My eyes are a little bloodshot this morning. I stayed up late and partied with a lot of Democrats. It wasn’t a celebration from the start, but by 11pm the shots started coming out. When Iowa was announced “blue” I broke down and cried (that’s the real reason for my bloodshot eyes!). So many worked so very hard for President Obama and our local representatives (as well as Judge Wiggins) and it felt like a small miracle when it paid off.
Many other great things happened last night, as well.
Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown in Massachusetts, and gay marriage was approved in Maine and Maryland.
Democrats picked up seats in the Senate and although the Republicans retained a majority in the House, I, for one, think that might be good. For America to heal and to build, bi-partisan cooperation has to become part of our political fabric, once again.
When one side controls the branches of government, “The Blame Game” becomes the only tool for the party-out-of-power to wield. As it is now, Republicans have to come to the table if they want to get elected in 2014 and 2016. While their obstructionism kept policies from moving forward, it did not accomplish its primary goal: To remove Obama from office.
Of course, the re-election of President Barack Obama was the cornerstone to last evenings success for Democrats, and I believe his re-newed vigor to mend and cross party lines is sincere. He also has to find cooperative alliances or nothing will get done- and there’s one thing we can ALL agree on- that things have to get done.
To start on that path, I want to challenge Democrats to be clear in our minds: We did NOT receive a mandate. This was a contentious 50/50 split.
And I want to challenge Republicans to clarity, as well: You lost because you put your all your eggs into an extreme conservative basket, and that basket was tattered and torn.
Romney did not receive the youth vote, single women, blacks or Hispanics. Needless to say, he didn’t get the gay vote, either. He got the largest percentage ever, though, of white males.
What does that say?
It tells us that the landscape of America has changed, and it will not change back; back to when white males controlled government, business and the working class. Even Texas, a solidly red state with a zillion electoral votes, is becoming closer to a “swing state.”
Republicans now have to weigh this reality and their options to figure out how to regain the White House or to gain control again on the Hill. They cannot be the party of white males if they want to be relevant.
Historically, however, Republicans like to stay on the surface and look no deeper than their own rhetoric. “We didn’t go far enough right!” they might conclude. “We need a REAL conservative and not a closet moderate like Romney!”
That would be their tactical error. It would be like analyzing the fact that they didn’t get young people, single women, blacks and Hispanics and concluding, “All we have to do is find a young, single, half-black, half-Hispanic woman and put her on the ticket! That will make the difference!”
What they should do is critically examine the policies that alienate those voters. They need to look at their positions on civil rights, immigration, the environment and religious freedom. That doesn’t mean they have to become liberals, but they must remove the absolutes and intolerances from their ideological quilt and find threads of inclusion.
If they conclude instead that young people and minorities are simply looking for welfare handouts and that’s why they vote Democratic, then they will have missed the point, the truth, the lesson and the boat, and they will condemn themselves to irrelevancy.
That is, in fact, a dismissal of those demographics that I’ve already been reading and hearing from Republicans.
I do not wish for the end of the Republican Party. My wish is for the Republican Party to be strong; strong because it reflects real constituents from all walks of life. I may continue to disagree with many of their policies, socially and economically, but the polarity of perspectives is a good thing, not a bad thing, when looking for real answers.
I’ve written a lot over the past two years on the subject of politics and I’ve got a little carpal tunnel from typing frantically on too many mornings. I will continue to voice my opinions, and my challenge to myself is this: Stay informed, stay honest and always stay on 17.
I may take the week off though, because as Ringo Starr bellowed after his furious drumming on “Helter Skelter”:
