There are three important lessons we in the grassroots must learn from what happened in the Virginia governor’s race if we have any hope of saving this country from the ash-heap of history in the near future.
1. We have a diversity problem – but it’s not with Hispanics.
Yes, the Republican Party has a diversity problem, but the problem is not Hispanics and this is a problem that selling out your base and the country with scamnesty won’t come close to fixing.
The truth is among the traditional “swing states” crucial to conquering the Electoral College map, only Colorado has far more Hispanic voters than black voters. In most cases there are far more black voters than Hispanic voters. In fact, while a record number of Hispanics voted in 2012, the percentage of eligible Hispanics who voted decreased from 2008.
Based on the latest voter turnout data in those key swing states here’s the percentage of Hispanic voters compared to black voters (courtesy of NBC News and The New York Times):
- Colorado: 14% Hispanic, 3% black
- Florida: 17% Hispanic, 13% black
- North Carolina: 4% Hispanic, 23% black
- Ohio: 3% Hispanic, 15% black
- Pennsylvania: 6% Hispanic, 13% black
- Virginia: 4% Hispanic, 20% black
In each of those states the Democrat candidate at the top of the ticket in the last election, Barack Obama or Terry McAuliffe, received at least 90% of the black vote. If my math is correct, Ken Cuccinelli was going to need to win more than 300% of the Hispanic vote to overcome McAuliffe’s black turnout on Tuesday—a statistical impossibility.
In other words, this notion the Republican Party needs to turn the whole country into California in order to win again defies all logic and reasoning. There is simply zero data to support this. So either the people peddling this tripe are dumber than dumb, or they have another ulterior motive they don’t want to disclose.
Look at a state like Michigan, which a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won since 1988. Mitt Romney lost his former home state by 449,238 votes. Obama got 95% of the black vote in Michigan, which were 748,000 voters. Obama received 710,537 of those 748,000 voters. In other words, Obama’s black vote turnout was 158% of his total margin of victory in Michigan. Only 3% of the Michigan electorate was Hispanic, so there was no percentage of Hispanic voters Romney could’ve received to compensate for Obama’s advantage of black voters.
This math is similar in almost every swing or rust belt state. It explains why when you look at red-blue colored maps of states you see all these “blue states” dominated by red counties. In the cities where the black population is highest the Democrats dominate. McAuliffe lost about 80% of Virginia’s 95 counties, and still was elected governor.
Most of the states where Hispanic voter turnout is highest are either states the GOP currently can’t win (California) or currently can’t lose (Texas). The minority vote that is costing the GOP elections is the black vote. Most African-Americans are patriotic (blacks serve disproportionately in the military), are for marriage (blacks have been a key voting bloc in every successful marriage effort in the country), and also for school-choice (they often live in neighborhoods with the worst education opportunities). Those are some key areas of common ground to finally (and sincerely) begin building bridges.
But it’s hard to be the political party of “too big to fail” crony capitalists and minority empowerment at the same time.
2. Be careful who you surround yourself with.
One of the biggest things Ted Cruz has going for him is his staff of young, aggressive movement conservatives who at times make him look timid on social media. I don’t know who Cuccinelli was ultimately taking advice from, but after formally winning the nomination someone convinced him he had to spend the next four months impersonating Romney and George Allen, both of whom were rejected by Virginia voters last year.
Finally, the past two weeks Cuccinelli returned to the issue that launched him as an exciting political figure with national office potential—Obamacare. And because of it he darn near made the conventional wisdom he was toast look stupid. Who knows, had Cuccinelli returned to his liberty-loving roots a month ago he might be Governor Cuccinelli right now.
It does no good to beat the establishment in a primary and then surround yourself with the very people taking the party down the toilet just in time for the general election. Be your own man and be yourself, because ultimately it’s your name on the ballot and not the losing-is-in-their-DNA professional political class.
3. This party desperately needs an enema.
There comes a point where you stop blaming a scorpion for repeatedly stinging you, because it’s just his nature. Instead, you stomp on that scorpion before he gets close enough to sting you again.
This is what we must do to the Republican Party establishment.
They proved once and for all what I have been saying for years, they prefer Democrats to us. The Republican Governor’s Association poured resources into Chris Christie’s race that was over six months ago, but left Cuccinelli hanging out to dry. The Republican National Committee gave Cuccinelli one-third of the money it gave Bob McDonnell to win Virginia in 2009. It’s reasonable to assume that if they had helped Cuccinelli as much as they helped McDonnell that would’ve been the difference in a 3-point race. I had one RNC member tell me several big money donors were withholding money from the RNC until after Cuccinelli lost, because they didn’t want to help him. They preferred a grifter like McAuliffe instead.
Virginia Lt. Governor Bill Bolling did everything he could to sabotage Cuccinelli once he was out-flanked in the primary. A top consultant for Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, went to work for McAuliffe.
The establishment left Cuccinelli for dead, just as they always go harder after us in primaries than they do Democrats in the general election. That’s why next year’s primary cycle needs to be the bloodiest in recent American history. We must take advantage of every chance we have to vote out an undocumented Democrat in next year’s primaries. They’ve all got to go, every last one of them. These people are not our friends, and they’re not the “stupid party” and they’re not weak.
They are a treacherous enemy. Treat them accordingly next year, and every election year after that.
Wipe them out—all of them.