5 Reminders for the Republican Party on Election Day

With Republicans expected by virtually every prognosticator to take back the Senate in today’s midterm election, the GOP has reached a turning point. Win or lose, the Republican Party will have to do some serious thinking about next steps.

Should the GOP fail to turn the Senate red, the party leadership will be seen by the conservative base as an utter failure – to somehow blow an electoral opportunity with a highly-unpopular second term Democratic president, multiple mishandled crises by a Democratic Senate, and a marked lack of enthusiasm from the Democratic base could lead to the party’s internal collapse.

On the other hand, should Republicans fulfill expectations and win back the Senate, the task before them becomes similarly difficult: promote an agenda that excites the base, hold President Obama’s feet to the fire, and somehow unite the disparate factions of the conservative movement in time for Hillary Clinton’s inevitable 2016 presidential run.

Nonetheless, the Republicans do have their first opportunity since 2010 to move forward. Here’s what they must do to do so.

Stop Alienating The Base. Party insiders told me weeks ago that immigration reform is first on the agenda for Republican leaders should the GOP take back the Senate. Their reports were supported by Mitt Romney, who said, “You are going to see a bill actually reach the desk of the president if we finally have someone besides Harry Reid sitting in the Senate….I think the Republicans in the House were looking at what was coming up from the Senate and saying, ‘You know we can do better if we pick up some more seats in the Senate.'”

This isn’t necessarily the end of the world – if Republicans pass a good, solid immigration bill that closes the border and regulates deportations. There is no need for a comprehensive bill. And Republicans would certainly be foolish enough to pass a comprehensive piece of legislation in the hopes of making President Obama look bad for not signing it — only to allow him to manipulate the narrative into Republicans being intransigent when he vetoes. 

Exploit Fissures In The Democratic Base. President Obama’s 2012 electoral coalition rested on heavy minority and youth turnout. That is not a coalition that Hillary Clinton can replicate in 2016. She does not have the minority support that President Obama has – if she did, she would have been nominated in 2008 – and her appeal to the young is extremely limited, given that she was young when Richard Nixon was still in office. Polls show that Republicans have picked up significant ground with Hispanics in this election cycle as well.

The way to exploit fissures in the Democratic base is to pick on single issues and bash them home. Instead of worrying about comprehensive bills, Republicans should find wildly unpopular programs, cut them, and then force President Obama to veto those cuts. Aim small, miss small. And discrete targets make for easier aim.

Don’t Ignore The Narrative. Midterm elections rarely revolve around a single big narrative (2010’s central focus on Obamacare was an aberration). Instead, they revolve around a generalized perception of anger at the incumbent party. Presidential elections – particularly presidential elections without an incumbent president — do not work the same way. Presidential election narratives are crafted years in advance by a leftist-compliant media – and Republicans would be wise to spot the narrative and learn how to fight it. For 2008, the narrative was that America had been badly divided, and that in the person of Barack Obama, the nation’s greatest historic conflict – over race – could be healed. For 2016, the narrative already being crafted is that America requires a woman to end a supposed war on women. Republicans would be unwise to neglect that narrative in order to talk about the economy. They made that mistake in 2012, and they lost to the left’s preferred narrative on race.

Don’t Let Cash Substitute For Passion. If Republicans win big in 2014, it will be thanks to an activated conservative base eager to knock on doors and work the phones. It will not be thanks to a few coastal donors. In 2016, precisely the reverse is likely to occur. Whereas Democratic donors are largely in tune with the Democratic base, Republican donors scorn the base as backward. That tension led to the base’s disenchantment with the establishment-loved John McCain and Mitt Romney in the last two presidential elections.

Don’t Let Passion Substitute For Brains. There will be a substantial push by members of the base to punish President Obama. That push may lead to tactics that are likely to fail dramatically, ignoring the presence of an adversarial media looking for opportunities to boost both Obama and Hillary. Every legislative target must be carefully chosen and considered; establishment types must not hope for media support, and conservative hard core base types must not pretend that media spin doesn’t matter.

Republicans have a rare opportunity today. If that opportunity continues into tomorrow, Republicans must be prepared to seize it.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.