A tale of two different elections

The two noteworthy gubernatorial elections of the 2013 off-year exemplified a trend that the Republican Party, nationwide and especially in North Carolina, needs to address.

In Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, a man who once called homosexual acts “intrinsically wrong”ran by playing up social conservative themes. He has been described as a “culture warrior” by political analysts on account of hardline positions against abortion, gay rights and even oral sex. Cuccinelli lost in a state that previously had a Republican governor and where Obama had a narrow victory in 2012.

In contrast, Chris Christie reclaimed the governorship in New Jersey, a traditionally more blue state in which Obama won a full 58 percent of the vote in 2012. Christie is often seen as a moderate, especially after he worked across party lines to get relief after Hurricane Sandy. His re-election campaign was built on his pragmatic record of cutting taxes and balancing New Jersey’s budget, allowing him to win in a landslide.

The stark contrast between these two results should be instructive for the future of the Republican Party if it wants to remain relevant.

Regardless of one’s ideological beliefs, the changing demographic realities in America make it quite clear that a Republican Party that drives itself into an ideologically rigid, socially focused box is a party headed for extinction.

The Republican Party of North Carolina may face this very phenomenon. By changing voter ID laws, drastically cutting education funding and attempting to cut off funding for women’s health clinics, the N.C. GOP is espousing an agenda dangerously similar to the one that derailed Cuccinelli’s campaign.

There are conservative answers that can effectively solve the challenges that face North Carolina and our nation today. But those answers are not found in the polarizing social ideology that drove Cuccinelli to defeat.

It is not only myself, a lowly DTH columnist, who has this opinion. Major GOP donors abandoned Cuccinelli’s campaign this summer over fears that he was too socially radical.

North Carolina congressional candidate Jason Thigpen recently switched parties saying that the GOP has become an “extremist movement.”

The Republican Party should stand for the sound principles of free markets and individual liberty. Abandoning these tenets for evermore polarizing views is a disservice both to the party’s future and the political discourse in our nation.

As long as the Republican Party remains the caricature of conservatism that it is today, it’ll be easy for those on the left to dismiss Republican ideas as too radical. Anyone trying to argue for ideas that do not fall in line with the liberal consensus on campus has surely experienced this.

The Republican Party, in North Carolina and in the entire nation, must return to the principles of economic freedom that are the bedrock of its existence. Only then will we be able to have the vibrant debate that our state and nation deserve.