Five months after their second straight electoral drubbing, leading Republicans remain reluctant to articulate what the party must change in order to win presidential elections in the future.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), nearly all of the GOP’s top leaders spoke to thousands of conservative activists. What was most remarkable was what these leaders didn’t say. Few words were spoken about the changing demographics in the country and how Republicans must adapt to those, the growing number of Americans and even Republicans who now back gay marriage or the challenge of winning Latino voters when the party is perceived to be anti-immigrant.
Instead, they relied on very familiar rhetoric, a mix of Obama-bashing and attacks on Congress and Washington more broadly. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor called for expanded use of school vouchers, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley insisted the party resist “Obamacare” and Mitt Romney urged Republicans to follow the lead of the party’s governors and Paul Ryan, his former running mate, in cutting spending and reducing the budget deficit.
“Our principles are timeless,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said. He added, explicitly rejecting the party moving to the political left, that “we already have one liberal party in America, we don’t need another one.”
The boldest call for change came from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who blasted President Obama but also urged Republicans to shift towards more libertarian views. He said Republicans should propose balancing the federal budget in five years (House Republicans are calling for balancing the budget in 10 years and President Obama argues both of those goals would require too much budget cutting) and eliminate the Department of Education.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was the other speaker most willing to highlight the party’s challenges, arguing Republicans must avoid being cast as a party that is “anti-everything.”
But for now, the broader Republican message is little different than the one Romney articulated last year in his failed candidacy. Speaker after speaker bemoaned the rising deficits under Obama and their opposition to his health care law. Sarah Palin made a joke about Obama’s use of teleprompters, a familiar subject for Republican scorn.
Palin’s presence also illustrated the static nature of the current GOP. CPAC featured some emerging leaders in the party like Paul and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, but also included a number of speakers whose futures in politics appear dim: Palin, former Florida Rep. Allen West, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich.
More broadly, the event was striking because there actually is an interesting internal debate going on within the Republican Party about its future, but that was barely visible at CPAC. On the second day of the conference, Ohio’s Sen. Rob Portman, who was on Romney’s short list for vice-president last summer, announced his support for gay marriage. Portman was not at CPAC, and none of the speakers addressed that issue.
Rubio largely avoided talking about his embrace of creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, another issue that divides party officials.
Follow Perry Bacon Jr. on Twitter at @PerryBaconJr.