Republican messages on key issues, such as spending and defense, were muted during the 2012 presidential campaign by the party’s poor response to demographic changes underway in the country, political strategist Dick Morris believes.
Speaking to Newsmax TV at CPAC 2013, Morris pointed out that Obama won the African-American vote by a 12-1 majority, the Latino vote by a 9-3 margin, single white women by a 12-6 margin, and gays by a 3-1 margin.
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Morris said those numbers necessitate a different Republican strategy.
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“When you add those up, you get 40 percent of the vote against Romney. We can’t win with that math,” President Bill Clinton’s former aide said.
In particular, Morris believes immigration will prove to be a pivotal issue for Republicans if they want success among Latinos.
“I’ve done extensive polling and found that while Latinos demand immigration reform and are suspicious that it isn’t passing because of bias, once you get rid of immigration, they’re a Republican group,” Morris said. “When we asked, do you agree or disagree that Democrats are closer to leaders in Latin America in terms of giving handouts to get votes, 59 percent agree. The Republican Party has a tremendous ability to make inroads.”
Morris believes Republicans may pick up steam as budget negotiations continue and more Americans see that the Democrats’ messages on solving the nation’s budget problems have been misleading.
“During the campaign, Republicans couldn’t make a clear shot on spending and the debt, but now that taxing the rich brings down the deficit only slightly, Americans are siding with Republicans,” he said.
Morris also believes that a lot of misinformation exists in regard to which entitlement programs are really posing the biggest threat to the nation’s fiscal health. He said Republicans should not be allowing President Barack Obama to define the entitlements issue.
“It’s Medicaid, food stamps, disability, welfare, and Section 8 housing that have skyrocketed. Republicans shouldn’t fall into the trap of supporting Medicare changes,” Morris said. “If we can’t balance the budget without messing around with Medicare and have a tiny deficit of $50 billion or $100 billion, so what?”
“Republicans are letting Obama define entitlements as Medicare, but it’s food stamps, disability, and welfare that have doubled in size and eat up $700 billion a year,” Morris said.
Morris does believe Republicans need to redefine their take on abortion, saying their current language is alienating too many voters.
“We need to redefine how we approach abortion because we’re scaring single white women to death. I believe we should continue to be pro-life, but we’ve had 40 years of Republican courts and Roe still stands,” he said.
“We should focus the bulk of efforts of getting liberals, moderates and conservatives to reduce abortions. Let’s use adoption, tax incentives for adoption, parental notice, a ban on late trimester abortions to get together on a message that all Americans can agree on.”
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