Republicans Want to Win

The Republican Party is trying to change its image. It learned its lesson from its electoral defeats.

“Today, we mark a fresh beginning. It’s about winning elections,” says the Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus. His 100-odd page report presents the party renewal program that will ensure its success in 2016. The party should be friendlier and try to expand its influence among minorities, women and young voters.

Priebus assures that changes cannot threaten the party’s “conservative principles” and points out that it should not close itself off to new voters.

The Republican Party has lost five of the last six elections; the latest document is an admission to yet another failure. “Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; and our primary and debate process needed improvement,” Priebus said when presenting the report. Referring to the research and opinions of more than 50,000 supporters’ groups, the document states that the Republican Party is seen as an organization that has no contact with reality, as a representative of narrow-minded people. Some have described it as a group of “stuffy old men.”

Because of the prevailing demographic trends, Republicans are forced to take a pragmatic approach.

The solution to the crisis? The Republican Party should improve its image and increase the pool of potential voters. The party is to hire a new expert, who is to be responsible for electronic media and communication with voters through social media. It is also going to spend $10 million on staff called up to reach groups that have been marginalized by Republicans — Hispanics, African-Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities, as well as sexual minorities.

Republicans also want to reach out to young voters. Republicans, therefore, intend to make frequent appearances in popular and satirical programs broadcast on channels watched by young people, such as MTV. “Finding common ground with voters will be a top priority,” Priebus admits.

Another plan is to limit the number of presidential candidate debates before elections. In the last electoral cycle, politicians took part in more than 20 debates and spent a lot of time, money and energy fighting each other, rather than fighting the main enemy of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama.

The Republicans’ change of mindset is marked by their attitude toward immigration reform. Two bipartisan eight-person teams of both chambers are currently working on the topic. This week, the reform was openly supported particularly by Senator Rand Paul. The conservative and tea party favorite called for starting a “path to citizenship” for 11 million illegal immigrants. That would be a fundamental change. A few months ago, Republican presidential candidates engaged in an anti-immigration rhetoric race. Mitt Romney flat out called it an “auto-deportation,” understood as tightening immigration law in such a way that immigrants would be forced to return to their homeland.

Pragmatism in this case was forced by the prevailing demographic trends. Every month, 50,000 people, including the young and descendants of immigrants from Latin America, acquire voting rights. Latinos are the fastest growing minority in the United States; without their support, you cannot win any elections at the federal level. Republicans have made a step toward these people to avoid a situation like that of the 2012 election, in which Barack Obama received 71 percent of the Latino vote. Among African-Americans and Asians, the support was even higher, amounting to 90 percent and 73 percent, respectively. To reverse the trend, the Republicans want to open offices in the districts and towns inhabited by minorities and nominate more candidates for political posts (out of the said groups).

Another group which Republicans want to focus on are women. Women account for more than half of U.S. voters; Barack Obama won in this group by an 11-point margin in 2012. “We have to have a seat at the table. We play on the same team. Women need to advance in the structures,” says Sally Bradshaw, a former adviser to the Republican governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, who is considered to be among the potential candidates to the White House in 2016.

The Republican National Committee report is referred to in the U.S. as the next stage of the post-election settlement put forward by the moderate wing of the party associated with George W. Bush. But not everyone agrees with the diagnosis. “Americans and those in the tea party movement don’t need an ‘autopsy’ report from R.N.C. to know they failed to promote our principles, and lost because of it,” Jenny Beth Martin, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots organization, said. Politicians connected with the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is associated with the most conservative wing of the party, also expressed their critical opinions. Among those were Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Allen West and Donald Trump.

The sharpest criticism fell on the support of the immigration reform, which Conservative Political Action Conference understands as a form of amnesty and, in the long term, a “suicide” for Republicans. Along with the naturalization of immigrants, the increase of voters would particularly favor the Democratic Party.

We are just a few months away from the electoral campaign for Congress in 2014 and less than three years from the first pre-electoral caucuses in Iowa. Thus, probing for the next presidential election has already begun. The first inside-party surveys show that two senators — Rand Paul and Marco Rubio — may have the best chance at being nominated in 2016. Both have clearly softened their images in recent weeks, seeking support among moderate voters.