By Mona Charen
Friday, November 07, 2014
A prayer has been answered — not for a massive Republican
victory at the polls, though that, too. No, I’m thinking of the perennial
prayer of losers: “Oh Lord, let my enemies go too far.”
The results of the 2014 midterms will be chewed over for
weeks and months. One bit of data that hasn’t received much attention so far is
the exit-poll result showing that 71 percent of voters are somewhat or very
worried about another major terrorist attack in the United States. Such is the
Republican reputation for hard-headedness on national security that the party
benefits from this concern without breaking a sweat.
Another takeaway: The Democrats’ tactic of demonizing
Republicans has not just run its course, but it’s also beginning to boomerang.
Three groups have been particularly invited to believe that Republicans are a
menace to them – women, Hispanics, and blacks.
The war-on-women theme worked as recently as the Virginia
governor’s race in 2013. Terry McAuliffe won single women voters by 42 points.
Democrats hoped to reprise the theme this year. Here’s
what went wrong: 1) Republicans got savvy about choosing candidates; 2) they
refused to be lured onto the Democrats’ playing field, where the insulting
assumption is that women voters are motivated solely by gynecological concerns;
and 3) Democrats overplayed their hand.
Every Republican who opposed abortion was depicted as
attempting to outlaw birth control. Republicans turned this aside by touting
over-the-counter sale of contraceptive pills. Republicans were accused of
opposing equal pay. They responded, archly, by noting that women were
frequently paid less than men on their opponents’ staffs. DNC chairman Debbie
Wasserman Shultz said Wisconsin GOP governor Scott Walker and other Republicans
like him were “attempting to pull us back by our hair.”
When the votes were counted, women preferred Democrats,
but only by four points, whereas men chose Republicans by 16 points. Shultz
will be rubbing elbows on Capitol Hill with Barbara Comstock, Mia Love, Shelley
Moore Capito, and Elise Stefanik, among other newly elected Republican women.
If she bumps into Iraq War veteran Joni Ernst, the latter can explain what real
war is like. Sandra Fluke, “war on women” pin-up, was defeated, along with
abortion warriors Wendy Davis and Mark Udall.
Just as Democrats assume that women voters care
principally about below-the-waist issues, they believe that Hispanic voters can
be corralled by immigration reform. The 2014 results suggest that they may have
taken this too far as well. In state after state, including Texas, Georgia,
Kansas, and Colorado, Republicans gained ground with Hispanic voters. According
to Mark Hugo Lopez of Pew, “Latinos identified less with the Democratic party
and a growing share identified with Republicans.” Greg Abbott spent money and
time campaigning in heavily Hispanic districts and was rewarded with 44 percent
of the Hispanic vote. Kansas governor Sam Brownback pocketed 47 percent, as
against 46 percent for his Democratic opponent. In Colorado, Gardner soft-pedaled
immigration in favor of jobs and smaller government, while Senator Mark Udall
was preoccupied with abortion. Showing up on Spanish radio and TV has helped
Republicans to convince a growing number of Hispanics that they’re not the
deporting ogres Democrats have conjured. It didn’t hurt that Abbott’s Hispanic
mother-in-law cut ads for him. The party’s image is also burnished by the
reelection of governors Susana Martinez and Brian Sandoval.
Finally, even the great, pernicious constant in American
political life — the race card — seemed a little worn around the edges this
year. The Democrats trotted out their election-year one-trick pony: In
Arkansas, leaflets distributed in black neighborhoods referenced Ferguson and
said “Republicans are targeting our kids, silencing our voices, and even trying
to impeach our president.” In North Carolina, a radio ad attempted to link Thom
Tillis to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The ads had no effect.
It would be ludicrously optimistic to predict the
imminent demise of solid Democratic voting by African Americans. But note these
straws in the wind: Liberal black commentators such as Tavis Smiley, Juan
Williams, and Charles Ellison have questioned both the Democrats’ race-baiting
and the Obama administration’s record on jobs, incomes, and other measures of
well-being for blacks and all Americans. Videos like “Rebel Pundit” denouncing
Democrats for the state of cities like Detroit are making the rounds. This is .
. . new.
Democrats went too far. The sex, race, and ethnicity
gambit is sounding forced, stale, and desperate. Republicans should make
efforts to win every constituency: women, men, Hispanics, blacks, Asians —
everybody. Let the Democrats be content with their base: NARAL, ACORN, and the
press.
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