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In the wake of Tuesday's elections, when Republicans won two governor's
races but lost both Congressional races, conservatives are evaluating
the way forward. Already a beleaguered party following sweeping 2006
and 2008 races, the party's identity crisis hit a turning point with
this week's mix of victories and defeats. Looking over the results,
conservatives parse what worked, what didn't, and how to apply those
lessons to the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.
- Grassroots Conservatives Conservative blogger Erick Erickson says
the Republican loss in NY-23 was a warning to the GOP that the
grassroots can't be ignored. "So we have demonstrated to the GOP that
it must not take conservatives
for granted. The GOP spent $900,000.00 on a Republican who dropped out
and endorsed the Democrat. Were we to combine Scozzafava and Hoffman’s
votes, Hoffman would have won," he writes. "I have said all along that
the goal of activists must be to defeat
Scozzafava. Doug Hoffman winning would just be gravy. A Hoffman win is
not in the cards, but we did exactly what we set out to do — crush the
establishment backed GOP candidate."
- Economic Conservatives The Atlantic's Megan McArdle insists economic issues will drive the future party. "Social conservatism just isn't the main issue there. Abortion will be
legal no matter what happens on the federal level, and a lot of local
Republicans are perfectly fine with that. Evolution will be taught in
the schools. What animates Republicans in the upstate is a deep
economic conservatism," she writes. "As long as social issues dominate the Republican Party, they will
continue losing their north--I had a lot of relatives who at least
considered voting for Obama. Ironically, I wonder if the tea parties
won't help bring the two wings of the Republican party together: guns
and lower government spending are the two things all members can agree
on."
- Bob McDonnell Moderates The Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Perry Bacon
point to Bob McDonnell, who on Tuesday won the race to become
Virginia's next governor. "Some Republicans said a successful blueprint
may be the Virginia
gubernatorial victory of Robert F. McDonnell, a social conservative who
campaigned as a moderate and appealed to independent voters on
kitchen-table issues such as the economy and jobs." The quote Chris
Chocola, president of the conservative Club for Growth. "If the
Republicans want to grow the tent, I think they should look at limited
government, and then the candidates can reflect the social views of
their districts," Chocola said.
- 'Regular People' Glenn Beck continues to champion
Doug Hoffman's outsider, accountant persona. "Here's what the
Republicans should learn. The tea party movement, if
you think you're going to run people that are going to be, you know,
ACORN wannabes and they're just part of the corruption, part of the
system, if you're going to run those people, you can expect a tea party
guy to come out, and the tea parties, they'll help you lose every
single election," he says. "You might want to just say, 'Maybe we
should go with the accountants. Maybe we should go with the regular
people.'"
- The Anti-Democrat Party Republican strategist Alex Castellanos writes
in the New York Times that it's all about running against Dems. "When
only 20 percent of Americans self-identify as Republicans, it is
not our brand voters are buying. It’s the other guy's brand they are
rejecting. Republicans won, fundamentally, because President Obama and
the
Democratic leadership in Washington have rebranded themselves as the
party of economic irresponsibility," he wrote. "Thanks for the
opportunity, President Obama."
- Ideological Purists, But Few of Them Daily Kos chief Markos Moulitsas evaluates the effort to create ideological purity. "They'd rather lose general election races than make gains in
Congress with (in their eyes) less-than-perfect Republicans. That's a
weird way to build a majority. Only 30 percent of the country is in the
South, and that kind of politics plays poorly anywhere that isn't
Southern or Mormon.
Time will tell if they've been effective. Maybe they've stumbled
upon a brilliant 'addition by subtraction' political formula that
allows them to win more races by kicking everyone out of their party."
