Collateral Disinformation

Opinions vary.  That may be one of the few things that a vast majority of people can really agree on.  There have been a lot of opinions offered in the last two weeks.  Some of them are predictable, some incomprehensible, some contrived, some blatantly obvious, some steeped in irony.

Perhaps the most ironic  "take away" from the recent collective civic calamity is the idea that the losing side needs to tweak its message to make it more palatable to voters.  But what message is that exactly?  Who's message is it?  In order for a change of message to make sense, there has to be control of the message to begin with.  If nothing else is clear from the election, it is certainly clear that the GOP does not have control of its message, or its image.

Perceptions do matter.  If the GOP is perceived as anti-fillintheblank, then the GOP might as well be anti-fillintheblank for those voters that have that perception.  If the GOP is going to remain a viable entity going forward, it must get control of its message and stop allowing the left and the media to shape its image.  The GOP won't survive if the only thing that voters hear about the GOP is what the DNC wants people to hear.  This isn't an issue for people that look for the conservative message, or for conservatives that make up the audience of less biased outlets.  But many middle of the road voters that are more casual about their politics are having their view of the GOP shaped wholly by the left.

It is a fools errand for the GOP to start spending great effort trying to determine how to change the message to appeal to more voters.  Take for instance the immigration issue.  People from all corners of the political spectrum have come out with advice for the GOP to soften its immigration stance.  The immigration position for the GOP is that legal immigration is good for the United States and should be encouraged, but illegal immigration should not be tolerated or encouraged.  This is hardly a controversial position.  Since the only real issue that divides the two sides on immigration is amnesty, the GOP would presumably need to accept amnesty in order to illustrate the new, softer, stance on immigration.  But does it really matter to Latino voters?

In 1988 Michael Dukakis earned about 70% of the Latino vote.  George HW Bush won about 30% of the Latino vote after having served in the Reagan administration which had approved amnesty for about 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986.  The Latino vote ratios in the recent election between Obama and Romney were almost the same as they were for their Democrat and Republican counterparts in 1988.  The empirical evidence doesn't really indicate that the GOP stance on illegal immigration is what is keeping Latino voters out of the Party.  The peculiar twist in the whole discussion is that the GOP appears to be starting to listen to the same mischaracterization of itself that the left has been pushing all along.  It never bodes well when a group starts buying the enemy propaganda about itself.

It is no secret that the GOP, and conservatives in general, have not done a good job of taking the conservative message to the Latino voter.  Unfortunately, instead of trying to find a way to get the message to the Latino community the GOP seems to be warming to the idea of changing the message that the Latino voter is not hearing.  I'm having a hard time grasping the logic behind the theory that having a new message that nobody hears will provide a breakthrough over an old message that nobody heard.