What's Next For The GOP?

Republicans on what’s next for the GOP.  What stays the same, post-election?  What has to change?  We’ll hear the internal debate.

Karl Rove couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t accept it on Election night. After all the billions and bitter critique of President Obama, Republicans had lost in their campaign to take back the White House.

And more than that. Lost ground in the Senate. Lost seats in the House. Lost on gay marriage. Lost the women’s vote. Lost Latinos. Lost the young. Lost nearly all the swing states. Lost touch, it seemed, with a bunch of the country.

Now it’s “what happened?” time in the GOP.

This hour, On Point: Republicans survey the 2012 election outcome and debate their party’s way ahead.
-Tom Ashbrook

David Frum, contributing editor at Newsweek and The Daily Beast and a CNN contributor. He is the author of eight books, including most recently the e-book Why Romney Lost. You can read an excerpt here.

Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center.

Richard Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

Reihan Salaam, columnist for The Daily, lead writer at The Agenda blog at National Review.

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

Weekly Standard "Liberal historians of American politics have long held, at least implicitly, a teleological view of our history. The assumption is that America is slowly moving toward a more “progressive” (read: statist) society, and the only thing the right can do is slow the movement. Conservatives cannot stop or reverse it--it is inexorable."

Daily Beast "The right wing has always considered Obama feckless and incompetent. But looking at their campaigns and without any information about their backgrounds, who would you say is the feckless and incompetent executive? The right wing's trope does not pass the smell test. It's obviously wrong. It was obviously wrong immediately after the 2008 election; it’s even more obviously wrong today. If an extremely competent and successful American businessman like Romney could not build a campaign infrastructure anywhere near as modern and efficient as that created by Obama, how could Obama qualify as a feckless and incompetent executive?"

Check out this video from the Heritage Foundation released last week.