Last month, the Republican National Committee released the “Growth and Opportunity Project Report,” a 100-page document outlining key issues that the party will need to embrace if it is to stop the hemorrhaging of electoral losses following the 2012 presidential election.
The report was commissioned by Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in an attempt to identify key areas where the Republicans need to improve their image with the ever-changing American voter.
Due to its support for “self-deportation,” the Republican Party is especially weak with Hispanic voters. The report encourages Republicans to embrace comprehensive immigration reform if they are to seize the fastest growing demographic in America.
According to the Free Republic, a liberal American magazine, Hispanic-Americans tend to vote in large margins for Democratic presidential candidates, with George W. Bush being the only Republican President who enjoyed the highest popularity among Hispanics in over 20 years.
In a tactical move to appeal to younger voters, such as the demographics at De Anza, the report identifies a need for Republicans to silence their anti-gay rhetoric. Surprisingly, a number of Republicans at the national level, like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, have recently come out in favor gay marriage.
In an interview in March on ABC’s “This Week,” Republican strategist Karl Rove said he could imagine a Republican presidential candidate supporting gay marriage by 2016.
To give the impression that the Republican Party is anything less than a legislative extension of a corporate boardroom, the authors of the report encourage Republicans to back away from corporate welfare and to stop defending tax cuts for the wealthy.
Coincidentally, while right-wing ideologues are calling President Barack Obama a socialist for defending the country’s social welfare programs, our government is handing out billions to corporate interests.
The $150 billion given in corporate subsidies and tax benefits is “more than the $145 billion paid out annually for the core programs of the social welfare state: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), student aid, housing, food and nutrition, and all direct public assistance (excluding Social Security and medical care),” according to the Corporate Welfare Information Center.
The GOP has been the party of border fences, war for oil, and big governement on women’s reproductive rights for far too long.
Until I see the likes of Ralph Reed and Mitt Romney walking arm-in-arm with social activists like Al Sharpton, Dolores Huerta, and Vic Basile, I see no point in giving Republicans a second glance.
The Republican Party has really struggled to define itself after the disastrous Bush presidency and remains without a viable leader to bring the party back from the far-right fringe.
As it stands, the Republican Party is on life support with this autopsy report being nothing more than a prescription for a heart transplant.
Sadly, if Republican candidates do take the meaningful advice seriously, they will be challenged by the more conservative element of their own party, further fracturing their constituents and prospective voters.
When this happens, the next report, instead of reading like a prescription for change, will read like an obituary.
