The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: mystery-ak on November 06, 2013, 01:37:38 pm
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363202/tale-two-states-john-fund (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363202/tale-two-states-john-fund)
A Tale of Two States
By John Fund
November 5, 2013 11:00 PM
As I wrote on Monday, the GOP campaigns for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey took entirely different approaches to courting the minority vote. Ken Cuccinelli was abandoned by major GOP donors in Virginia and was unable to fund the kind of outreach effort that Bob McDonnell used to beat the Democrats handily in 2009. Democrat Terry McAuliffe pounded Cuccinelli relentlessly on Spanish-language media over 2012 comments he made that many took to mean he was comparing immigrant families to “rat families,” allowing him to hold Cuccinelli to only 8 percent of the African-American vote and less than a third of the Hispanic vote.
New Jersey was a different story. Chris Christie engaged every minority community in the state relentlessly and even brought in New Mexico governor Susana Martinez on the closing day of the campaign to seal the deal. According to exit polls, Christie won 51 percent of the Hispanic vote, 21 percent of African-Americans and 53 percent of those labeled “other races,” i.e., Asian voters. Those are eye-opening numbers.
Many analysts will focus on factors such as Cuccinelli’s late surge on the back of Obamacare that almost carried him to victory, or how Christie was able to attract private-sector-union support that offset the money spent against him by public-sector unions. But if Republicans want to learn lessons for the future, they shouldn’t forget just how much their candidates in Virginia and New Jersey differed in terms of minority outreach.
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Read this! It states my assessment very well!
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/11/92490-gop-gives-virginia-democrats-instead-giving-tea-party-social-conservatives-win/
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Read this! It states my assessment very well!
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/11/92490-gop-gives-virginia-democrats-instead-giving-tea-party-social-conservatives-win/
And what VA failed to grasp is Cooch would have actually been able to be his own man had he won because he would not have been beholden to the GOPe or the Chamber of Commerce.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363202/tale-two-states-john-fund (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/363202/tale-two-states-john-fund)
A Tale of Two States
By John Fund
November 5, 2013 11:00 PM
As I wrote on Monday, the GOP campaigns for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey took entirely different approaches to courting the minority vote. Ken Cuccinelli was abandoned by major GOP donors in Virginia and was unable to fund the kind of outreach effort that Bob McDonnell used to beat the Democrats handily in 2009. Democrat Terry McAuliffe pounded Cuccinelli relentlessly on Spanish-language media over 2012 comments he made that many took to mean he was comparing immigrant families to “rat families,” allowing him to hold Cuccinelli to only 8 percent of the African-American vote and less than a third of the Hispanic vote.
New Jersey was a different story. Chris Christie engaged every minority community in the state relentlessly and even brought in New Mexico governor Susana Martinez on the closing day of the campaign to seal the deal. According to exit polls, Christie won 51 percent of the Hispanic vote, 21 percent of African-Americans and 53 percent of those labeled “other races,” i.e., Asian voters. Those are eye-opening numbers.
Many analysts will focus on factors such as Cuccinelli’s late surge on the back of Obamacare that almost carried him to victory, or how Christie was able to attract private-sector-union support that offset the money spent against him by public-sector unions. But if Republicans want to learn lessons for the future, they shouldn’t forget just how much their candidates in Virginia and New Jersey differed in terms of minority outreach.
And that should point to what the GOP needs - it doesn't need Christie, it needs his tactics; those tactics are not the sole purview of Mr. Christie and can be learned and used by anyone without having to bring the rest of the Christie baggage along for the ride.