Making Daily Headlines · Page 5
Republicans Begin the Contest to Explain Who Lost
· New York time
Republicans are looking for answers after Democrats recorded sweeping midterm wins. CBS News' Zak Hudak reported on the fallout, while strategists Cameron French and Keith Sheridan discussed the party's defeat on The Daily Report. A large electoral loss invites competing explanations, from individual races to national issues and the party's broader message. Each explanation points toward a different response. A campaign problem might call for different candidates or tactics; a wider disagreement with voters could require a more substantial change in priorities. Those choices are not especially comfortable for a party with multiple constituencies and leaders. The people who favored one approach may be eager to point at another. Meanwhile, voters have already delivered the result, leaving strategists to decide what can be learned from it. The first post-election meeting is therefore a remarkable workplace exercise. Everyone arrives to discuss accountability, but the seating plan has an invisible chair labeled somebody else. The discussion can still produce useful conclusions, provided the participants eventually stop moving that chair around the room. The Republican response will matter for future campaigns as well as for the party's dealings with the new Democratic majority. For now, the immediate task is to turn a disappointing set of results into an assessment specific enough to guide a decision. A fresh slogan is easier to print, but it cannot answer every question on its own.
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