Thread: Graham and Martinez Blame Us in Part for McCain's Loss

More on the battle for the GOP. The open border GOP pols blaming opponents of illegal immigration in part for McCain's loss, implying if not outright saying that amnesty is a "cure" for the GOP (downplaying the fact that McCain was a bad candidate in a bad environment for Republicans etc.):
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MiamiHerald.com
Posted on Sun, Nov. 09, 2008
Stunned Republicans search for a way forward
By JAMES ROSEN
McClatchy Newspapers

Another brutal election night convinced Republicans that their party needs to change, and change fast.
Now, Republican leaders and activists across the country must agree on change they can believe in.

That won't be easy.

Within hours of election returns that expanded Democratic congressional majorities and delivered a historic presidential victory to Barack Obama, Republicans began searching for a new way forward.

Just as quickly, a split emerged between Republican loyalists advocating a purer form of conservative ideology and those urging a less-dogmatic flexibility.

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the head of the most conservative faction of Senate Republicans, said the Democratic election gains vindicated his hard-edged call for a return to the Reaganite roots of limited government and low taxes.

"We have got to clean up, reform and rebuild before we can ask the American people to trust us again," DeMint said. "This election reflects a failure of Republicans to keep their conservative promises."

DeMint derided the financial bailout package pushed by President Bush and passed by Congress last month as "a trillion-dollar bust." He urged Republicans to abandon "the Democrat-lite strategy of higher spending and bigger government."

Other Republicans, however, said the party must stop looking backward to Ronald Reagan, start closing the technology gap the Obama campaign exposed and broaden its appeal to younger and more diverse voters.

"Republicans need a retooled message for the 21st century and some new messengers to deliver it," said Whit Ayres, an Alexandria, Va.-based Republican strategist. "We need to be looking for how we can bring more people into the party rather than pushing them out."

Whichever direction Republicans choose, the Grand Old Party seems light-years away from Karl Rove's 2004 post-election boast that it was nearing "permanent majority-party" dominance.

Since then, the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006 and now have captured the White House while widening their margins in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"It was a tsunami," Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said of Obama's sweeping win. "This is a time for us to look to ourselves and pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and become the party of ideas again."

Colin Powell, who served as secretary of state under President Bush but endorsed Obama over Republican John McCain as Bush's successor, told CNN, "This is a time for deep introspection on the part of the Republican Party."

Ayres blamed the election losses on the pre-surge Iraq war failures two years ago and the economic collapse this fall, on top of the overriding public disapproval of Bush.

David Frum, a conservative columnist and former Reagan speechwriter, sees broader forces at work.

Republicans, Frum said, must move beyond their base of white, middle-aged men epitomized by "Joe the Plumber," the Ohioan whom McCain made famous during his campaign.

"College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats, but that their values are under threat from Republicans," Frum wrote in a column for the Daily Telegraph of London. "There are more and more college-educated voters."

If GOP leaders want to pursue them, Frum said, "This will involve painful change on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. It will involve even more painful changes of style and tone - toward a future that is less overtly religious ... and less polarizing on social issues."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who was elected to his second term Tuesday, said the noisy, Republican-led defeat of immigration revisions last year helped erase the gains that Bush had made among Hispanic voters.

Less than one-third of Latinos voted for McCain, down from the 44 percent share that Bush had in 2004. Hispanics helped Obama win Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico, which Bush had carried.

"Our brand label with Hispanics is way down," Graham said. "It's one thing to reform a broken (immigration) system. It's another thing to single out one group in a way that they feel threatened."

Bill Greener, a Republican consultant from Alexandria, said Obama had targeted younger voters via text-messaging and cutting-edge online communications.

Obama also took advantage of the growing number of states that allow pre-Election Day voting, Greener said.

"We are getting crushed in early voting and the efficient use of technology," he said. "It's a huge deal when the other side is text-messaging to cell phones while our side is hoping we've got a good e-mail list."

The Republican National Committee announced plans to launch an online initiative called "Republican for a Reason" to seek grass-roots input.

The initiative, committee chairman Mike Duncan said, will enable GOP activists "to tell us why they're Republican ... how we may have let them down in recent years and what we can do to restore their confidence in our party."

David Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, said Republicans shouldn't minimize the scope of Obama's victory.

If GOP leaders don't respond well, the 2008 election could herald a lasting generational change in American politics.

"It looks like to me it's pretty deep, and it's pretty abiding," Woodard said. "You've got this real charismatic candidate (in Obama) who can build a viable coalition for a decade or more if he does it right. It's a pretty steep mountain for Republicans to climb."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politic ... 63500.html

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politico.com
Sunday shows talk transition
By PATRICK O'CONNOR | 11/9/08 12:42 PM EST

[I've just excerpted part pertaining to illegal immigration]

Republicans need Hispanic voters

Other Republicans viewed the results less favorably.

Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) believes his party suffered Tuesday for spurning Hispanic voters — a claim borne out by exit polling in key swing states.

“The very divisive rhetoric of the immigration debate set a very bad tone for our brand as Republicans,â€

Everytime I hear this garbage, I seeth! They lost a LOT more votes because of their illegal alien stance and STILL didn't gain anything among Hispanics. I suspect McCain could have won, IF he had NOT taken on immigration reform. THere was NOTHING to distinguish Obama from McCain. THey both agreed on immigration, they both were for the bailout, they both were against the Bush tax cuts.

The very idea that we have to disregard the laws and pander to people for no reason, except votes, stands opposite everything we stand for.

Hispanics voted for Obama because he offered them MONEY, in the form of tax credits, just like the millions of others who don't pay taxes but will still get money back.

What do you expect, this is printed in a McClatchy Newspaper?

Garbage in = Garbage out.

Dixie

We had better start e-mailing them and letting them know immigration had nothing to do with it, their Repulican voters went Independant or did not vote at all....maybe it is about the Lobbyist, ear marks, loss of Jobs economy...guest workers, 20 years of not enforcing our laws etc.

But they need to hear from us.

"Our brand label with Hispanics is way down," Graham said. "It's one thing to reform a broken (immigration) system. It's another thing to single out one group in a way that they feel threatened."

COME ON! Nearly everyone I know who voted for McSame said they were really just voting against radical Obama. Their hearts were not in the election because McCain is for amnesty for illegals. There is a difference between voting for someone you believe in or just voting for someone to block someone who is far worse. Although McCain is no prize package he stood up against abortion and gay marriage (even on Ellen's show). Personally, I think early voting gives scammers the acorn-edge and there must have been a lot of stuffing for goober.

They did it by putting McSame in the run in the first place. If we would have had a true conservative running, it might have made a difference. Besides, McShame was for open borders and amnesty, so how can they say that. What a bunch of BS.

Originally Posted by Populist

"Our brand label with Hispanics is way down," Graham said. "It's one thing to reform a broken (immigration) system. It's another thing to single out one group in a way that they feel threatened."

What the heck is this moron talking about? Nobody singled out Hispanics except for LaRaza!! And Graham helped them do it!!

So McCains percentage of the Hispanic vote dropped 15%? Well his percentage of the conservative vote dropped 15% also!! There are 5 times more conservatives than there are Hispanics. Plus he pissed off conservative Hispanics!

Republicans lost because of Bush, and one of Bush's main screw-ups was pushing amnesty!!

Bush, McCain, and Graham are the reason Republicans lost!!!
Two of them are now gone, get rid of Graham and Martinez and the Republicans will start to win again.

Originally Posted by agrneydgrl

They did it by putting McSame in the run in the first place. If we would have had a true conservative running, it might have made a difference. Besides, McShame was for open borders and amnesty, so how can they say that. What a bunch of BS.

Just who does "They" refer to? My impression was that evangelicals, who since their fusion to the GOP in 1980 have been its' chief benefactors, overwhelmingly rejected the more astute Mitt Romney on religious grounds, and swung to McCain and Huckabee. Thus the Party was fragmented and McCain was unable to gain anymore than the Republican base. Romney was at least a decade younger than McCain. Young voters overwhelmingly had a distrust of the white haired military man.

I think the Republicans lucked out in 1980 with the rise of the Religious Right as a political force and deciding to join the GOP. But that remedy has now run its course. Theocratic decsions in foreign policy failed in their gamble and have simply alienated too many people.

Time to find a new formula.

[b]Rockefeller Republicanism, spelled correctly, has been in the White House for the past 8 years. The “country clubâ€

Why don't grahmnesty and martinez keep the gop title and the true conservatives start a new party,the reason maclame lost is the fact that the base of the republican party could not get excited about supporting a rino candidate.I know I couldn't vote for him.