Winning Is About Addition
After consecutive election cycle setbacks, Republicans are making a comeback. The GOP scored big wins in Virginia and New Jersey state elections last year. In Virginia, after two Democratic administrations, conservatives led a clean-sweep of the statewide-elected offices. It was only one year removed from Virginia going into the Democratic column for the first time in more than 40 years. New Jersey, a blue state with some conservative tendencies, tossed out then-Gov. Jon Corzine.
This month, we witnessed a groundbreaking moment when Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley to take the vacated seat of the late Ted Kennedy, which had been filled in the interim by Paul Kirk. Before that, the position was filled by Ben Smith and John F. Kennedy. You have to go all the way back to Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., who was beaten by JFK in 1952, to find the last Republican to hold the seat.
How did this happen? Republicans didn’t sit back, disillusioned after the defeats of the 2008 elections. They did what you have to do to be victorious – go back, assess what went wrong, what went right, and how the other guys got over on you. Virginia Republicans, especially, could have been pretty dejected. But, they organized, got it right and whipped the Democrats.
Being out of power in Congress and the presidency has allowed the party to do some self-analysis. Certain factions are in favor of a strict, doctrinaire policy in which you have to be 100 percent according to a set of criteria to be legitimate. That’s no way to build a party, and no way to win an election. Elections are won by bringing together coalitions – ideally, among people who are with you all of the time, and people who are with you most of the time.
We won the recent elections by casting a wide net to bring in as many people under our banner as possible. We went to the people with our message, did a good job of it, and came out on the right side. It’s that simple. Should Ronald Reagan have eschewed the support of Rust Belt union members? Of course not. Campaigns in America are unlike Western Europe, including Britain. We don’t use proportional representation, and except for a few limited places, two parties are the standard.
That means broad-based campaigns. You have to go to people where they are, and do the best job of selling your message as you can. When conservatives do that, it works, without fail. We bring more people in. Then an independent, a conservative Democrat or even a rarely-voting Republican will cast their ballots for our candidates. And, you know, they just might enjoy it, and make it a habit.
