Tempest in A Tea Party? Hard to believe Obama’s claims of ignorance in IRS scandal

The standard police warning about con men applies to politicians, as well: When they tell you something that sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

So it goes with the White House claim that it knew nothing — nothing! — about the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service.

Of course the White House knew. And we already have the first piece of evidence.

The Friday hearing on what amounted to political profiling of anti-Obama groups took a huge step toward demolishing White House efforts to distance itself from the scandal. The agency’s inspector general testified that he told his bosses at the Treasury Department in June 2012 about his ongoing audit of public claims that the IRS was engaging in blatantly unfair treatment of conservatives. One of those he told at Treasury was Tim Geithner’s top deputy.

 

By Michael Goodwin
The New York Post

To believe the deputy, Neal Wolin, didn’t tell Geithner about such abuses, in the middle of a presidential campaign no less, is to believe they were all too busy to focus on politics. And to believe that Geithner didn’t warn the White House is to believe the IRS agents just made honest mistakes that coincidentally helped the incumbent president.

And to believe that nobody told Obama is to be willfully ignorant of human nature — and to be the kind of chump con men and politicians prey on.

The inspector general’s testimony also goes a long way to explaining why Obama didn’t give a straight answer to a reporter’s question a day earlier about what he knew and when he knew it. The well-drawn, precise question was about whether anybody in the White House knew about the IRS targeting before last month, but Obama’s answer focused only on the contents of the audit that was released last week.

“I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the [inspector general] report,” Obama said. As I wrote Friday, that wasn’t even an artful dodge.

But it was an important one, because the press office earlier claimed that the White House counsel’s office only learned of the probe during the week of April 22. Yet new Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a TV interview that he learned about the probe in March, when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Lew said he was “outraged” at the findings, so let him say under oath he didn’t tell Obama.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew

The contradictory time lines explain Obama’s evasiveness. An honest answer to the question would reveal his supposed outrage about the IRS scandal to be as phony as his pledge to work with Congress to get the whole truth.

Context, the perennial escape hatch for pols in a jam, also offers no help. In fact, it puts the White House closer to the dirty deeds.

Politics under this president have trickled down to every level of government thanks to his relentless vilification of anybody who disagrees with him. With campaign guru David Axelrod spending much of 2012 as the face of the government as well as the campaign, the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Administration and the National Labor Relations Board all became enforcement arms of the Democratic Party.

David Axelrod

And the next time Eric Holder’s Justice Department does anything that doesn’t serve Obama’s political interest and allies will be the first time.

That the IRS would also go down that road is hardly farfetched. Remember, Obama himself raged against political spending by the same kind of groups tax agents turned the screws on. Add to that demands from several Dem senators, including New York’s Chuck Schumer, that the IRS give Tea Party groups extra scrutiny, and the only wonder is why it took so long to learn the taxman heard his master’s whistle.

Attorney General Eric Holder

Which brings us back to what the White House knew and when. Complaints reached Congress two years ago that conservative groups were being denied tax-exempt status even as liberal groups were being granted it.

But at hearings, IRS officials denied any bias, even as it continued. Reports of some applications being held for nearly two years, and of leaders being asked about their donors, what books they read and what they pray for, were too widespread to be dismissed as irrelevant. Yet they were dismissed because nobody in Congress or the media connected the dots.

That’s what the investigation must do now. Connect all the dots, no matter where they lead.

Dem pals share Gropez blame

Breaking news from last year: There really was a War on Women. But contrary to initial claims, it happened in Albany and was waged by Democrats.

Where does Mitt Romney go to get his apology?

New York liberals who helped the disgraced and soon-to-be departed Assemblyman Vito Lopez hide rampant sexual harassment of young female staffers includes a who’s who of top officials. It starts with Speaker Sheldon Silver and includes Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

All three helped hide a payoff of $103,000 in taxpayer cash to two of the women who accused Lopez of creepy come-ons. Six others also complained to investigators, including two who filed formal complaints.

Yet all the ire is aimed at Lopez, who said he will quit tomorrow and run for the City Council. The other pols are getting off scot-free.

Lopez will be gone but not forgotten. Not as long as everybody else escapes any accountability.

Regarding Silver, even Gov. Cuomo is speaking softly and carrying a small stick. He said Silver handled the Lopez matter “poorly and terribly” but added, “It is not my place to say who the speaker should be.”

New York Gov. Andrew  Cuomo.  Photo: Skip Dickstein / Times Union

A more craven response came from Assemblyman Charles Lavine, who bent over backwards to find a reason why Silver should stay. Caution: Keep a barf bag handy.

“We are sailing through some dangerous waters in New York state government,” he told reporters. “Stability in leadership and administration will be indispensable to finding a true course through this storm.”

It is worth noting that Lavine is chairman of the Assembly Ethics Committee, a post given to him by — you guessed it — Silver. Now you know why “Albany ethics” is an oxymoron.

Elex budget busters

Here’s a tab to wake up taxpayers: The city Campaign Finance Board budgeted $51 million for this year’s elections. Imagine, Albany wants to replicate the giveaway across the whole state.

Yikes.

$$ ‘de’lusion

“We would love to get billionaires from around the world to move here; they’re the ones who go to the stores, spend a lot of money,” Mayor Bloomberg said. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio pounced, saying he would end policies that make the city “a playground for the elite.”

De Blasio needn’t worry. If he becomes mayor, New York will be free of billionaires — and everybody else who can afford to leave.

A scandalous dodge

White House press secretary Jay Carney takes a novel approach to defending his boss over Benghazi, the IRS and press snooping. “I dismiss the premise, the idea that these are scandals,” Carney said.

On another topic, Carney insisted the Earth is flat.

Above: Jay Carney

Jay Carney: I dismiss the idea that these are scandals

Paul Ryan Tells Anti-Abortion Advocates to Broaden Their Reach

By Shushannah Walshe | ABC OTUS News 

Paul Ryan Tells Anti-Abortion Advocates to Broaden Their Reach (ABC News)

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.,  called for anti-abortion rights advocates to reach out to pro-abortion rights advocates Thursday evening, making him the latest Republican to urge like-minded voters to be open to a group not traditionally viewed  as conservative.

“To advance the pro-life cause, we need to work with people who consider themselves pro-choice, because our task isn’t to purge our ranks. It’s to grow them,” Ryan said at a D.C.  gala for the  Susan B. Anthony List,  a political action committee  that helps anti-abortion candidates get elected to Congress.

The former GOP vice presidential nominee and current House Budget Committee chairman told those in the audience they needed to “expand our horizon” but urged them to “stay vigilant” and to work “with patience” and “with good cheer.”

“We don’t want a country where abortion is simply outlawed,” Ryan said. “We want a country where it isn’t even considered.”

The Wisconsin congressman, who headlined the event, told the group it  needed to “show the pro-life cause isn’t just the cause of the unborn” but a “deep affirmation of human rights.”

He said by trying to appeal to people that wouldn’t usually support  their cause they could win future elections and do it without moderating their position on the issue.

“There’s a lot of talk these days about how to win the next election,” Ryan, who  has not ruled out running for higher office again, said. “Our critics say we should abandon our pro-life beliefs. But that would only demoralize our voters.”

Ryan, a Catholic, said, as with  many in the audience, that his anti-abortion views came from his religion but he said they “can’t just make arguments based on faith. We also need to make arguments based on reason,” adding, “if we want to appeal to the broadest audience, we need to use every tool at our disposal,” noting the “best way to advance a cause isn’t to push our political adversaries away but to convince them.”

“Not everyone will undergo such a change. But we should work with people of all beliefs to make progress,” Ryan said, explaining that the audience should work to “plant flags in the law,” something he explained as “small changes that raise questions about abortion” and will bring some consensus with people who still support some abortion rights.

He described the “flags” as issues such as requiring parental notification, “taxpayer funding of abortion” and restoring the Mexico City policy, which prohibits funding to international family planning groups that provide abortion services. It essentially bars recipients of U.S. foreign aid from promoting abortion as a method of family planning. President Obama         signed an executive order reversing the ban shortly after taking office in 2009.

“Even if we can’t agree on the final step, we can work with them on a few concrete steps,” Ryan said. “We can raise doubts, and save lives.

“By working with people of all beliefs, we can show the world the good work you’re doing,” Ryan said. “And we can win allies. That’s how you bring people into the fold. First, you respect their views. Then you politely encourage them to change them.”

He reminded the audience members that they can make progress and broaden the movement but cautioned it “can be undone in an instant by a careless remark or ugly sign.”

While Ryan became the latest  Republican politician to urge  conservatives to reach out to a broader coalition, on Wednesday Rand Paul became one of only a handful of Republicans    to speak at Howard University in recent decades. He set out to woo the group of students at the historically black university to the GOP, telling them the  Republican Party was the party of the civil rights movement.

Ryan’s message was  also along the lines of what the Republican National Committee  suggested in its “autopsy” report on its 2012 election loss, calling for more inclusion and outreach to women, minorities  and gay people but not to make changes in  policy.

Dignified, Subdued Romney Tells CPAC: “In The End We’ll Win”

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Former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney speaks at CPAC. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.—In his first public address since conceding the presidential race to President Barack Obama in November, Mitt Romney urged a conference of conservative activists on Friday to remain optimistic despite the loss. And he called on them to look to the nation’s Republican governors as sources of leadership and strength.

“I left the race disappointed that we didn’t win. But I also left honored and humbled to have represented values we believe in, and to speak for so many good and decent people. … It is up to us to make sure that we learn from my mistakes and from our mistakes, so that we can win the victories those people and this nation depend upon,” Romney said during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

“It’s fashionable in some circles to be pessimistic about America, about conservative solutions, about the Republican Party. I utterly reject that pessimism. We may not have carried the day last November 7th, but we haven’t lost the country we love, and we haven’t lost our way,” he said.

“I would urge us all to learn lessons that come from some of our greatest success stories, and that is 30 Republican governors,” continued Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. He went on to list a number of state executives—including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who were not invited to speak at the conference. Several of the panels during the three-day event, a gathering of thousands of conservatives from across the country, have focused on finding new ways to win elections in the future.

It was at this same meeting last year that Romney, while engaged in a brutal primary battle with fellow Republicans, told attendees that he considered himself to be “severely conservative.” He ultimately clinched the primary a few months later, but his campaign was unable to gain enough enthusiasm to best the sitting president in the fall. This year, Romney took a moment to apologize for losing the election, but he vowed to continue to advocate for conservative causes.

“Each of us in our own way are going to have to step up and meet our responsibility. I’m sorry I won’t be your president, but I will be your co-worker and I will work shoulder to shoulder alongside you,” Romney said. “In the end, we’ll win. We’ll win for the same reason we’ve won before, because our cause is right … and just.”

As he exited, the audience gave Romney a standing ovation.

‘It kills me’ not to be president: Mitt Romney gives first interview since losing presidency

The former presidential candidate said ‘it kills me’ not to be president and has likened experience of running for president to a roller coaster ride

• Wife Ann compared it to serving the Mormon Church
• Also talked about thinking he would win election until hearing early results from Florida
• Romney has kept a low profile since losing the election last November

By Beth Stebner

The Daily Mail

Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney revealed today that he believed in his heart he was going to win the election and go on to the White House, and that ‘it kills me’ not to be president.

The former GOP candidate, 65, said today in his first interview since losing the election that while he believed he was going to become commander-in-chief, early polling numbers spelled out trouble, and he began to have a ‘slow recognition’ that Barack Obama would win once seeing that Florida was a close race.

In the interview with ‘Fox News Sunday,’ his wife Ann, 64, also confirmed during the show that she was approached by ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ but turned it down, saying: ‘I would have loved to have done it…(but) I’m not really as flexible as I should be.’

Scroll down for video

 

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Painful: Failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney and wife Ann have given their first post-election interview to Fox News, both saying that losing hit them hard

 

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Comparison: Ann Romney has said that running for president was like their experience of serving in the Mormon church

 Daily Mail

The wide-ranging interview, led by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, was taped earlier this week and aired Sunday morning. It brushed upon Obama’s second term, current events, as well as the Romney’s newest grandchildren, among other things.

The former Massachusetts governor reflected over his campaign, saying that he did not do a satisfactory job connecting with minority voters, and said that Republicans in general must strive to do better in appealing to black and Hispanic voters.

‘That was a real mistake,’ he said. He added: ‘It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.’

More…

• Eva Longoria, Gwen Stefani and Anna Wintour top the list of celebrity fundraisers who helped the President secure a second term
• What the sequester cuts really mean to you according to SNL: Obama admits he has ‘no idea about money’ but Michelle will now do only 4 weekly TV appearances instead of 75
• Congress to take two-week vacation on March 22, even though the country’s money runs out on March 27

Romney later joked that he did better in his second run for the White House than he did the first time around – when he lost the 2008 nomination to Arizona Sen. John McCain. Regardless of his success making it as the GOP nomination, he said he won’t run for a third time.

He compared the experience of running for the presidency to riding a roller coaster and told Wallace: ‘We were on a roller coaster, exciting and thrilling, ups and downs. But the ride ends, and then you get off.

‘And it’s not like, “Oh, can’t we be on a roller coaster the rest of our life?” It’s like, no, that ride’s over.’

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FOX News Sunday’s Chris Wallace sits down exclusively with former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney at their son’s home in San Diego, CA for their first post-election interview to be presented on Sunday, March 3rd

 

 

 

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Growing family: Seen cradling their two new grandchildren, the Romneys talked about their plans post-election

Ann compared the experience to the service that the Romneys have carried out within the Mormon church.

‘In our church, we’re used to serving and you know, you can be in a very high position, but you recognize you’re serving. And now all of a sudden, you’re released and you’re nobody. And we’re used to that. It’s like we came and stepped forward to serve.

‘And you know, the other part of it was an amazing thing, and it was really quite a lot of energy and a lot of passion and a lot of – a lot of people around us and all of a sudden, it was nothing,’ she said.

‘But the good news is we like each other,’ she joked.

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Watershed moment: Romney’s ’47 percent’ comments, made at a private fundraiser in Florida was one of the pivotal moments of the 2012 campaign

In a one-on-one portion of the interview, Wallace touched upon more sensitive issues, including what faults he believed Romney and his staff made on the campaign trail, including the leak of the now-infamous ’47 percent’ video where he said ‘my job is not to worry about these people.’

The video, which was leaked last September, represented a pivotal point in the 2012 campaign, and a watershed moment in Romney’s campaign.

‘There’s no question that hurt, and did real damage to my campaign.’-Mitt Romney on infamous ’47 percent’ video

‘It was a very unfortunate statement,’ Romney told Wallace.

‘It’s not what I meant. When you speak in private, you don’t think about how much things can be twisted and distorted. It was very harmful. My whole life has been devoted to helping people. There’s no question that hurt, and did real damage to my campaign.’

But Romney was defiant in saying that his career in politics is not over. ‘I’m not going to disappear… I care about America. I care about the fact that we’re racking up larger deficits and putting the peril of the future generation very much in play.’

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Concession: Romney conceded to Obama on Election Day from his campaign headquarters in Boston with Ann by his side

 

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Signed, sealed, delivered: The Obamas and the Bidens celebrated onstage in Chicago after learning that they had won a second term in office

Sharing the next phase of their lives in their home in La Jolla, California, the couple additionally took a moment to present their family’s latest additions after becoming grandparents to 20 children on Valentine’s Day.

The couple cradled their son Craig’s newborn twins before the cameras, one seen in a pink blanket and the other in blue.

The family has kept a low profile since Romney’s concession to President Obama last November.

The couple has been spotted doing ordinary things, such as going to see ‘Twilight’ and, most recently, shopping for cereal at Target.

Romney lost to Obama by a margin of 332 to 206 electoral college votes, with around 62.6million Americans voting for Obama over Romney’s 59.1million votes.

He spent the month after the failed White House bid in solitude at his beachfront mansion in La Jolla, near San Diego, reflecting upon the campaign.

The former Republican nominee is due to address the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington next month.

 

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Stumping: Romney talks with his wife during a commercial break at the South Carolina Republican presidential candidate debate in Myrtle Beach last January (file photo)

 

Mitt Romney post-Election: You can’t stay on the roller-coaster…

 

Video:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti
cle-2287396/Mitt-Romney-says-kill
s-president-interview-losing-election.html

Mitt Romney: Obama, Congress Squandering an “Almost Once-in-Generational Opportunity for America to Solve its Fiscal Problems”

President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress are squandering an “almost once-in-generational opportunity for America to solve its fiscal problems,” former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said.

That opportunity, Romney said in a “Fox News Sunday”interview was the combination of the expiration of Republican President George W. Bush’s income-tax cuts at the end of 2012 and the automatic spending cuts that went into effect March 1.

 

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stated the opportunity is being “squandered by politics, by people who are more interested in a political victory than they are in doing what’s right for the country.”   Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

“I see this as this huge opportunity, and it’s being squandered by politics, by people who are more interested in a political victory than they are in doing what’s right for the country,” Romney said in the Fox interview. “And it’s very frustrating.”

“The hardest thing about losing is watching this, this critical moment, this golden moment, just slip away with politics,” Romney, who lost the 2012 election to President Obama, a Democrat, said.

Romney didn’t say what he would have done instead.

Obama “has the opportunity to lead the nation and to bring Republicans and Democrats together,” Romney said. “It’s a job he’s got to do and it’s a job only the president can do.”

Asked whether New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie’s “literal embracing” of Obama in the wake of superstorm Sandy hurt his presidential bid, Romney said, “I lost my election because of my campaign, not because of what anyone else did.”

The chief weakness of his effort, he said, was that “we weren’t effective in taking our message to minorities, to Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans. We did well among the majority population. But that was our failing.”

Romney is scheduled to give his first post-election policy address later this month at the American Conservative Union’sConservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor,Maryland.

Mitt Romney Takes Full Responsibility for Not Beating Barack Obama in November’s Election

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (L) speaks with FOX News Sunday’s Chris Wallace at his son’s home in San Diego, California for his first post-election interview in this February 28, 2013 FOX News Sunday handout photo obtained by Reuters March 1, 2013. The interview is to be aired March 3rd. REUTERS/FOX News Channel/FOX

Photo By HANDOUT/REUTERS

Mitt Romney says it “kills” him that he’s not president. But he doesn’t blame Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or anything else on his loss to President Barack Obama–except his campaign’s failure to connect with minority voters.

“I lost my election because of my campaign,” Romney said on “Fox News Sunday” in his first television interview since his November defeat, “not because of what anyone else did.”

By Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News | The Ticket

Video:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/m
itt-romney-kills-fox-obama-163333853–election.html

The former Massachusetts governor refused place blame on Christie, who some Republicans say elevated Obama in his embrace of the president in the wake of the storm.

Romney said his inability to win over black and Hispanic voters–and the damage done by those disastrous “47 percent” comments–ultimately derailed his White House bid.

Ann Romney, though, pointed the finger at the fourth estate. “It was not just the campaign’s fault,” Ann Romney said. “I believe it was the media’s fault as well, in that he was not being given a fair shake–that people weren’t allowed to really see him for who he was. … I’m happy to blame the media.”

She added: “I totally believe at this moment, if Mitt were there in the office, that we would not be facing sequestration right now.”

Mitt Romney said President Obama has failed to lead on the sequester.

“He didn’t think the sequester would happen,” he said. “It is happening. To date, what we’ve seen is the president out campaigning to the American people, doing rallies around the country, flying around the country and berating Republicans and blaming and pointing. Now, what does that do? That causes the Republicans to retrench and to put up a wall and to fight back.”

The media at work at US presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s election night event in Boston, on November 6, 2012. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

On election night, Romney said, he was “convinced” he’d win the election–until Ohio went in Obama’s favor.

“It was a slow recognition until ultimately when the Ohio numbers began coming in and they were disappointing,” he said. “By 8 or 9 o’clock, it was pretty clear that we were not going to win.”

Romney, who has avoided the press since his loss to Obama, likened the election and its aftermath to an amusement park ride.

“We were on a roller coaster, exciting and thrilling, ups and downs,” Romney said. “But the ride ends. And then you get off. And it’s not like, oh, can’t we be on a roller coaster the rest of our life? It’s like, no, the ride’s over.”

Video:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/m
itt-romney-kills-fox-obama-163333853–election.html

After Second Presidential Defeat, Republicans Reassess, Regroup

WASHINGTON (AP) — To hear some Republicans tell it, the Grand Old Party needs to get with the times.

Some of the early prescriptions offered by officials and operatives to rebuild after devastating elections: retool the party message to appeal to Latinos, women and working-class people; upgrade antiquated get-out-the-vote systems with the latest technology. Teach candidates how to handle the new media landscape.

By KASIE HUNT and STEVE PEOPLES | Associated Press

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, left, Indiana Gov.-Elect Mike Pence, center, and Republican Governors Association Chairman and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell participate in a panel discussion during the 2012 RGA Annual Conference at Encore hotel-casino Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, in Las Vegas. Top Republicans meeting for the first time since Election Day say the party failed to unseat President Barack Obama because nominee Mitt Romney did not respond to criticism strongly enough or outline a specific agenda with a broad appeal. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)

From longtime GOP luminaries to the party’s rising stars, almost everyone asked about the Republicans’ Nov. 6 election drubbing seems to agree that a wholesale update is necessary for a party that appears to be running years behind Democrats in adapting to rapidly changing campaigns and an evolving electorate.

Interviews with more than a dozen Republicans at all levels of the party indicated that postelection soul-searching must quickly turn into a period of action.

“We’ve got to have a very brutally honest review from stem to stern of what we did and what we didn’t do, and what worked and what failed,” said former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who ran the party in the 1990s.

The party “has to modernize in a whole wide range of ways,” added former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who ran against White House nominee Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential primary. “We were clearly wrong on a whole range of fronts.”

To determine what went wrong, the Republican National Committee is examining every detail of the 2012 elections, with the goal of rebuilding the party for the future — much as the Democratic Party did in the 1980s after suffering a series of stinging losses at all levels of government.

Now, as was the case back then, the stakes are enormous for the party that failed to win the White House and has lost the popular vote for several national elections in a row. They’re perhaps even higher for Republicans grappling for ways to court a rapidly changing electorate whose voting groups don’t naturally gravitate toward the GOP. The dangers of failing to act could be severe: permanent minority status.

So it’s little surprise that, after the election, some Republicans were quick to sound stark warnings.

The scale of the losses largely shocked a party whose top-shelf operatives went into Election Day believing Republicans had at least a decent chance of capturing the White House and gaining ground in Congress, where Republicans controlled the House and had a sizable minority in the Senate.

Instead, Romney lost all but one of the nine contested states, North Carolina, to President Barack Obama and was trounced in the electoral vote. Republicans also lost ground to Democrats in both houses of Congress, though Republicans retained their House majority.

How to move forward dominated the discussions at last week’s Republican Governors Associationmeeting in Las Vegas, where some of the party’s leading voices castigated Romney’s assessment — made in what was supposed to be a private telephone call to donors — that Obama won re-election because of the “gifts” the president had provided to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. These governors faulted Romney.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal attributed Romney’s loss to a lack of  ”a specific vision that connected with the American people.”

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who describes himself as a “pro-choice moderate Republican,” echoed Republicans across the spectrum when he said last week: “We need to be a larger-tent party.” Brown lost his seat to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

Across the board, Republicans say that arguably the most urgent task facing the party is changing its attitude about immigration as it looks to woo Hispanics. This rapidly growing group voted overwhelmingly for Obama, by margins of 7-to-1 over Romney, who had shifted to the right on the issue during the GOP primary.

It didn’t take long after the election for even staunch conservatives to start changing their tune on immigration. Days after the election, even conservative TV host Sean Hannity said he would support an immigration bill.

Sean Hannity

Said Barbour: “If we would be for good economic policy in terms of immigration, that would go a long way toward solving the political problem.”

It’s not just Hispanics.

Republicans said they also have work to do with single women and younger voters, many of whom tend to be more liberal on social issues than the current Republican Party. These Republicans said a change in tone is needed, though not a change in principles such as opposition to abortion.

“We need to make sure that we’re not perceived as intolerant,” said Ron Kaufman, a veteran Republican strategist who advised Romney’s campaign. “The bottom line is we were perceived to be intolerant on some issues. And tone-deaf on others.”

Republicans also said the party has to work on its relationship with working-class voters.

“Republicans have to start understanding that small business and entrepreneurs are important, but the people who work for them are also important,” said Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., who lost his seat to Democrat Ann Kuster. “We’ve got to be compassionate conservatives.”

Party leaders also said the GOP needs to change how it communicates its message. Obama’s campaign, they said, was particularly effective at talking directly to voters, and building relationships over long periods of time, whereas the GOP was more focused on top-down communication such as TV ads and direct mail.

“There are whole sections of the American public that we didn’t even engage with,” Gingrich said.

Others pointed to the pressing need to recruit candidates who know how to stick to a carefully honed message, especially in a Twitter-driven era. Among their case studies: Senate candidates Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri, who both discussed rape and pregnancy during the campaign, to the chagrin of party leaders looking to narrow the Democrats’ advantage among women.

“We need candidates who are capable of articulating their policy positions without alienating massive voting blocs,” said Kevin McLaughlin, a Republican operative who worked on several Senate races for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Many Republicans say the party doesn’t have a choice but to change — and quickly.

Said Kaufmann: “In this business, either you learn and grow or you die.”

Republican Governors Association Chairman and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell speaks during a panel discussion at the 2012 RGA Annual Conference at Encore hotel-casino Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, in Las Vegas. Top Republicans meeting for the first time since Election Day say the party failed to unseat President Barack Obama because nominee Mitt Romney did not respond to criticism strongly enough or outline a specific agenda with a broad appeal. (AP Photo/Ronda Churchill)

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Follow Kasie Hunt on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kasie and Steve Peoples at http://www.twitter.com/sppeoples

Krauthammer: Social Democracy Failing in Europe; American Republicans Need Not “Re-Invent” Themselves

They lose and immediately the chorus begins. Republicans must change or die. A rump party of white America, it must adapt to evolving demographics or forever be the minority.

The only part of this that is even partially true regards Hispanics. They should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example).

The principal reason they go Democratic is the issue of illegal immigrants. In securing the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney made the strategic error of (unnecessarily) going to the right of  Rick Perry. Romney could never successfully tack back.

By Charles Krauthammer

For the party in general, however, the problem is hardly structural. It requires but a single policy change:  . Yes, amnesty. Use the word. Shock and awe — full legal normalization (just short of citizenship) in return for full border enforcement.

I’ve always been of the “enforcement first” school, with the subsequent promise of legalization. I still think it’s the better policy. But many Hispanics fear that there will be nothing beyond enforcement. So, promise amnesty right up front. Secure the border with guaranteed legalization to follow on the day the four border-state governors affirm that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle.

Imagine Marco Rubio advancing such a policy on the road to 2016. It would transform the landscape. He’d win the Hispanic vote. Yes, win it. A problem fixable with a single policy initiative is not structural. It is solvable.

The other part of the current lament is that the Republican Party consistently trails among blacks, young people and (unmarried) women. (Republicans are plus-7 among married women.) But this is not for reasons of culture, identity or even affinity. It is because these constituencies tend to be more politically liberal — and Republicans are the conservative party.

The country doesn’t need two liberal parties. Yes, Republicans need to weed out candidates who talk like morons about rape. But this doesn’t mean the country needs two pro-choice parties either. In fact, more women are pro-life than are pro-choice. The problem here for Republicans is not policy but delicacy — speaking about culturally sensitive and philosophically complex issues with reflection and prudence.

Additionally, warn the doomsayers, Republicans must change not just ethnically but ideologically. Back to the center. Moderation above all!

More nonsense. Tuesday’s exit polls showed that by an eight-point margin (51-43),Americans believe that government does too much. And Republicans are the party of smaller government. Moreover, onrushing economic exigencies — crushing debt,unsustainable entitlements — will make the argument for smaller government increasingly unassailable.

So, why give it up? Republicans lost the election not because they advanced a bad argument but because they advanced a good argument not well enough. Romney ran a solid campaign, but he is by nature a Northeastern moderate. He sincerely adopted the new conservatism but still spoke it as a second language.

More Ford ’76 than Reagan ’80, Romney is a transitional figure, both generationally and ideologically. Behind him, the party has an extraordinarily strong bench. In Congress — Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Kelly Ayotte, (the incoming) Ted Cruz and others. And the governors — Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Nikki Haley, plus former governor Jeb Bush and the soon-retiring Mitch Daniels. (Chris Christie is currently in rehab.)

They were all either a little too young or just not personally prepared to run in 2012. No longer. There may not be a Reagan among them, but this generation of rising leaders is philosophically rooted and politically fluent in the new constitutional conservatism.

Ignore the trimmers. There’s no need for radical change. The other party thinks it owns the demographic future — counter that in one stroke by fixing the Latino problem. Do not, however, abandon the party’s philosophical anchor. In a world where European social democracy is imploding before our eyes, the party of smaller, more modernized government owns the ideological future.

Romney is a good man who made the best argument he could, and nearly won. He would have made a superb chief executive, but he (like the Clinton machine) could not match Barack Obama in the darker arts of public persuasion.

The answer to Romney’s failure is not retreat, not aping the Democrats’ patchwork pandering. It is to make the case for restrained, rationalized and reformed government in stark contradistinction to Obama’s increasingly unsustainable big-spending, big-government paternalism.

Republicans: No whimpering. No whining. No reinvention when none is needed. Do conservatism but do it better. There’s a whole generation of leaders ready to do just that.

Pew Research President: Election “lessons learned” often exaggerated, misleading

Photo By Reuters

By Andrew Kohut
The Wall Street Journal

Postelection talk of “lessons learned” is often exaggerated and misleading, and so it is in 2012.

A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, that the growing size of these voting blocs represents a decisive challenge for the Republican Party.

Both points are true, but most observers are overstating the gravity of the GOP’s problem. In particular, they are paying too little attention to how weak a candidate Mitt Romney was, and how much that hurt Republican prospects.

Here is what the exit poll found. Mr. Romney’s personal image took a hard hit during the primary campaign and remained weak on election day. Just 47% of exit-poll respondents viewed him favorably, compared with 53% for Mr. Obama. Throughout the campaign, Mr. Romney’s favorable ratings were among the lowest recorded for a presidential candidate in the modern era. A persistent problem was doubt about his empathy with the average voter. By 53% to 43%, exit-poll respondents said that Mr. Obama was more in touch than Mr. Romney with people like themselves.

Mr. Romney was never fully embraced by Republicans themselves, which may have inhibited the expected strong Republican turnout. Pew’s election-weekend survey found Mr. Romney with fewer strong supporters (33%) than Mr. Obama (39%). Similarly, a much greater percentage of Obama supporters (80%) than Romney supporters (60%) told Pew that they were voting for their candidate rather than against his opponent.

Surprisingly, Mr. Romney proved unable to exploit Mr. Obama’s biggest weakness: the economy. Seventy-six percent of exit-poll respondents rated the national economy “poor” or only “fair,” and just 25% said their finances were better off than they were four years ago. Yet voters expressed roughly equal confidence in Mr. Obama’s ability to handle the economy (48%) as in Mr. Romney’s (49%).

Mr. Romney was hurt by the perception—reinforced by Democratic attack ads and his secretly recorded comments about the “47%”—that he wasn’t for the average voter. With 55% of voters in the exit poll saying they think the U.S. economic system favors the wealthy, a large majority believed that Mr. Obama’s policies favor the middle class (44%) or the poor (31%). By contrast, 53% thought Mr. Romney’s policies would favor the rich.

Despite their weak candidate, Republicans increased their share of the presidential vote among many major demographic groups. Compared with 2008, they made significant gains among men (four percentage points), whites (four points), younger voters (six points), white Catholics (seven points) and Jews (nine points). Mr. Romney also carried the independent vote 50% to 45%. Four years ago, independents voted for Mr. Obama 52% to 44%.

Republicans can take some solace from these gains. In addition, only 43% of voters this year said they wanted an activist government (compared with 52% in 2008), and 49% continued to disapprove of Mr. Obama’s health-care law (compared with 44% approving).

In short, the current American electorate is hardly stacked against the Republican Party. But Republicans should recognize that, on balance, Americans remain moderate—holding a mix of liberal and conservative views. They generally believe that small government is better and that ObamaCare is bad. But the exit poll shows that 59% believe abortion should be legal, 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and a surprising plurality support legalizing same-sex marriage in their states.

Threading the ideological needle with this electorate is vital for the Republicans in the future—and for the Democrats, too.

— Mr. Kohut is president of the Pew Research Center.

A version of this article appeared November 14, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Misreading Election 2012.

Japan’s Politicians Anger China Afresh

The Dalai Lama presents Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party president, Shinzo Abe, with a white Tibetan scarf in Tokyo. Photo by Itsuo Inouye/AP

By Bruce Einhorn on November 13, 2012
Bloomberg

As in the U.S., so in Japan: During election seasons, politicians who are looking to show their toughness pick fights with China. Looking to capitalize on American frustration with Chinese policies that keep the yuan undervalued, Republican Mitt Romney said during the presidential campaign that he would label China a currency manipulator on Day One of a Romney administration.

There won’t be a Romney administration, so we’ll never know how China would have responded. There’s a good chance, though, that we’ll soon see how Chinese leaders deal with a China-basher much closer to home. Shinzo Abe, head of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and front-runner to become Japan’s next prime minister, demonstrated how to irk the Chinese on Tuesday after meeting the Dalai Lama during a visit to Tokyo by the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists.

Abe was briefly prime minister in 2006-2007, part of a revolving door of hapless leaders unable to end the country’s decades-long economic malaise, and he is keen on getting another shot at the top job. Perhaps with that in mind, Abe went out of his way to show Japanese voters that he is ready to stand up to China. “I swear I will do everything in my power to change the situation in Tibet, where human rights are being suppressed,” Bloomberg News reported Abe saying before a Dalai Lama speech that was attended by more than 100 members of Japan’s parliament. “Tibet seeks freedom and democracy and we agree on those values.”

Compare that with President Barack Obama’s cautious moves during last year’s low-profile, private meeting with the Dalai Lama at the White House. The two Nobel Peace Prize winners met not in the Oval Office but in the Map Room. The media weren’t invited. Afterwards the White House made a point of reassuring China that the U.S. wasn’t interested in fighting about Tibet.

Pointing toward China? Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama and Tibet’s spiritual leader, speaks during a news conference in Narita city, Chiba prefecture, Japan.

“Reiterating the U.S. policy that Tibet is a part of the People’s Republic of China and the United States does not support independence for Tibet, the President stressed that he encourages direct dialogue to resolve long-standing differences and that a dialogue that produces results would be positive for China and Tibetans,” the White House said in a statement. “The President stressed the importance he attaches to building a U.S.-China cooperative partnership. The Dalai Lama stated that he is not seeking independence for Tibet and hopes that dialogue between his representatives and the Chinese government can soon resume.”

In Japan, which is in the midst of a nasty dispute with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, politicians from both the ruling party and the opposition seem to feel there’s little reason to defer to Chinese feelings. Just last month, LDP leader Abe, as well as two cabinet members from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, showed their willingness to risk China’s ire byvisiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which commemorates Japanese war dead, including convicted war criminals from World War II.

Those visits provoked the usual condemnations from China, but Abe’s latest poke at the Chinese is probably a more serious matter. China is now in the midst of the Communist Party congress that is supposed to anoint the country’s leaders for the next five years. With so much attention focused on the leadership transition, Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule have been demonstrating by setting themselves on fire: In the past week, seven Tibetans have self-immolated to protest Beijing’s policies towards the region.

The Chinese government blames the Dalai Lama and says the Tibetan leader is in bed with Japanese who want those deserted islands in the East China Sea. One sign that Japan seeks to split China, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Tuesday, is the Dalai Lama’s use of Japan’s name for the islands (the Senkaku), rather than China’s preferred name (the Diaoyu). “To achieve his separatist goal, Dalai associated with the Japanese right-wing forces. Chinese people despise him for what he did,” the official English-language newspaper the China Daily reported Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei saying. “China firmly opposes the provision of platforms by any country or any person to Dalai’s separatist activities in any form.”

While provoking China didn’t work for Romney, Beijing’s leaders need to be more concerned about Abe. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is deeply unpopular, with an approval rating in an Asahi newspaper poll of just 18 percent. Noda may call for new elections as early as January, according to a report in the Nikkei newspaper, and Abe stands a good chance of becoming the country’s next leader.

That could mean more bad news for Japanese automakers and other companies suffering from falling sales in China. In the latest sign that the island dispute is taking its toll on Japanese companies, Nissan (7201:JP) said on Nov. 6 that falling China sales would lead to a 19 percent income reduction, wiping out $760 million.

Einhorn is Asia regional editor in Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Hong Kong bureau.