GOP Wants You To Love Them Just The Way They Are

by Stuart Shapiro

With apologies to Billy Joel, the Republicans aren’t going to go changing just to please us. Nope they’ve reflected on their 2012 drubbing, re-elected Reince Priebus RNC chair, and decided that everything is fine.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus declared, “It’s not the platform of the party that’s the issue. In many cases, it’s how we communicate about it. It is a couple dumb things that people have said.”

An RNC member from West Virginia added, “We don’t need a new pair of shoes; we just need to shine our shoes.”

I see. So a few months after a national election in which President Obama won re-election fairly easily, Senate Democrats unexpectedly expanded their majority, and House Democrats received well over 1 million more votes than House Republicans, GOP officials took a long look in the mirror and decided … they’re awesome just the way they are.

I have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I’d love to see Democrats keep winning elections by increasingly large margins.  On the other hand, a credible opposition is necessary in a well-functioning democracy.  And the GOP is becoming less and less credible with each passing year.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.