While a handful of high profile Republicans have earned headlines recently with talk of moderation and embracing gay marriage, party strategists know that future success lies more with targeted advertising than hedging on key issues important to the traditional Republican voter.
The base still responds best to social conservative issues; however, those same issues push Independents and softer Republicans away from GOP candidates. Therefore, a targeted message execution can deliver the right messages to the right populations.
Some of our losses in the past four years can be attributed to poor communication plans that relied heavily on mass marketing a few message points that drove away votes critical to victory (aka – Independents). The key is that you have to engage voters with issues they care about. This is not moderation, this is campaign strategy.
An article on Politico.com this weekend suggests that a “rebellion is brewing” in the Republican party between traditionalist that refuse to hedge on social issues and their moderate counterparts that don’t see eye-to-eye regarding abortion, gay marriage, and even gun rights. I couldn’t disagree more. No one in the party structure (RNC) is pushing for us to abandon our social conservative roots. The media has been distracted by a few news-makers.
The bottom-line is that not everyone in the Republican party is motivated by abortion and gay marriage. But, there are likely some issues that the majority can agree on (economy comes to mind!). The key in each campaign is to develop messages that effectively engage sub-segments of the electorate necessary to win. Rarely will one message bridge all groups necessary to get 50% + 1. So, the idea that the only way Republicans can win is to embrace gay marriage and abortion is silly.
I wrote about this exact same thing before the RNC Winter meeting in January (see here). The problem we are facing as a party is that moderates and Independents haven’t been engaged effectively. Generally speaking, they are attracted to our messages about fiscal conservatism, but we haven’t done a great job of demonstrating that they are more like us (Republicans) than Democrats. Again, all this means is that we should target economic messages to these groups instead of clumping them in with the social conservative messages we use to motivate our base. They know we are the pro-life/pro-traditional marriage party. They just need to know what else we stand for before making a decision.
Can Republicans Win by Moderating?
Posted by Tyler Harber on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 7:11 AM
While a handful of high profile Republicans have earned headlines recently with talk of moderation and embracing gay marriage, party strategists know that future success lies more with targeted advertising than hedging on key issues important to the traditional Republican voter.
The base still responds best to social conservative issues; however, those same issues push Independents and softer Republicans away from GOP candidates. Therefore, a targeted message execution can deliver the right messages to the right populations.
Some of our losses in the past four years can be attributed to poor communication plans that relied heavily on mass marketing a few message points that drove away votes critical to victory (aka – Independents). The key is that you have to engage voters with issues they care about. This is not moderation, this is campaign strategy.
An article on Politico.com this weekend suggests that a “rebellion is brewing” in the Republican party between traditionalist that refuse to hedge on social issues and their moderate counterparts that don’t see eye-to-eye regarding abortion, gay marriage, and even gun rights. I couldn’t disagree more. No one in the party structure (RNC) is pushing for us to abandon our social conservative roots. The media has been distracted by a few news-makers.
The bottom-line is that not everyone in the Republican party is motivated by abortion and gay marriage. But, there are likely some issues that the majority can agree on (economy comes to mind!). The key in each campaign is to develop messages that effectively engage sub-segments of the electorate necessary to win. Rarely will one message bridge all groups necessary to get 50% + 1. So, the idea that the only way Republicans can win is to embrace gay marriage and abortion is silly.
I wrote about this exact same thing before the RNC Winter meeting in January (see here). The problem we are facing as a party is that moderates and Independents haven’t been engaged effectively. Generally speaking, they are attracted to our messages about fiscal conservatism, but we haven’t done a great job of demonstrating that they are more like us (Republicans) than Democrats. Again, all this means is that we should target economic messages to these groups instead of clumping them in with the social conservative messages we use to motivate our base. They know we are the pro-life/pro-traditional marriage party. They just need to know what else we stand for before making a decision.