There has been tons of articles on why the Republican party lost the 2008 election.  Of course most of the ideas put forth are  dead wrong,  its laughable.    Unfortunately those ideas are frequently brought to you by the "mainstream" media,  so they get lots of play.    Republican party officials need to NOT listen to these voices anymore,  it has gotten them to the point they are at today.  

They say Republicans should be more like Democrats,  which is nonsense, since Republicans have been more like Democrats in recent years.   That can't work and  won't work and hasn't worked.   Democrats have been winning because they are the only other show in town,  not because they got popular or something.    They remain in the basement when it comes to voter approval too.  There just isn't anything else to vote for!

There is talk of the big tent (of ideas).   They talk of the Reagan years,  which many of us now remember more fondly these days.    How Reagan made the Republican party the big party tent.   There is truth to that,  he got many people who had never voted Republican before to vote for him and for lower level Republican candidates as well.   It had helped that Democrats were moving left at a scary rate those days turning many off to them.    The economy was bad due to their bad economic policies.   So more people in unions,  or blue collar work, or the middle class voted Republican.   Reagan was the perfect candidate for his time.   He got people who would have never voted for a  Republican to do so. 

In his column today Pat Buchanan (please note: I don't agree with Pat very often, so don't blow me off as yet another Buchanan fluky) he brought up some good points I would like to to discuss a little.    How that few minorities vote Republican nowadays.  George Bush did much better with these voters then John McCain, though McCain was often seen as the more "moderate" person.   How can that be?   If conventional thinking is correct,  more minorities should have voted for McCain then Bush.    But they didn't! 

Granted Bush didn't run against Obama (though you wouldn't know that at times during the election).    But Bush is still more conservative then McCain.   Many commentators  believe that Republicans lost because the Republicans moved right.    It hasn't,  there is no evidence of that, but may look like it has because the Democrats have shifted even more to the  left.   If anything the Republicans moved somewhat more left as well with the social programming and the large increasing in spending.    It may been have lost because now the Republicans have moved too far left.   Who really knows for sure.

Surveys show that the majority of American's see themselves as conservatives.   Many don't seem to vote conservative or at least Republican though.    So conservatives are far more then white people who live out in the country, who go to church and watch NASCAR.    There are minority conservatives out there maybe even a majority of these groups as well.

That's one of the ironies of Obama and the Democrat party in general.   If minorities were not so quick to just pull the lever for the Democrats. If more would look at where the candidates and the parties stood, they probably wouldn't have voted for Obama in the huge numbers that did.  Why does it look like they don't look at the issues?   The Democrats don't even seem to do anything to even keep them in the party anymore not that they ever did.

If prop 8 in California  does nothing else, it shows that most minorities are at least socially conservative.   And they would vote that way on an issue,  when they can, with no candidate or party seemly involved.   Minority voters voted yes for prop 8 in high numbers in fact a majority.  But they don't vote Republican.    Are social and societal problem not as much of a issue as economics?     I  highly doubt it.    Why isn't abortion a bigger issue in the black protestant church?   Abortion hurts the African American community far worse then the overall population.    A large part of the hispanic community is Roman Catholic so why don't they vote in bigger number for Republicans either?

So the question is, what needs to happen to remove the distaste of voting Republican?     Has the mainstream media convinced these communities that Republicans bad, Democrats good, even though if issues are compared, that they agree with the Republican position more.   The message is just not working at all.   How could it work to bring those conservatives to the Republican party and make it seem like home?    Voting for liberal Democrats hasn't gotten these communities anything but heartache.    But they keep voting for it.

People forget that with the African-Americans community,  they voted majority Republican from the Civil War until the 1930's.    They moved to the Democrats largely because of the economy of the Depression years.    I don't know how people overlooked that the Democrats were the party that was preventing blacks from even voting from the post Civil War years all the way to the 1960's.   But people don't want to learn from history do they?

I think that economic policy keeps minorities in the Democratic Party today.   The conservative message doesn't seem to get though on economics,  so many think they are economic liberals.    When they may not be, if they had all the facts.     The Republican policy is sound but the message gets lost in the nonsense.   The problem may be marketing not policy.    The Democrat sow fear in people when it comes to economics,  it works well on working class whites too.  

Back to Reagan again.   He proves that people can be brought to the Republican party.    However we need to get the party to the point where you don't have to have an one individual to shoulder the task of bringing those voters to the table.    The Republicans need marketing help,  sticking with conservative values to win big again.     Moving away from that hurts the GOP as well.    The party has scored its biggest successes with conservatives ideas in the 1980's and 90's.  It can do so again.

I truly believe in the big tent theory.   The Democrats don't have the big tent anymore,  they are more closed to good ideas then ever.    However I think that the largest group in the big tent will always be the conservatives so if you got that you are the winner.    However the Republican tent  has to be more welcoming to non-white conservatives.    They may like the Republican policy but don't know they are in the wrong party due to the misinformation,   the message is coming though to the country wrong.    Some of the message will never come though right due to the mainstream media,  but they can be overcome. 

Do I think that the Republicans really need the exalted "moderates".    Not really,  if the surveys show that the majority of  the country is already conservative are right.    They just need to be gathered into the same party, and they would always win, all the demography would be in their favor.   How would I do it.   I don't have the answer for that.  The Democrats have rejected conservatives ideas  for the most part.    Are the Republican stupid enough to do it too?


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