Dem
50
Ties
1
GOP
49
Looks like it's déjà vu all over again. After their disappointing 2012 election results, the RNC commissioned a report on what happened and how to fix it. The report said that the party was far too fixated on its own base and was not getting anywhere with voters outside right-wing circles. So how did they fix it? By nominating Donald Trump, of course.
Now the Republicans have had another disappointing election and sure enough, there will be another autopsy report. RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel has created the panel and stacked it with election experts like Kellyanne Conway, evangelical leader Tony Perkins, and Blake Masters. It will be led by Henry Barbour, nephew of former RNC Chair Haley Barbour. The panel will start work next week after the Georgia runoff. It is expected to report back before the summer.
We don't know what will be in the report, of course. But we do know what should be in it: Don't run whackadoodle candidates and try to appeal to voters outside the farthest right portion of the Republican base. We didn't even need to work until the summer to come up with that. Of course, in the unlikely event the panel comes to this conclusion, the autopsy will be completely ignored, even demonized. When McDaniel made an effort to reach out to gay voters, commission member Perkins attacked her for it. He doesn't want gay people to vote Republican. He doesn't even want them to exist. After McDaniel's announcement, Perkins said: "Americans of faith are the heartbeat of the Republican vote." That doesn't sound to us like he is trying to expand the base much. (V)