GOP’S poor state showings hint at national fate
Conservatives have long dismissed California, the nation’s most-populous state and the world’s ninth-largest economy, as the Left Coast, Wackyville and La-La Land.
But after Tuesday’s election, there is one thing that Republicans across the nation can no longer do — ignore it.
The GOP failed to take the White House and lost an opportunity to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate, while trends that began in California — the burgeoning numbers of Latino, Asian American and young voters — are harbingers of what’s ahead for Republican fortunes, Democratic consultant Garry South said.
“They can denigrate this state all they want,” South said. “But the future of America is what you’re seeing right now, laid out in California.”
In the minority-majority state of California, the future isn’t looking bright for the GOP, which has been reduced to rubble in the 2012 election cycle as its share of registered voters dropped below 30 percent.
The result: California Democrats hold every major statewide office, including governor, both U.S. Senate seats, nearly three-fourths of the congressional delegation, and the possibility of achieving a supermajority in both houses of the Legislature.
“It’s an amazing story,” said Simon Rosenberg, who heads the Democratic think tank NDN in Washington. “California gave us Dick Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and it’s arguably more responsible for the modern conservative movement than any other state in the country.
“And here we are, 50 years later,” Rosenberg said, with Republicans “essentially going out of business there.”
California GOP strategist Tony Quinn, in a pointed blog on the future of his party, was even more scathing.
“The good news for the California GOP is that they are not a dying party,” Quinn wrote last week. “The bad news is that they are dead. There is no state Republican Party left and its numbers in the legislature make it irrelevant.”
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a Democrat, added on MSNBC’s “Hardball” last week: “They literally gave it away. They’ve gotten out of step with who the people are, what the people care about.”
Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist, said Republicans across the nation will “never have a more favorable playing field” than they did this year, given the sputtering economy and incumbent President Obama hamstrung by high unemployment rates.
Given the party’s poor showing on Tuesday, “the Republican brand is untenable,” Lehane added. “You can’t lose the percentage of women and Latinos that they’re losing and hope to succeed in a country that is becoming increasingly diverse.”
But Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution fellow and past adviser to former California Gov. Pete Wilson, said the fortunes of the GOP in California don’t necessarily predict the future for Republicans nationwide.
The state party “lacks a
message and good people to run for statewide office,” Whalen said. But that’s not true for the national party, he added.
Names of potential candidates for president in 2016 are being bandied about — including Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Whalen said.
Thirty states have Republican governors, and the GOP is “doing OK in local elections and statewide elections across America,” he added.
At the national level, “the problem for the GOP is what its message will be,” Whalen said, and how well it is communicated to women, Latinos, Asian Americans and young people.
Still, Democrats said, the GOP must broaden its appeal from older white men to demographic groups whose numbers are increasing, including women.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris said the GOP needs to do some post-election soul searching about its hyperpartisan attitudes, such as those on abortion, that have turned off women voters.
“Republicans have a choice as a party. … They have to decide whether to stay in the circular firing squad or get out of it.”
Wade Randlett, Democratic Party activist
“Their mission was to defeat the president,” Harris said. “And for one party to say their goal is to obstruct the president, with a gang mentality — that can have a backlash.”
Former state Controller Steve Westly said the national Republican Party can also learn from popular issues in California, including climate change and same-sex marriage.
Quinn, in his Fox and Hounds blog, said, “It is time to let Howard Jarvis rest in peace,” referring to the antitax crusader whose landmark initiative, Proposition 13, reshaped the state’s tax structure more than three decades ago.
The passage of Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax-increase measure, Proposition 30, came the same day that California voters approved 85 of 106 school bond measures, according to the League of California Cities, Quinn wrote.
“Californians clearly want more public resources,” Quinn added. “The question now is whether that money is spent wisely.”
Wade Randlett, a Bay Area Democratic Party activist and fundraiser, added: “Republicans have a choice as a party. … They have to decide whether to stay in the circular firing squad or get out of it.”