It has been a bit over a week since a “wave” Republican midterm election shocked everyone. Highlights included eight going on nine new Republican senators and Republican governors in the traditionally blue states of Massachusetts, Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin. Tens of millions of union and environmental extremist dollars were squandered on losing races. Republicans control 66 of 99 state legislatures. Fears that fraud and big money would deliver Democratic winners evaporated. But in 2016 the turnout will be bigger, (about 56 million more voters), younger, blacker and browner. Our current advantage, a failed President, will be far less of a factor.
As uplifting as Tuesday proved to be and we need to take time to enjoy victory, winning a midterm election is merely step number one. What needs to be done over the next two years to move the nation in a productive conservative direction setting the stage for a Republican President? A positive and simple conservative agenda marked by effective legislation placed on the President’s desk is essential. But conservative legislation is wholly insufficient.
Task number one is to popularize the expanding diversity under the Republican tent. Joni Ernst, Tim Scott, Mia Love, Brian Sandoval, Shelley Capito, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Elise Stefanik, Artur Davis, Bobby Jendal and Suzana Martinez are among the political starlets emerging from the wings. We need to help America’s minorities, women and young people fall in love with our star-studded cast.
The Republican/conservative brand has been sold to young people, single women and minorities as white, intolerant, greedy and gun crazed. I could write a book describing the media’s role in promulgating these caricatures but that would be a fool’s errand. The hearts and minds we need to change don’t read such books. If we have any chance of expanding our constituency based on conservative principles among those we need to target, we first need to rebrand ourselves over the heads of the media. The Party needs to fund major public relations campaigns utilizing all these wonderfully diverse conservative faces as the precedent upon which we turn the tables on our detractors.
A genuine Republican rainbow of leadership needs to go out into the communities to repair decades of distortion. Churches, universities and traditionally black colleges must hear from our elected celebrities. ‘Rainbow’, ‘celebrity’ and ‘diversity’ are words we need to co-opt. We dare not let the other side monopolize the soothing and superficial terms they have utilized to charm and distract. We don’t need to distract but we certainly need to implement a well-crafted charm offensive.
Jonathan Swift wrote, “ it is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he wasn’t reasoned into”. An inaccurate perception of Republicans/conservatives will not be repaired with a recitation of facts or rational argument alone. A face-lift by way of the wonderful ensemble cast mentioned above, if properly directed can produce a Republican blockbuster hit.
First we need to indulge the necessary superficialities to get on an equal footing with the other side and then we have a real opportunity to win based on facts, logic and history.
Is this fair? We all know life is not fair. Over the last few days I have heard endless rhetoric about how best to use this wave election to put the nation back on a more conservative course. The base upon which we build an expanding conservative movement and elect a conservative Republican President in 2016 requires more than ideology. We fill the seats in the theater with people who are coming to see the stars. Once in their seats, predisposed to enjoy our film, we tell our story.