GOP looks to rebuild after disaster at polls
WASHINGTON — To hear some Republicans tell it, the Grand Old Party needs to get with the times.
Some of the early prescriptions offered by officials and operatives to rebuild after devastating elections: retool the party message to appeal to Latinos, women and working-class people; upgrade antiquated getout-the-vote systems with the latest technology. Teach candidates how to handle the new media landscape.
From longtime GOP luminaries to the party’s rising stars, almost everyone asked about the Republicans’ Nov. 6 election drubbing seems to agree that a wholesale update is necessary for a party that appears to be running years behind Democrats in adapting to rapidly changing campaigns and an evolving electorate.
Interviews with Republicans at all levels of the party indicated that postelection soul-searching must quickly turn into a period of action.
“We’ve got to have a very brutally honest review from stem to stern of what we did and what we didn’t do, and what worked and what failed,” said former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who ran the party in the 1990s.
The party “has to modernize in a whole wide range of ways,” added former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ran against White House nominee Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential primary. “We were clearly wrong on a whole range of fronts.”
To determine what went wrong, the Republican National Committee is examining every detail of the 2012 elections, with the goal of rebuilding the party for the future — much as the Democratic Party did in the 1980s after suffering a series of stinging losses at all levels of government.
How to move forward dominated the discussions at last week’s Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas, where some of the party’s leading voices castigated Romney’s assessment — made in what was supposed to be a private telephone call to donors — that Obama won re-election because of the “gifts” the president had provided to blacks, Latinos and young voters. These governors faulted Romney.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal attributed Romney’s loss to a lack of “a specific vision that connected with the American people.”
Across the board, Republicans say that arguably the most urgent task facing the party is changing its attitude about immigration as it looks to woo Latinos. The rapidly growing group voted overwhelmingly for Obama.
Republicans said they also have work to do with single women and younger voters, many of whom tend to be more liberal on social issues than the current Republican Party. These Republicans said a change in tone is needed, though not a change in principles such as opposition to abortion.
“We need to make sure that we’re not perceived as intolerant,” said Ron Kaufman, a veteran Republican strategist who advised Romney’s campaign.