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THE U.S. News & World Report headline said it all: “Can Bush Save the GOP?” Here is a political party so demoralized as to accept the media spins that it lost the election it actually won, that its “defeat” is the result of embracing hard- right social policies and non-mainstream conservative candidates it sedulously avoided, and that it can be saved only by a governor who gained a majority of Latino voters by his “inclusive” politics when he didn’t.

These illusions can be exploded easily enough. In the national vote for the House of Representatives, Republicans won half a million more votes than Democrats. In close Senate elections, moderate Republicans like Matt Fong lost winnable races (and in Fong’s case, the Asian vote) quite as often as did conservatives like Ellen Sauerbrey and Dan Lungren, both of whom, as it happens, ran away from conservatism in the course of their campaigns. And although Bush won a landslide 69 per cent of all voters, he gained only 49 per cent of Hispanics, despite using a Spanish language commercial with the tag line: “Vote for Bush—Who cares if he’s not a Democrat?” This sort of reverse inclusiveness may confirm the insight that the Republicans have a choice: they can either change their policy on immigration or change all their other policies. It is hardly the prescription for a national victory.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

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THE U.S. News & World Report headline said it all: “Can Bush Save the GOP?” Here is a political party so demoralized as to accept the media spins that it lost the election it actually won, that its “defeat” is the result of embracing hard- right social policies and non-mainstream conservative candidates it sedulously avoided, and that it can be saved only by a governor who gained a majority of Latino voters by his “inclusive” politics when he didn’t.

These illusions can be exploded easily enough. In the national vote for the House of Representatives, Republicans won half a million more votes than Democrats. In close Senate elections, moderate Republicans like Matt Fong lost winnable races (and in Fong’s case, the Asian vote) quite as often as did conservatives like Ellen Sauerbrey and Dan Lungren, both of whom, as it happens, ran away from conservatism in the course of their campaigns. And although Bush won a landslide 69 per cent of all voters, he gained only 49 per cent of Hispanics, despite using a Spanish language commercial with the tag line: “Vote for Bush—Who cares if he’s not a Democrat?” This sort of reverse inclusiveness may confirm the insight that the Republicans have a choice: they can either change their policy on immigration or change all their other policies. It is hardly the prescription for a national victory.