A more compassionate GOP? The Republican Party’s biggest names are seeking ways to broaden out the GOP base, as they seek to learn from their mistakes in the 2012 election. House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.), the GOP’s vice presidential nominee two years ago, became the latest leading Republican official to venture into areas not known to be friendly to the party, rolling out a broad anti-poverty draft this week. Other top Republicans rumored to be 2016 presidential contenders, such as Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.), have made similar efforts in recent months, searching for a more compassionate approach to the poor and also dipping into areas like voter rights and criminal justice reform. Many Republicans say the party desperately needs to embrace those methods as it seeks to bounce back from Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comments in 2012 and a variety of other comments that allowed the GOP to be pilloried as in the corner of the wealthy. “We don’t do those kind of things, we’re going to morph into a minority party,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “I’ve been in a minority party before. I don’t want to go back.” But GOP lawmakers also acknowledge that the most conservative reaches of their party might not be attracted to those new tactics, even when they come from a Republican with the stature of Ryan. No matter what, Republicans have an uphill climb when it comes to convincing voters about their anti-poverty planks. Democrats have been seen for generations as more sympathetic to the poor, dating back at least to Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and through Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s. In the 2012 presidential campaign, Romney won a solid majority of voters earning more than $50,000 a year, according to exit polls. But President Obama won even greater majorities of those making less than that amount, topping out at 63 percent of voters making under $30,000 a year. Democrats have sought to build on those results this midterm year with a message centered on economic fairness, and have deemed Ryan’s campaign to help the poor as little more than lip service. .
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 18:13:25 +0000