Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
At the behest of the Blue Yeti -- who'd like you to know that Mike Murphy will be guesting on an upcoming episode of the Ricochet Podcast -- I offer for your consideration Mr. Murphy's diagnosis of what ails the GOP, courtesy of his latest entry at Time's Swampland blog:
The Republican challenge is not about better voter-turnout software; it is about policy. We repel Latinos, the fastest-growing voter group in the country, with our nativist opposition to immigration reform that offers a path to citizenship. We repel younger voters, who are much more secular than their parents, with our opposition to same-sex marriage and our scolding tone on social issues. And we have lost much of our once solid connection to the middle class on kitchen-table economic issues.
A debate will now rage inside the GOP between the purists, who will as always call for more purity, and the pragmatists, who will demand modernization. The media, always culturally alien to intra-Republican struggles, will badly mislabel this contest as one between “moderate” and “right-wing” Republicans. In fact, the epic battle we Republicans face now is a choice between two definitions of conservatism.
One offers steadfast opposition to emerging social trends like multiculturalism and secularization. The alternative is a more secular and modernizing conservatism that eschews most social issues to focus on creating a wide-open opportunity society that promises greater economic freedom and the reform of government institutions like schools that are vital to upward social mobility.
Over at Bloomberg, Josh Barro dissents:
The Republican Party's key electoral problem doesn't come from social conservatives or nativists. It comes from the economic policy demands of the party's wealthy donors. Murphy allows that Republicans "have lost much of our once solid connection to the middle class on kitchen-table economic issues." But his prescription won't do anything to fix that problem.
What are the "kitchen-table" economic concerns of the middle class? They're high unemployment, slow income growth, underwater mortgages, and the rising cost of health care and higher education. Democrats have an agenda that is responsive to these concerns. Republicans don't -- and they don't because the party's donor class specifically doesn't want one.
Have you spoken with a wealthy Republican donor in the last few years? By and large, they are outraged about Obamacare, easy money and stimulus spending -- that is, at policies aimed at easing middle class families' economic situations. They are often delusionally convinced that the country faces imminent economic collapse. What they believe will prevent that collapse is tight money, spending cuts and continued tax cuts for the rich. And so long as Republicans pursue those goals, they will be the party of anti-middle class economic policy.
Now, both Murphy and Barro are not exactly known for towing the standard conservative line. But everyone seems to agree that something needs to be done. How perceptive do you find the analysis here? What are they getting wrong? And what alternative strategies might you propose?
- Comment (132)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (13)
Comments:
Mar '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
Wow, Barro is so very very wrong, you can tell with his scare words "tax cuts for the rich". Barro has clearly bought the Obama package, believing Intentions matter more than Outcomes, and not understanding that economic collapse is very very real (and already happening). Same old prescription: act like Democrats.
Murphy is right on the economic issues, but otherwise like Barro he's telling us to act like Democrats and surrender in some vain hope that we can play the race and multiculti game like them. But it's too late for this generation anyway, they already vote with the race and their emotions. Short of a collapse of the government gravy train we'll never win with them.
Heck with them both.
Jul '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
We did exactly what Mike Murphy told us to do: Nominate Romney.
OK, we did that. We lost anyways. Where does that leave Mike Murphy's credibility? Shattered, along with that of all of the self-deluded Republican Pundits who believed that Romney had a snowball's chance in hell of beating the President by playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules of politics.
Obama was shanking our nominee 6 months before Romney roused himself to even be bothered defending himself. It's like Romney was a 30's-style, bare-knuckle boxer fighting a savage, MMA-style combatant - "Hey, he can't kick me in the mouth, can he?"
This business of "nativism" is so much twaddle. Every republican candidate has had to face that particular hurdle or the hurdle of being "stupid," "bible-thumping," "racist," "rich" or "evil" since time immemmorial. There was nothing new here but the fact that we were facing a naked, racialist panderer in the form of Barack Obama, the first Ironic, Hipster President. He's their Ronald Reagan, but without commensurate 45-state wins.
We weren't going to beat that with the thin gruel we had in the primaries. Period.
Edited on November 29, 2012 at 11:41pmAug '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
Majestyk: We did exactly what Mike Murphy told us to do: Nominate Romney.
OK, we did that. We lost anyways. Where does that leave Mike Murphy's credibility? Shattered, along with that of all of the self-deluded Republican Pundits who believed that Romney had a snowball's chance in hell of beating the President by playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules of politics.
I have only one "like" to give, but I shall give you my one!
Edited on November 29, 2012 at 11:45pmSep '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
I'm inclined to agree with Murphy...a little. I've long felt no position should be publicly espoused that cannot be explained in explicitly secular terms. I think the Republican Party has to figure out a way to lose gracefully on the subject of gay marriage recognition, because at this late stage, the only alternative is losing badly. I think we can win on life issues, and that's a subject I'm preparing for an upcoming post that I hope can move the needle on that debate, or at least point a way to do so. And I credit him with at least subvocally acknowledging that Republican opposition is to illegal immigration-which is more honest than Jeb Bush was.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems he doesn't appear to be in favor of finding a better way of selling our ideals to America; rather, it appears he's in favoring of jettisoning them. If that is the case, why do we bother having a Party at all?
Dec '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
So Mike Murphy is a Democrat?
Jul '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
skipsul and Majestyk for President.
Sep '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
The Barro comment seems bizarre to me. He can't be saying that Obamacare, easy money, and stimulus spending are the sort of things Republicans should be offering. I would agree that we need to connect with middle-class kitchen-table concerns, but our problem is not that Republicans have been pushing some extreme austerity platform, it's that we weren't able to draw the line from the pro-growth policies we were advancing to the benefits they would bring to the middle-class. Admittedly it's a tougher sell than the standard Democrat give-away package, but tough or not, that's the case we need to make.
Murphy is partly right. The immigration business I think is completely wrong, but I buy the idea that social issues do work against us with younger voters. It's a hard problem to solve, given the tensions we always have to deal with between social conservatives and the more libertarian members of our coalition.
Jul '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
So we're basically supposed to open our borders, abandon our culture, and just embrace "the future". Got it. Remind me again what the point of America is?
Dec '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
I am increasingly of the opinion that I have no relationship to my nation except that of its feedstock. Both of them reinforce this opinion that I am no longer an american, I have been excommunicated from my culture and apparently my species. I am a beast that exists to work for the benefit others, and then die. Hooray for freedom.
Aug '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
These do not strike me as "analysis" but as using the election results to push personal preferences. Where is the data? The election was not a blowout and the Dem advantage of taking the political aspects of politics (as opposed to the policy aspects) seems clear. When winning is more important than how or what you win, you do have an advantage.
Sep '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
Ah so opposing the idea that unlimited numbers of immigrants should be allowed to enter the country, benefit from generous welfare programs, not assimilate into the culture, and then be allowed full citizenship before those who didn't break the law, makes me a 'nativist'. That sounds like the new buzzword to use instead of making an argument.
Add it to the list. I'm already apparently rascist for believing people should be treated equally (opposing affirmative action). I'm also sexist because I believe that an unborn child should have rights similar to the ones who are born. I'm also a homophobe because I don't see what business government has defining marriage in the first place.
What's one more ad hominem label to me? Keep piling them on.
Edited on November 29, 2012 at 11:55pmJul '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
Mike Murphy and his "consultant" class just want to win elections. They don't really care about policies and the effect thereof. They only ideology they identify with is winning and it is how we got massive deficits under George W. Bush and why Ronald Reagan was talked into his amnesty program.
I think it is time for the "consultant" class to find a different line of work.
Edited on November 29, 2012 at 11:55pmJun '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
What evidence does Murphy have that shows being more socially liberal will win elections? Romney won the white vote, including age 18-30, by a sizable margin. He lost the election because he got crushed by the minority voters. Interestingly, a majority of black and latinos oppose same sex marriage. But yet they voted for Obama.
40% of Republican voters are evangelical Christians. So, um, lets kick them to the curb and this will be the formula for success?
Edited on November 30, 2012 at 12:01amJul '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
No. He's a Republican who has in some sense "sold out" for the purpose of making sure he has a place at the table after the inevitable loss. To listen to Murphy he's essentially given up on ANY notion of conservatism winning a national election - that in order to win we have to sell out everything that we have stood for.
He's become their pet. Look whom he gives an interview to: TIME magazine? Who the hell reads TIME magazine but twelve people and prisoners in doctor's offices? TIME is only an appropriate title because reading it is interminable, as it is one of the few unreformed bastions of the old liberal journalism and is justly vanishing.
Dec '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
And what alternative strategies might you propose?
Stop listening to these numbskulls.
Sep '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
To be a bit more abrasive, Murphy sounds like the consultant equivalent to Jon Huntsman, someone whose value to the mainstream media is based on the extent to which he will attack his own side.
Jul '12
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
I guess I'll be old enough by the time the next election rolls around. I'll be sufficiently secular for Murphy to connect with the "new electorate" but I couldn't even get my Grandparents to vote for me because I don't have a (D) next to my name or sufficiently dark skin. I'm not a Roosevelt (crippled, philandering socialist) Kennedy (drug-addled pederast) or an Obama (Black quasi-fascist and crony-capitalist)
Dec '10
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
I much prefer Laura Hollis' post-mortem, in brief:
IMO, addressing number 3 is key. But, it's definitely a bottom-up effort and one the GOP will have little say in, although awareness of it is critical for long-term party survival.
Frankly, I'm doubtful the patient can recover, so grim is the underlying pathology.
Mar '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
Western Chauvinist: I much prefer Laura Hollis' post-mortem, in brief:
IMO, addressing number 3 is key. But, it's definitely a bottom-up effort and one the GOP will have little say in, although awareness of it is critical for long-term party survival.
Frankly, I'm doubtful the patient can recover, so grim is the underlying pathology. · 6 minutes ago
Yup.
Murphy needs to refine his message somewhat. We need to placate the Latino vote with immigration reform (the Democrats will give them more) and then they'll flock to the Republican banner because we are the party of social conservatism, even though we are going to muzzle social conservatives?
Mar '11
Re: Mike Murphy's Diagnosis
I'd never win, I'm too blunt.