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Days after President Barack Obama is sworn-in for a second term, Republican leaders from across the country will assemble in the southern city where Obama accepted his party’s presidential nomination in September to strategize a path forward for the GOP in a nation experiencing major demographic shifts.

It will be a three-day discussion focused primarily on how to grow the Republican Party by convincing black, Hispanic and Asian voters that the GOP better represents their values than the Democratic Party, according to a party official involved in the planning of the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The argument, certainly in the near term, will be tough sell for the GOP, given the unyielding positions and controversial comments from some conservative lawmakers and opinion leaders on the issue of illegal immigration and Democrats’ deep ties to the black community. The CNN Exit Poll from the 2012 presidential election showed that Obama won 93% of the black vote, 71% of the Hispanic vote and 73% of the Asian vote.

“The big takeaway that will be discussed during the week and championed by Priebus is that the party needs more voters and needs to do a better job of reaching out to minority communities and not just six months before the election,” said the Republican official.

Priebus is RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, a 40-year-old lawyer from Wisconsin, who, until two years ago, was relatively unknown outside of the small, clubby world of the committee, an organization that has only 168 members. In January 2011, Priebus emerged from a pack of similarly ambitious Republicans, including his former political ally and then-Chairman Michael Steele, for the right to lead the national party. He inherited more than $20 million of debt after the 2010 midterm elections and a depressed RNC donor base that was being courted by White House hopefuls and congressional Republicans.

The theme of the RNC meeting is “Renew, Grow, Win,” a tacit admission that the party has some serious political reckoning to deal with in the coming months, especially with the fast-growing Hispanic population.

“The ideas and the principles of the party are sound,” said the GOP source. “But the way they need to be communicated needs to be updated to become more relatable and relevant.”

After the election, Priebus pledged to do a top-to-bottom review of the party, named it the “Growth and Opportunity Effort” and appointed five Republicans to lead the project. More at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/17/first-on-cnn-attractin
g-minority-voters-a-key-gop-goal-as-obama-begins-second-term/?hpt=hp_bn3

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Did you know that the Repubs manipulated the districting in various states so as to affect the outcome of the House. They gave it a name: Gerrymandering.

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It seems to me you have dipped deeply from the Kool-Aid trough of the GOP drinking fountain.

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Former Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist sharply criticized Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Sunday for his refusal to extend early voting hours in the state as individuals waited for hours in lines at the polls.

A major reason there are such long lines at the polls is that last year, Florida's GOP-controlled legislature shortened the number of early voting days from 14 to eight, meaning all early voters are trying to cast their ballots in a shorter window. Previously, Floridians were allowed to vote on the Sunday before Election Day -- a day that typically had high traffic.

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Traditionally, Democratic voters are more likely to turn out to vote early. According to an analysis of 2008 election results in Ohio's Cuyahoga County by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, African Americans use in-person early voting at approximately 26 times the rate of white voters.

On Election Day, there will be fewer polling precincts this year than in 2008 -- due to redistricting and budget constraints -- meaning traffic on Tuesday could also be a problem.

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Not only were black folks angered and shocked at Republicans' blatant attempts at voter suppression in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Texas and other states, they exacted revenge at the ballot box. Conservatives have valiantly tried to assert that voter ID laws, trimming the early voting days and even eliminating early voting on Sundays was a prudent and practical decision that had nothing to do with black, Hispanic and young voters, or anyone else.

But anyone with half a brain could see that the GOP was desperate to upend the coalition that proved so pivotal to Obama in 2008. All over the country GOP-led legislatures and governors rushed to pass voter ID laws, only to see federal courts reject a number of them that clearly weren't thought through properly.

In Florida, Republicans stopped allowing early voting on the Sunday before Election Day, with no explanation as to why. In 2008, black churches marched a massive number of congregants to the polls, led by their slogan, "Souls to the Polls." The GOP clearly didn't want to see that happen again.

Obstacles like these rekindled the feeling among many African-Americans of the tactics enacted during the civil rights movement to keep blacks from voting. So pastors, deacons and laymen pushed and prodded their members to cast absentee ballots, and pushed hard for their members to stand in lines that during the early voting period can last as long as eight hours.

Even when the networks were calling the election for President Obama on Tuesday, Florida residents were still standing in line to vote, some places in the rain, doing their part to push back. According to NAACP president and CEO Ben Jealous, the organization registered 432,000 voters, a 350% increase over 2008.

Black voters, and others, were sick and tired of the GOP trying to keep their votes from being cast by passing onerous laws, and they responded in an amazing way, matching the historic turnout of 2008, and bringing to life the civil rights anthem, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around." ... the GOP should recognize and accept that its voter suppression tactics were not only roundly defeated, but were decimated. http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/09/opinion/martin-black-vote/index.html

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) announced a new proposal Thursday to reform the state’s election laws, including a plan to increase the number of early voting days and locations.

The plan will allow supervisors of elections to offer more early voting, between eight and 14 days, and increase the number of early voting locations “to help reduce wait times, long lines, and to better convenience voters.” Scott also proposed reducing the length of ballots.

“Our ultimate goal must be to restore Floridians’ confidence in our election system,” Scott said in a statement. “We must continually push to make improvements, and I look forward to working with the Legislature on a bi-partisan bill to implement these reforms this session.”

During the November election, the governor was criticized nationwide for not extending Florida’s early voting after some early voters reported waiting for up to four hours to cast ballots.

His decision led to overwhelmed polling places on Election Day, where some voters in Miami-Dade County were forced to wait in lines for up to six hours. Voting in that county did not end until around 1:30 a.m -- hours after the president had been declared the projected winner.

Scott’s predecessor, Republican-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, extended the number of early voting hours in 2008, but his effort was overturned in 2011 when Scott signed legislation passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature reducing the state’s early voting from 14 days to eight.

Shortly after the 2012 election, Scott stood by his decision not to extend early voting, denying that long lines at the polls might have discouraged voter turnout.

“Well I’m very comfortable that the right thing happened,” Scott said to reporters Nov. 8, two days after the election.

But now Scott, who is facing reelection in 2014, is distancing himself from the controversial election law he signed in 2011.

“It was not my bill,” Scott told members of the Legislative Black Caucus Tuesday. “The Legislature passed it. I didn’t have anything to do with passing it.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/rick-scott-voting_n_2497362.h
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Many Canadians were angry that the electoral process was being subverted like it was

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And of course the Republicans are against the states having to go to the federal government to change their laws on voting

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The Voting Rights Act forbids state laws that place a heavier burden on minority voters than on other members of the electorate. Additionally, Section 5 of the law requires many parts of the country to “preclear” new voting rules with DOJ or a federal court in order to ensure that they do not violate the Voting Rights Act’s protections for minority voters. The Supreme Court is currently considering a challenge to Section 5.

Last week, the state of Texas submitted an amicus brief calling up the justices to strike down this landmark voting rights law. Ironically, however, the brief does far more to explain why Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is still necessary. Texas’ primary argument is that the nation’s most important voting rights law must be gutted because it prevents the state from enacting a law that suppresses the minority vote:
More at http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/08/1413981/texas-to-supreme-c
ourt-strike-down-the-voting-rights-act-so-that-we-can-suppress-the-vote/]
Unfortunately (for them), as of just last week:

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Supreme Court Rejects Republican National Committee Attempt To End Anti-Voter Intimidation Order

The Supreme Court has turned down an effort by the Republican National Committee to end a 30-year-old court order aimed at preventing intimidation of minority voters.

The justices did not comment Monday in rejecting an appeal of lower court decisions that left the order in place at least until 2017.

The order stems from a lawsuit filed by Democrats in New Jersey in 1981 that objected to a "ballot security" program the RNC ran in minority neighborhoods.

Republicans said the order hampers efforts to combat voter fraud, but U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise said voter intimidation remains a threat and preventing it outweighs the potential danger of fraud. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/supreme-court-voter-intimidat
ion_n_2471791.html

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So you see, they're still at it...and probably always will be.

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.