http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/06/13/the-morning-plum-house-gop-stomps-all-over-republican-rebranding/
Consider what the House GOP is up to right now. House Republicans recently
passed an immigration amendment, pushed by anti-reform diehard Steve King, that would effectively mandate the deportation of the “DREAMers” who were taken to the U.S. as children. House Republicans are
planning a vote next week on a measure that would ban abortions after 20 weeks, after defeating amendments that would exempt cases of rape or incest. And yesterday, House Republicans approved a version of the 2012 National Defense Reauthorization Act that contains what The Advocate
calls “three controversial, antigay amendments, one of which is aimed at delaying repeal implementation of don’t ask, don’t tell.”
What do these three things have in common? They would seem to run directly counter to the belief among some Republican strategists that the party needs to move beyond cultural battles and preoccupations that imperil the GOP’s ability to remake itself as a more tolerant, inclusive party and to better reach out to constituencies it has alienated.
That much-ballyhooed Republican National Committee “
autopsy” into what went wrong in 2012 declared that the Republican Party needs to improve its outreach to Latinos, women, and gays, and acknowledged a need to reckon with the rising embrace of gay rights among young voters. Analysts have similarly
determined that the Republican Party’s failure to improve its appeal among these groups could be problematic over the long term, because they comprise key groups in the “Rising American Electorate,” i.e., groups that are increasingly important to the Democratic coalition of the future and will only be growing as a share of the vote. Yet these big-ticket items emerging from the House appear narrowly pitched to nativists and religious and social conservatives who make up the GOP base.
Even some Republicans appear worried about this. As one unnamed GOP strategist
told National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar, the King amendment on immigration “reinforces a tone of insensitivity that is just beyond baffling.” Kraushaar concluded that recent GOP behavior — including the party’s spurning of pragmatic GOP governors like Chris Christie — suggest that the RNC’s recommendations “have been forgotten.”
As one Democrat remarked to me, if anything, all of this could intensify the pressure on Republicans to pass immigration reform, since they are running out of ways to genuinely signal a new, more tolerant, more inclusive direction. Yet even here, it’s looking very possible that House Republicans may not prove able to accept a path to citizenship. This, as a
new analysis of a number of polls shows public support for immigration reform is overwhelming.
Of course, the flip side of this argument is: Why should Republicans change at all? After all, thanks to geographic patterns of partisan population distribution and gerrymandering, the GOP grip on the House remains a lock, and Republicans will likely make gains in the Senate. Which raises a question that I wish the political science eggheads would answer: Are the structural aspects of our politics such that no matter how aggressively Republicans pursue policies that risk alienating core voter groups they need to improve their appeal among, it won’t materially impact the party’s fortunes? Is there a point at which any of this matters?
