Election 2012 Results a Wake Up Call For the Out of Touch Republican Party

Impact

Barack Obama, after a vicious campaign battle with Mitt Romney, is victorious. While the polls had Obama and Romney neck and neck, it was never as close as the pundits had it. A near swing state sweep strongly reaffirmed the nation’s overall commitment to President Obama’s leadership.

While the Romney-Ryan team looked to expose Obama as a fiscally and irresponsible and a weak visionary, Mitt Romney was unable to overcome the many labels that plagued him, mainly that he’s out of touch and not presidential material. There’s no doubt that Romney has been very successful as a businessman and achieved progress during his time as the governor of Massachusetts, but he simply had too many obstacles to overcome. Romney was forced to play a right-wing ideologue during the primaries, and once he got the nomination, he forced himself to identify with more centrist, independent-minded views. Romney’s “180” was not sincere enough to convince undecided voters to trust him, especially his choice of GOP ideologue in Paul Ryan. And the vagueness of his “5 point economic plan,” his lack of vision to help the middle class, and Romney’s lack of clarity for a new health care system was not bringing him forward.

Romney and the Republican Party have to reassess significantly if they want to take over the White House any time soon. The Republican Party’s targeting of old white voters is no longer a realistic and successful plan. The United States is a very diverse country, and President Obama’s appeal to the unrepresented minorities was the ultimate factor in his victory. 

Obama’s overwhelming support from African Americans, Latinos, gay people, and women was a winning strategy, and the Republican Party’s refusal to modify their base cost them badly. Whether it’s Obama’s commitment to equal pay for women though his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Act, his support for women’s reproductive rights, his endorsement of gay marriage, his commitment to the passing of immigration reform, and tax-cuts for the middle class, Obama presents himself as the leader of the entire country, and not just the top 1%. Yet on the other end, from Team GOP, comments undermining rape or terming the “47” percent “binders full of women” is not going to cut it.

It’s time for the GOP to wake up. As Tom Friedman points out, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s determination to make Obama a one-term president didn’t work out so well. The Republicans lost this election, and instead of insisting on ruining an Obama second term, they should reach across the aisle. By doing so, the American public benefits and the GOP can rebuild their party’s identify, developing new, possible candidates that offer a refreshing vision from the typical GOP plan, and regain trust in the ever-diversifying American people. It’s time for the GOP to wake up, or else they’ll keep running into the same brick wall: a Democrat in the White House.