Keeping the “urbans” in their place
by digby
When the Republicans get introspective it’s always interesting what psychic rocks they end up turning over:
As Representative Paul D. Ryan casts about to find an explanation for the defeat of the Republican presidential ticket, on which he was Mitt Romney’s running mate, he is looking to the nation’s big cities for answers.
“The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview with WISC-TV back home in Wisconsin on Monday before returning Tuesday to Capitol Hill for the start of the lame-duck session.
“When we watched Virginia and Ohio coming in,” Mr. Ryan said, “and those ones coming in as tight as they were and looking like we were going to lose them, that’s when it became clear we weren’t going to win.”
Mr. Ryan, now a potential 2016 presidential candidate, has repeated the sentiment in subsequent interviews. And he is not the only conservative who has embraced the notion that a surge of voters in urban America gave Mr. Obama the prize, as many Republicans try to come to grips with how an election they believed was theirs for the taking instead got away.
When I worked in the movie business, I often had to deal with overseas buyers who would explicitly refuse to acquire what they called “urban” movies, because their audience allegedly didn’t “relate.” That euphemism never fools anyone.
I’ve rarely had a nice thing to say about Paul Ryan, but I have never thought he was one to pander openly to those members of the base who have, shall we say, somewhat old fashioned views when it comes to race. For all his faults I didn’t think he was one of those guys.
But that certainly sounds like one of those guys. And considering the massive effort to portray those voters as attempting to steal elections through voter fraud, this excuse is even more sinister.
Also, Mr Very Serious Budget Wonk got his very serious analysis wrong. Again:
But pointing to urban voters for the Republican failure to win last week does not take into account that the Republican ticket also lost big in some rural, mostly white states, like Iowa and New Hampshire.
And there is little proof from the results of the election that urban turnout over all played the decisive role in swing states like Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia or Wisconsin, where Mitt Romney lost in Mr. Ryan’s suburban home district…
“What Paul Ryan misses is that the Republicans have been losing the urban vote for a long, long time,” said Marc Morial, the president and chief executive of the National Urban League.
Mr. Morial said he did not know why Mr. Ryan was focusing attention on the nation’s urban core as the cause of the Republican losses. But he said the decision by Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan not to attend his group’s annual conference was not a good sign that Mr. Ryan wants more outreach in the future.
Yeah, I’d say that bridge has probably been burned. And that may explain why Ryan’s out there still fanning the voter fraud flames.