The Lesson of the Election
November 9th, 2012 // 11:24 am @ Oliver DeMille
This election was a surprise. Not because of the result, which I expected.
Before the election I wrote several times that it would come down to independents in the swing states—especially Florida, Ohio and Virginia, but also a few other battleground states such as Nevada, Wisconsin and Colorado.
I was right about the states, but wrong about which voters would sway things.
I thought it would be independent voters, like it was in the elections of 2006, 2008 and 2010. But I was wrong.
In the 2012 presidential election the swing voters in these contested states were Latinos.
This is the big message of the 2012 election.
As long as the Republican Party is seen as the enemy of immigrants, it is going to continue losing elections.
The number of Latino voters will increase by the 2014 midterm election and again by the 2016 presidential election, and as long as the large majority of them see Republican candidates as natural enemies, Republicans should get used to losing.
The GOP has to find a way to appeal to Latino voters.
This shouldn’t be difficult.
The majority of Latino voters are family-oriented, supportive of family values, hard working, entrepreneurial, and love freedom.
They don’t want bigger government, which they tend to see as aristocratic rule by elites.
But it’s hard to blame them for voting against Republican candidates who seem committed to their deportation and disrespectful of their desires for freedom and economic opportunity.
The needed change will demand a fundamental transformation of Republican beliefs, not just some pragmatic strategy designed to recruit Latino voters.
Republican candidates and voters need to genuinely embrace the right of people to seek freedom—and to leave their nation if necessary to find it.
Republicans need to return to the viewpoint that America stands for freedom, that we invite all hard-working, family-loving people in the world to come and join the melting pot and use their freedoms to work hard and build a better nation for all.
The GOP needs to once again see itself as the party of freedom for all people—everywhere.
One difficulty is that many conservatives who vote for anti-immigrant candidates do so because they dislike illegal immigrants receiving welfare and other government benefits funded by taxpayers.
But the welfare state is the problem, not immigrants.
Get rid of welfare, and we’ll once again be an America proud to invite immigrants here to participate in freedom.
But unless Republicans become the party of Latinos, or at least manage to convince more than half of them to support its freedom-and-family-oriented policies, Democrats will continue to win—and the welfare state will swell beyond control.
Republicans lost the presidential election of 2012 because of the strong anti-immigrant rhetoric of the 2011-2012 primaries, and until conservatives embrace the many great benefits Latinos and other minorities have to offer and make them central to the Republican Party, the Democrats are going to run America.
It’s time for a new Republican Party that:
1-promotes the ideals of limited government rather than Republican big spending (the message of the Tea Parties and also of many independents)
2-is truly tolerant, respectful, genuinely celebrating and embracing a diversity of cultures, enticing to Latinos and other minority voters
3-is more frequently winning than losing
The third item on this list will never happen in the 21st Century unless the second occurs.
In short: It is time for a fundamental shift in the Republican Party (or the creation of a new party that embraces these very values), because a GOP that fails to effectively attract Latinos and other immigrants is going to remain out of power.
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Oliver DeMille is the chairman of the Center for Social Leadership and co-creator of Thomas Jefferson Education.
He is the author of A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the 21st Century, and The Coming Aristocracy: Education & the Future of Freedom.
Oliver is dedicated to promoting freedom through leadership education. He and his wife Rachel are raising their eight children in Cedar City, Utah.
Category : Current Events &Featured &Government &Independents &Leadership &Politics
Allen Levie
12 years ago
What would it take? This seems like an incredibly tall order.
The clamoring for war (drones) and disinterest in the lives of immigrants seem linked and deep seeded.
This general approach seems as disinterested as the libertarian tough-love of axing entitlements.
People appear to have a similar blind drive, believing that all sorts of debt and propping up the economy can go on indefinitely without consequence. A sort-of fantastic disinterest in future generations and those forced into the collective action.
The immigration piece seems to fit neatly into a somewhat polarized triangle of disinterest, it’ll be tough to break.
Keith
12 years ago
I disagree with the Latino vote winning the election. Instead I blame registered R’s and independents that simply stayed home. Even more, why did they stay home? Because the republican party is a war machine, always pointing the finger at some foreign enemy. Instead of appealing to the Latino vote, they should be taking the high road and start revealing corruption for what it is. Embrace the tea party mind, which is far more active, far more engaged, and far more involved and organized than the Latino vote. Romney lost because he refused to employ the language of his own culture and fight outwardly against the secrete combinations of power, the banking cartels, and the statists. A loving family man will not work any more. It shows a lack of intelligence, as if he walked into a debate after having a family home evening and is completely unaware of the real power centers in the room. Romney is the typical LDS yes man, and that is why he lost. Google Joel Skousen’s video on it. It is quite revealing. Also, search blackboxvoting.com. The voter fraud is completely un-reported in the mainstream, and Americans need to wake up and take note ASAP. Until one party truly talks of declassified and proven corruption (can you say MF Global), we are doomed. Articles like this are just more evidence that we are unwilling to bring to the surface what is too slowly making its way to our conscience, that the United Sates has been taken over by a financial coup d’état.
Josh
12 years ago
Both this article and the comments laud the “Tea Party” as a big part of a future solution to the Republican party’s woes and as a noble and ideologically superior movement. I would caution that the Tea Party is not a unified nor monolithic movement, group, or philosophy. It is not organized and it is not homogeneous. Yes, it began as a reaction to big spending and big government by both Democrats AND Republicans and at its beginning it was based on the unifying principles of limited government as espoused by the founders. However, over the course of the last few years it has attracted a variety of different people who I believe have hijacked the central unifying ideals of the movement. Locally, you will find “Tea Party” groups that are nothing more than shells for social conservatives, bigots, and racists. I know this personally because I have attended these various meetings with these groups. In my capacity working for an elected official, I have personally sat in meetings where “Tea Party” groups have come to tell us how “Hispanics” are taking over America and supplanting traditional American values with foreign culture, how English needs to be the official language of the country, how Muslims are taking over, etc., etc. These meetings and dialogues with local “Tea Party” “Leaders” has been revealing. The day-to-day “movement” is being carried out by a small group of local activists with very extreme and seemingly anti-tea party ideas. I don’t blame the “Tea Party” for this because the original movement had the right idea. I blame YOU (the collective reader of this comment) for NOT being involved in these local groups to reign them in. The average tea party supporter who agrees with the original tea party ideals has sat at home unknowingly letting these local groups become hijacked by folks who do not understand the tea party movement and are typically only motivated by their growing discomfort with a changing and increasingly multi-cultural america. I propose that any person who is not regularly involved in a so-called “Tea Party” group but who apparently sympathizes with the movements ideals immediately recognizes that nearly every “local” organized group DOES NOT represent the TEA PARTY. We need to speak about common and unifying American principles and ensure that we are excluding local groups. We cannot let these local groups speak for the movement because in many cases they are a big part of the problem.
Ammon Nelson
12 years ago
I agree with what Dr. DeMille wrote.
The problem I see with the preceding comments is that when they place blame, they all begin with “I blame…” and then point to someone or some group that does not include themselves.
The perception that Republicans are “anti-Latino” is a very damaging perception for Republican candidates, and like Dr. DeMille says, it will continue to be a problem until addressed.
The corruption that Kieth mentions is also a problem for the Republican party, which is why I voted the way I did. I could not see myself supporting a candidate who is, at best, ignoring the corruption, and at worst complicit with an organization that is so obviously corrupt. I disagree so strongly with Obama that I would never even entertain the thought of voting for him.
I am also a strong believer that the only wasted vote is one for which you must hold your nose. So I voted for someone I knew I could hold accountable for every action he made as president.
The Tea Party, as was pointed out, is not a monolithic or unified movement. The not-unified nature is where I see it’s weakness. Divided we accomplish nothing, but unification does not come from political maneuvering. Unification comes from understanding and cooperation. Unification comes from having a common goal, a common purpose. The further away from the local neighborhood you go, the harder you will find it to create unification, and so the more general and generic the common purpose must be.
The further down this road we go, the more a violent revolution becomes likely. A bloody revolution today would be more like the French revolution, and less like the American Revolution.
As evidenced by the reaction of the “losers” on their Facebook wall posts, many people today are motivated by their emotions, fed by their despair with the current situation, rather than by their reason and a hope for a better situation. People want to find anybody else but themselves to blame for the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves.