DES MOINES, Iowa — For years, Republicans
have adhered fiercely to their bedrock conservative principles,
resisting Democratic calls for tax hikes, comprehensive immigration
reform and gun control. Now, seven weeks after an electoral drubbing,
some party leaders and rank-and-file alike are signaling a willingness
to bend on all three issues.
What long has been a nonstarter
for Republicans — raising tax rates on wealthy Americans — is now backed
by GOP House Speaker John Boehner in his negotiations with President
Barack Obama to avert a potential fiscal crisis. Party luminaries,
including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, have started calling for a
wholesale shift in the GOP's approach to immigration after Hispanic
voters shunned Republican candidates. And some Republicans who
previously championed gun rights now are opening the door to
restrictions following a schoolhouse shooting spree earlier this month.
"Put guns on the table. Also, put video games on the table. Put
mental health on the table," Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said last week.
Other prominent Republicans echoed him in calling for a sweeping review
of how to prevent tragedies like the Newtown, Conn., massacre. Among
those who were open to a re-evaluation of the nation's gun policies were
Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
"You've got to take all these things into consideration," Grassley said.
And yet, the head of the National Rifle Association, silent for a
week after the Newtown shootings, has proposed staffing schools with
armed police, making clear the NRA, which tends to support the GOP, will
continue pushing for fewer gun restrictions, not more.
Meanwhile, Boehner's attempt to
get his own members on board with a deficit-reduction plan that would
raise taxes on incomes of more than $1 million failed last week,
exposing the reluctance of many in the Republican caucus to entertain
more moderate fiscal positions.
With Republican leaders being
pulled at once to the left and to the right, it's too soon to know
whether the party that emerges from this identity crisis will be more or
less conservative than the one that was once so confident about the
2012 elections. After all, less than two months have passed since the
crushing defeat of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who moved far
to the right during the primary season and, some in the party say, lost
the general election as a result.
But what's increasingly clear is
that the party is now engaged in an uncomfortable and very public fight
over whether its tenets, still firmly held within the party's most
devout ranks, conflict with the views of Americans as a whole.
Many Republicans recognize that to remain relevant with voters whose views are changing, they too must change.
"We lost the election because we
were out of touch with the American people," said John Weaver, a senior
adviser to past presidential candidates John McCain, the GOP nominee in
2008, and Jon Huntsman, who ran for the nomination this year.
The polling suggests as much.
While Republican candidates for
years have adamantly opposed tax increases on anyone, an Associated
Press-GfK poll earlier this month found roughly half of all Americans
supported allowing George W. Bush-era tax cuts to expire on those
earning more than $250,000 a year.
Most GOP candidates — Romney
among them — also long have opposed allowing people in the country
illegally to get an eventual path to citizenship. But exit polls from
the Nov. 6 election showed most voters favored allowing people working
in the U.S. illegally to stay.
And gun control has for decades
been anathema to Republicans. But a Washington Post/ABC News poll
published last week, following the Connecticut shooting, showed 54
percent of Americans now favor stronger restrictions.
This is the backdrop as
Republicans undergo a period of soul-searching after this fall's
electoral shellacking. Romney became the fifth GOP nominee in six
elections to lose the national popular vote to the Democratic candidate.
Republicans also shed seats in their House majority and lost ground to
majority Democrats in the Senate.
Of particular concern is the margin of loss among Hispanics, a group Obama won by about 70 percent to 30 percent.
It took only hours after the loss for national GOP leaders to blame
Romney for shifting to the right on immigration — and signal that the
party must change.
Jindal, a prospective 2016 presidential contender, was among the
Republicans calling for a more measured approach by the GOP. And even
previously hardline opponents of immigration reform — like conservative
talk show host Sean Hannity — said the party needs to get over its
immigration stance heavily favoring border security over other measures.
"What you have is agreement that we as a party need to spend a lot of
time and effort on the Latino vote," veteran Republican strategist
Charlie Black said.
When Congress returned to Washington after the election to start a
debate over taxes and spending, a number of prominent Republicans,
including Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate
Finance Committee, signaled they would be willing to abandon their
pledges against raising taxes — as long as other conditions were met —
as part of a package of proposals to avoid a catastrophic budget
meltdown.
Leading the effort was Boehner, who has told Obama he would allow
taxes to be increased on the wealthiest Americans, as well as on capital
gains, estates and dividends, as part of a deal including spending cuts
and provisions to slow the growth of entitlements. Obama, meanwhile,
also has made concessions in the talks to avoid the so-called fiscal
cliff by agreeing to a higher income threshold for tax rate increases,
while insisting that Congress grant him the authority to raise the debt
ceiling. Both sides have spent the past several weeks bickering over the
terms.
While some Democrats quickly
called for more stringent gun laws, most Republicans initially were
silent. And their virtual absence from the debate suggested that some
Republicans who champion gun rights at least may have been reconsidering
their stances against firearms restrictions.
By the Monday after the
Connecticut shooting, MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough, a former
Republican congressman from Florida, called for reinstating the ban on
assault-style weapons, which he had opposed. The ban expired in 2004,
despite support for the ban from Republican President George W. Bush.
Referring to the shooting, Scarborough said: "I knew that day that the
ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I
want, that I demand, for my children."
The next day, Grassley and Kingston were among the Republicans saying they were at least willing to discuss stronger gun laws.
"The party is at a point where it wants to have those discussions in
public, where people feel comfortable differing from what is perceived
as the party orthodoxy," Republican consultant Dan Hazelwood said.
If silence is a signal, shifts on
other issues could be coming, chief among them gay marriage, which the
GOP base long has opposed. Exit polls found half of all Americans say
same-sex marriage should be legally recognized.
After three states — Washington,
Maryland and Maine — voted to legalize gay marriage last month, the
Republican leadership generally has remained quiet on the issue. And
there has been no effort in the House or Senate to push major
legislation, only narrower proposals, such as a move in the Armed
Services Committee to bar gay marriages at military facilities.
But in a sign that the fight over
gay marriage also may be waning within the GOP base, Newt Gingrich said
it was time for Republicans to accept shifting public opinion.
The former House speaker, who
oversaw passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in Congress and helped
finance state campaigns to fight gay marriage in 2010, said in a
Huffington Post interview that the party should work toward acceptance
of rights for gay couples, while still distinguishing them from
marriage.
"The momentum is clearly now in the direction in finding some way to . accommodate and deal with reality," Gingrich said.
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