The right is fond of calling out epic fail on people (sometimes their own people, when members of a different internal right faction). They very unceremoniously dumped toke black chair Michael Steele after his very successful 2010 election cycle, because of factional, fractious internal party politics,replacing him with this guy. This is significant, because absent or at least below the radar Reince Preibus remains the chair into 2013, and Michael Steele, currently a pundit on MSNBC, is considering another run at the RNC chairmanship in 2013.
Just a hunch, but I'm guessing Reince here won't be seeking another term in that position. Unfortunately for the Republicans, they still fail to understand that the people who voted for Obama and against their candidate -- and many of those votes were AGAINST their candidate and policies -- are unhappy with the contempt that the right expresses for the majority of people in this country. Romney famously made the '47%' remarks that were dismissive and disrespectful, and appallingly inaccurate about 47% of Americans as 'takers' not 'makers', which were continued by his VP ticket partner Ryan. While Romney tried to take back those statements as not expressing how he truly feels, that was just one more Romney LIE. Romney now has resumed those statements, along with bloggers and of course, Faux News talking heads. Despite the obvious failure of disastrous polling failures guiding the allocation of campaign attention and resources, and the loss in spite of unprecedented support by billionaires through campaign contributions and PAC ads, which arguably is the hallmark of a failed campaign, above and beyond losing and causing down ballot elections to lose as well, Romney risked doing himself an injury with the intensity of patting himself on the back for how well he did. As usual, Romney and Ryan failed to step up to the plate and own their failures, instead trying to push the blame for those failures onto someone else.
From the LA Times:
Mitt Romney told his top donors Wednesday that his loss to President Obama was a disappointing result that neither he nor his top aides had expected, but said he believed his team ran a “superb” campaign with “no drama,” and attributed his rival’s victory to “the gifts” the administration had given to blacks, Hispanics and young voters during Obama’s first term.
Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-age women to back the president.
Romney argued that Obama’s healthcare plan’s promise of coverage “in perpetuity” was “highly motivational” to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters. Pivoting to immigration, Romney said the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint him as “anti-immigrant” had been effective and that the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants had helped turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers.
The great irony is that Romney only won 47% of the votes, and many of those were supporters in red states who are in that 47% he disdains, who are too ignorant and stupid to realize that Romney would hurt them, and the entire country, had he been elected president, in order to give more to the richest 1%.
Additionally, not only the Romney/Ryan campaign, but many in the right wing media and especially the right wing blogosphere failed to get the data correct -- and continue to make the same errors of judgment and understanding of issues and the underlying political science.
As the New York Times noted, even the most radical right wing nuts in the Tea Party actually rely on the Government safety net, and would be badly hurt by the removal of it that they support, in favor of continuing or bigger tax breaks for the wealthy. Given that has NEVER EVER resulted in more economic growth, that means that the Tea Party and the majority of conservatives in the GO vote against their own best interests AND against the best interests of the country when they vote for right wing candidates - which represents both hypocrisy AND ignorance.
So long as there remains a significant number of racists on the right, they will continue to lose elections by increasingly larger margins. So long as the right continues to express such disdain and contempt and outright animosity, in their statements, and in their policies, for the various members of the coalition that supported Obama, they will be unable to persuade those groups that they have a place in right wing politics, they will lose by increasingly larger margins. So long as the right politicians and policies are misogynistic, they will continue to lose, even among the narrow demographic of married women who voted for Romney, not gain women voters for their causes.
While Michael Steele might want to run again, I don't think he would be able to pull together a party that has a significant faction that wants to go MORE extreme than it already is, literally risking falling off the far edge of the lunatic fringe from mainstream moderate centrist politics. The ONLY solution for the problem that the right is facing is to abandon their extremist politics, not become more extreme. I don't think the 2010 success was genuinely because of anything Michael Steele did, but independent of it. And I don't think it will be repeated, not in 2013, not in 2014, and not in 2016.
Michael Steele is an excellent pundit, and I think he has found a very good fit expressing some very intelligent conservative positions on MSNBC. Sadly, the GOP however doesn't want moderate conservative views, and I don't think they want him any more than they did when they ousted him after the 2010 successful campaign cycle.
But I don't think they're going to want to continue with Reince Preibus EITHER. The big question remains, will the GOP be able to let go of what they have wrong and do wrong? Or will they reject figures like Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal? I'm betting they will crucify (metaphorically) Reince Preibus, for his failure, his epic failure (given the funding of these candidates, and in many cases the advantage of incumbency), but will also be unable an unwilling to recognize that they have failed policies and positions in place as their platform, and in selecting their candidates. I predict the Tea Party will remain drunk on their 2010 success, and that the GOP will continue to suffer the hangover in the next election cycle.
If Michael Steele were smart, he'd wait to come forward to go for the chair until the RNC is capable of recognizing AND CHANGING what they have wrong. Otherwise he will be the scapegoat for what is wrong, even when it is the fault of the entire right for being able to adapt.
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