GOP Rebuilding Strategies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/national-breakdown/
WaPo Exit Poll Stats:

Male: O 45% 52% R
Female: O 55% 44% R
Married Females: O 46% 53% R
Non-married Females: O 67% 31% R
White: O 39% 59% R
Black: O 93% 6% R
Hispanic: O 71% 27% R
People unhappy w/ economy: O 12% 85% R
People saying economy "not so good": O 55% 42% R
People who rate economy as excellent: O 90% 9% R
White Catholic: O 40% 59% R
White Evangelical: O 21% 78% R
No religion: O 70% 26% R

GOP Strategy Thoughts:
Encouraging that we made up ground on a sitting President -- first time since Andrew Johnson that was done without the President losing; yet also very discouraging to lose to a President without any achievements except government takeover of Health Care that will get less and less popular but harder to undo down the road.  Still, many areas where the party must improve or even retool completely.  With early voting, going to have to do better winning hearts and minds even with the low-interest low-info voters who are now more likely to vote as well as the high-information voters willing to go both ways depending on results.  I feel a strategy of getting more conservative but also being more pro-actively tolerant will turn things around.
     I disagree with the doom-sayers saying the takers are now the majority -- they are a growing percentage, but if we win hearts and minds of productive swing-voters and Democrats, we can win just fine with current level of the so-called "takers".  We aren't Venezuela YET.

[Areas we are doing well though could do even better]
Good news:
Economy: Brightest point for Republicans: Safe to say anyone rating economy as excellent NOW will almost NEVER be swayed no matter what -- but they are a small minority.  Still, this is the ONLY issue that will bring masses back to the party -- this is the most libertarian area of the party where those who adore freedom and opportunity will come.  The 'investment' in American lines sound good, but will hurt the poor and MANY smart Obama supporters are likely to come around on at least this issue.  This is where Republicans are the rebellious, cool, radical party that many come to love at some point in their lives.  Romney had great idea about focusing party on small not big business -- very powerful and should be embraced going forward.  Big business does very well under Democrat OR Republican control -- start focusing on small business and you'll win a lot of hearts and minds.  More so as a tax and subsidize system grows and begins to frustrate many people who for NOW support the idea.

[Areas we need to become more libertarian in]
Mildly bad news:
Women: Doing well with married women.  Difficult to win non-married women over without being in office improving their financial situation -- but culling out the politicians stupid enough to say anything that can be misconstrued in ANY fashion as pro-rape will help.  Vapid or not, the "war on women" meme worked.  Lot of women moving up into more and more powerful leadership positions in the party which will help fix this over time.  Strategy: cull out the Akin's / Murdoch's -- reasonable pro-life is fine with majority of women, but worrying them that they'll be serially raped and have to carry the baby... yeah, pretty @$@ stupid.  HAVE to have positions that they can respectfully disagree with at least, especially when dems are going to be spending $1 billion or more each election to demagogue and distract from real issues.  Continue letting smarter women take ever-growing roles will work well for this group that will pendulum back some and hopefully break 50% in next decade the other way.  I've even heard very BRIGHT women equating Republicans to pro-rape... possibly just because they wanted to promote Democrats -- but STILL.  *kicks Akin in the butt on his 'I'm not dropping out of this race' way HOME*

Ongoing bad news:
Blacks: 6% is actually encouraging to me with the historic first black President in office.  Some of the brightest minds I follow on twitter are black conservatives fighting the tide.  Sadly, Republicans Mia Love and Allen West were blocked by more money than a small nation's GDP to keep black dissenters out of office.  This group is tough to crack due to extensive peer pressure (EVERYONE gets called an Uncle Tom or house ______... sad), but we keep picking away bright minds from their ranks and let them rise in our party and think long term -- don't see any short term big win here.  Win or lose with them, stick to principle and keep door open for them, anyway.  Obviously, continue to quell anyone with bigotry while we point out and fight reverse-bigotry as well.  Reasonable near-term goal is to get this vote over 10% -- need to maximize outreach and support for idea people from the black (and other minority) communities.

Short-term, surprisingly bad news:
Hispanics: This divide should shrink significantly.  There was a bandwagon effect and the billion $ ad blitz worked well with the non-hard-core dems to raise this percentage, but Hispanics aren't a bunch of sheep... plenty of room to reach them and more importantly let them lead.  Romney's comment that he'd have immigration reform in his first year was a sign to me he planned on fixing this divide early with reasonable immigration reform that Obama never delivered -- but without the platform of the Presidency that strategy is obviously moot.  Fortunately, some of our best people are hispanic -- Rubio is off the hook fabulous...  Republicans have to embrace reasonable immigration reform and fight for it.  Majority of Hispanics didn't experience the Reagan economy, they just saw Bush bleh -- but this group will continue to grow in the GOP and probably be some of the best leadership going forward.  Many of them will feel betrayed as the economy reaches the new "normal" more extensively.  Action plan: Come up with good, reasonable immigration reform (Romney actually had some great ideas here) and stop the we must lock down borders FIRST talk -- it's not really racist, but some of the people who repeat it most vocally ARE racist and should be culled from the party.  Let's promote legal work programs, reasonably secure borders, and continue to incorporate Hispanics into party leadership -- they don't face the same interior peer pressure black conservatives face and we should improve here dramatically.

Status Quo News: Evangelicals/Catholics/Atheists/Gays/Etc.
Religion: Obviously this overall works well for Republicans -- but we need a tent open for religious and non-religous.  It is the goodness of God that wins hearts, not the "you WILL do as I say" religious crowd.  In other words help out your community and preach God's word and stop being self-righteous about it.  The biggest contrast probably in the gay community.  There are a number of Christians who think homosexuality is wrong but respect homosexuals who work well with homosexuals -- who in turn work well with Christians who think the lifestyle is wrong but are still friends with them (I have good friends who are homosexuals).  This number has to grow.  Many of these homosexuals would LOVE to embrace economic liberty, but would rather have big government if they fear discrimination.  Don't need to cater to homosexuals nor promote homosexuality -- just have to respect them more openly and agree to disagree.  Gay marriage is a yawner for me -- let the states do whatever.. and tell your kids it's not God's plan for them any more than a lot of other legal activities.. but we can't politicize this with Chic-Fil-A marches -- I reject calls to ban Chic-Fil-A because they have their opinion, but I ALSO rejected getting a sandwich to snub it in the face of gay people.  Summary: I want evangelical, catholic, and every non-Christian including gay people in the party -- I can do without the small number of Christians who want to attack gay people at all costs... and I can do without the gay people who think you have to be proud of them SIMPLY because they're gay and support them 100% -- or you're a bigot.  Other than that, open tent.  After election day, we SHOULD NOT have many gay people (and other secular groups) thinking they won a battle against suppression -- when they are ACTUALLY voting in economic oppression... so there is CLEARLY some work to do here.

Getting better news:
Youth: Well, can sum it up with: bandwagon effect here -- for example, saw ad today saying Paul Ryan is "what dumb people think smart people sound like".  Most of us probably rest at ease knowing our IQ far exceeds anyone who makes such an ad or ascribes to it... but that doesn't win youth -- fortunately, the youth tend to form their opinion and change it back and forth -- so there is plenty of time to win them over.. in fact youth vote went towards 50% (low 40s) this year -- despite the non-idea based attacks that I mentioned before against the people who ACTUALLY put forth ideas -- we have to continue to advance ideas, ideas, ideas, IDEAS -- and encourage opposition to wage their war with their IDEAS.  Let the youth process them -- and go where the results of the presidency takes them.  If they enjoy the Democrat style economy so be it -- but just like youth swung to Republican after Carter / Reagan -- it's likely to happen again.  The biased media and Hollywood endorsements are having a disturbingly big effect with this group -- but expect that to boomerang.  Just keep focusing on ideas.  The Obama kids singing Hitler Youth style songs and the overwhelming media bias will eventually boomerang.  Eventually, most of the youth you WANT in the party realize celebrities don't live like them and aren't very qualified to make political opinions.  Once they see that economic conservatism is the radical rebellious side of things, things will get better here -- hopefully MUCH better.