I'm thrilled to see that our friends at the Ohio GOP are examining the Great Debacle of 2006 looking for what went wrong. This article in the Toledo Blade is the first I've heard of such an effort.I've asked some questions, Lincoln Logs has contributed some ideas, and so has Right Angle Blog.
Let me start with the best of what Matt Dole has to say...
2006 was not lost inside the Republican Party. It was lost with the masses who don’t identify with either party, and I am getting pretty tired of the ideological blame-game considering both the Conservative Ken Blackwell and moderate Mike DeWine lost. Maybe we would be better of blaming the democrats for getting their act together for once after 12 years…I do think that Ohio Democrats deserve some credit...for far too long, the Ohio GOP has been growing complacent (in my opinion) with lackluster candidates because they could count on the Ohio Democrats to screw up. Not this year...
What happened this year was not ideological. It was psychological. Support was difficult to get because Republicans were behind from day 1. Support was difficult to get because Republicans have been in control in Ohio for 12 years and nationwide for those same 12 years, and voters perceived a change was necessary. Elections are won in a big large area of voters who don’t really identify themselves politically. They don’t consider themselves Republicans or Democrats, and they have supported a wide spectrum of candidates From John Glenn to Ken Blackwell in the past. This year, the collective news cycle that was Noe/Ney/Taft/2004 election/Iraq caused them to support Democrats. They didn’t support Conservative Republicans, they didn’t support moderate Republicans. They supported supposed moderate Democrats and liberal democrats.I was under the impression that this country was pretty divided politically. That would suggest that the group that has the advantage should win. Are we to believe that liberal Democrats now have the advantage? Not if you look at who they put up in order to win. The problem that I see with the Republicans is that they weren't conservative. I agree with Matt that there is a large block of people who don't consider themselves Democrat or Republican...they consider themselves liberal or conservative..... Yes, that does complicate matters becuase people can be conservative on any number of issues, but liberal on others. That is what makes politics so interesting: the combination of issues and positions that leads to the right coalition of voting blocks that brings victory is constantly changing as shifting priorities meet candidate performance.
Matt Dole's post at Lincoln Logs is a great read with plenty of insight...read the whole thing.
Now, on to Matt Naugle's nuggets of wisdom:
And its impossible for "coalitions" to be helpful when you have candidates who piss Republican-leaning coalitions off.I really don't think there are that many people who strongly identify themselves as being Republican or Democrat. When you examine what people believe, you are going to find the conservative and liberal labels much more effective. Some people do feel very strongly about certain issues... If the Ohio GOP wanted to have success with their outreach efforts to sportmen, for example, they needed to find a way to make Mike DeWine an attractive candidate for them (which was nearly impossible) or use that block for supporting those candidates that were strong in issues that sportsmen support. There is nothing saying that the group you bring in to volunteer for you has to support the entire ticket (and that will NEVER happen anyway), so why depress those efforts by forcing them to do so? I'm sure somebody has an answer to that...but I can't think of one.
Matt Naugle on Democrat Chairman Chris Redfern's "advice":
Yeah, "move to the middle"... great idea! Because Republicans lost the Congress because they were too conservative and too tough on pork spending?No move to the left is going to solve this problem. If Jason Mauk learns anything from this cycle, it had better be that the Big Tent is as big as it can get... The Ohio GOP needs to get serious about promoting an agenda that is based on ideas and principles. The era of triangulation is over...
