional marriage.
if you think you think we are losing net votes by a defense of traditional marriage, when even OBama/Biden ran to the hypocrisy of saying they were against gay marriage in this campaign (with side winks to the gay activists "hey, i dont really mean it, I'll fight to get you gay marriage") ... you are foolish.
The party that is in favor of making us poorer, less free, less civil, and ripping our culture apart through socialist engineering, all in the name of pandering to special interest groups practicing Alinsky tactics and victimology ... is down the hall. The Dems.
The Republicans should remain the party of liberty, limited government, judges who rule on law and not make them, law and order, traditional values and family values, free enterprise, equality of opportunity, strong national defense, Constitutional rights and individual responsibility.
Now, if you insist that holding on to such beliefs leaves voters behind, then you dont get my point, which is that we have many minority, urban, young, uninformed, etc. voters who SHARE the core Republican values, but dont know it yet and dont know the GOP stands with them. And if you still don't get it, you are either a troll / Dem or in dire need of a reread of Reagan's 1975 CPAC speech. A party that stands for nothing is needed by nobody.