By Laura Chapin
Battleground Colorado
As Republicans survey the wreckage from Tuesday night, the question remains whether they will decide to be a national party or not. Republicans have shrunk to becoming a regional party of older, southern white male evangelicals, neither reflective nor representative of the nation as a whole. In many ways, Obama?s re-election was more significant than his election ? it means 2008 wasn?t a fluke, that American voters really are changing and our national identity is changing along with it.
As GOP strategist Chuck Warren said in an e-mail: ?To be frank, we?re a ?Mad Men? party in a ?Modern Family? world.?
Mitt Romney captured a higher proportion of the white vote in 2012 than John McCain in 2008 ? and still lost. On the flip side, Obama won 79 percent of non-white voters. The country is evolving socially and demographically, and the Republican Party is regressing. They can?t get out from under their own base on immigration, gay rights, reproductive health care, and equal economic opportunity for women.
What happened in Colorado last night was a microcosm of what happened nationally: Republicans lost Latinos, women, younger voters and suburbanites. Romney lost Colorado Latinos ? 14 percent of the electorate ? by 52 points. Colorado Democrats retained their majority in the Senate, and regained their majority in the House.
What this means is that six months after Republican Speaker Frank McNulty shut down the legislature rather than allow a vote on civil unions, Rep. Mark Ferrandino is poised to become the first openly gay Colorado speaker of the House. The Colorado Democratic Caucus now has eight LGBT members and five African-American. Twelve of the 20 Colorado Senate Democrats are female (assuming the results in Evie Hudak?s race hold) and four are Latino. In the state House, 18 of the 37 Democratic members are women and six are Latino.
On the federal level, Congressman Ed Perlmutter won re-election by a wider margin (almost 12 points) in 2012 than he did in 2010 in a swing district that became LESS Democratic after redistricting.. The race was summed up in what is acknowledged as one of the best ads of the cycle: the wife of a Navy Seal thanking Perlmutter for helping her and her injured husband, no questions asked about their politics.
I was asked by a reporter last night if the Democratic successes mean Colorado had turned left. The answer is no; Colorado remains a deeply centrist and pragmatic state, not given to political brand identification, with a third of our electorate unaffiliated. But the Colorado demographics continue to evolve as more people, especially Latinos and college-educated, move here for our quality of life.
Democrats have figured out how to speak to those new voters and new citizens, and Republicans have not. It?ll be interesting to see if Tuesday?s results get lost in translation for the Republican Party.
Laura Chapin is a Democratic strategist and member of the Battleground Colorado panel.
Source: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2012/11/07/gop-mad-men-party-modern-family-world/28232/
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