In my last (first?) post, I talked a
little bit about the so-called “War on Women” and the effect that it had on the
Virginia gubernatorial election. I also talked about how Ken Cuccinelli fared
far worse than his counterpart in New Jersey, Chris Christie, in the messaging
war to define him as a candidate. Today, I’d like to elaborate a little more on
that point and what it means for Republican candidates in future elections.
First off, a few disclaimers: I’m going
to keep this post relatively short because Mary Hasson over at the Federalist has basically already written the post I
was planning. She asserts, quite correctly I think, that contextual factors
accounted for much of the disparity between Cuccinelli and Christie in terms of
how they were treated by pro-choice interest groups. Christie was the
overwhelming favorite going into his campaign for reelection and as such his
opponent attracted much less funding from organizations like Planned Parenthood
and Emily’s List than say, a Democrat in a competitive open-seat race in
Virginia. So, essentially, it seems that some Republican candidates can get
away with not focusing at all on women’s issues and still get elected. In fact,
Bill Whalen of RealClearPolitics recommends
that all GOP candidates do just that, saying “Republicans would do well to
de-emphasize social issues.”
I think the key point that Mr. Whalen
misses—and that Ken Cuccinelli proved quite clearly—is that not all Republicans
have the luxury of pretending that social issues don’t exist and still get
elected. Candidates like Cuccinelli—who was in a competitive race and (most
importantly) had a voting record as a staunch social conservative—can’t simply
keep mum on social issues and hope that voters won’t notice. They most
certainly will, if for no other reason than simply because pro-choice
organizations are going to spend a lot of money reminding them.
Obviously, there is a lot more to women’s
rights than the abortion issue. But, like it or not, that is the one issue that
will inevitably stand out the most in an electoral contest. Sadly, the abortion
debate in the United States is almost completely dominated by what Ms. Hasson
refers to as the “zealots” on both sides—those on the right who think that a
single-cell zygote has Constitutional rights and those on the left who think
that abortions should be added to the McDonald’s dollar menu. It’s no surprise
that the majority of Americans don’t agree with either of these camps. But
nevertheless, these are the people trying to define candidates for you.
And this is where the Republicans most
often make the fatal mistake. They have nothing to say when those on the left
portray them as woman-haters. Now, I know I asserted in my last article that
the GOP’s gap among women voters is more a function of their problem with
minorities, and I stand by that analysis. But at the same time, I recognize
that it can’t be a good thing for Republican candidates to get hammered
relentlessly with the “War on Women” label and have absolutely no rebuttal.
So what should they do? Mr. Whalen’s
solution of simply downplaying social issues isn’t likely to pan out all that
well in many cases. He cites Bob McDonnell’s big win in 2009 as proof that this
strategy works: “Mr. McDonnell is pro-life, but he campaigned as ‘the jobs
governor.’ He carried the women's vote by 8%.” But, again, this ignores crucial
contextual factors. McDonnell ran for governor amid the build-up toward a
massive GOP wave in 2010. The Republican base was fired up while their
counterparts in the Democratic camp were demoralized, discouraged, and struggling
to unite behind a no-name candidate (who, by the way, suffered a tragic turn of
events today and should be in everyone’s thoughts and prayers). In that kind of
environment, you can afford to ignore your baggage—and let’s not forget, Bob
McDonnell had just as strong a record as a social conservative as Cuccinelli
(remember his thesis from Regent?).
If I had it my way, I would just have
the Republican Party abandon the pro-life position as one of its main planks.
But I’m also a pragmatist who recognizes that such a move would lead to a
revolt within their base, so it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. I’m not
pretending to have a golden key that fixes this problem. I’m just pointing out
that candidates like Cuccinelli need to at least play defense with their
pro-life and otherwise socially conservative positions if they want to win. They
cannot follow the Cuccinelli playbook, which was essentially to repeat the
mistakes of the Romney campaign in Virginia. They both spent the entire summer
idly sitting by as Democratic and Democrat-affiliated organizations spent loads
of cash painting them as extreme candidates for whom mainstream Virginians
couldn’t possibly vote. Maybe, just maybe, explaining to women voters their
reasons for having these positions would be more successful than just ignoring
them outright. While many moderate voters might still disagree with these
positions, they at least might not revile them. And that could make a huge
difference.
That actually wasn’t a very short post,
was it? Sorry.