Republicans are feeling morose. Eve of Destruction

It is almost impossible to find an establishment Republican in town who’s not downright morose about the 2013 that has been and is about to be. Most dance around it in public, but they see this year as a disaster in the making, even if most elected Republicans don’t know it or admit it.

Several influential Republicans told us the party is actually in a worse place than it was Nov. 7, the day after the disastrous election. This is their case:


• The party is hurting itself even more with the very voters they need to start winning back: Hispanics, blacks, gays, women and swing voters of all stripes.

• The few Republicans who stood up and tried to move the party ahead were swatted into submission: Speaker John Boehner on fiscal matters and Sen. Marco Rubio on immigration are the poster boys for this.

• Republicans are all flirting with a fall that could see influential party voices threatening to default on the debt or shut down the government — and therefore ending all hopes of proving they are not insane when it comes to governance.

( PHOTOS: Republicans on how to fix the GOP)

These Republicans came into the year exceptionally hopeful the party would finally wise up and put immigration and irresponsible rhetoric and governing behind them. Instead, Republicans dug a deeper hole. This probably doesn’t matter for 2014, because off-year elections are notoriously low-turnout affairs where older whites show up in disproportionate numbers. But elite Republican strategists and donors tell us they are increasingly worried the past nine months make 2016 look very bleak — unless elected GOP officials in Washington change course, and fast.

The blown opportunities and self-inflected wounds are adding up:

• Hispanics. Nearly every Republican who stumbled away from 2012 promised to quit alienating the fastest-growing demographic in American politics. So what have they done since? Alienated Hispanic voters — again.

It is easy to dismiss as anomaly some of the nasty rhetoric — such as Rep. Don Young calling immigrants “wetbacks” or Rep. Steve King suggesting the children of illegal immigrants are being used as drug mules. But it’s impossible for most Hispanics not to walk away from the immigration debate believing the vast majority of elected Republicans are against a pathway to citizenship.

House Republicans are dragging their feet on immigration reform — a measure that most Republican leaders agree is essential to getting back in the game with Hispanic voters before the next presidential election. House leaders say there’s no chance they’ll bring up the broad measure that has passed the Senate. Instead, they plan a piecemeal, one-bill-a-month approach that is likely to suffocate comprehensive reform.

Some Republicans are praying that leaders will find a way to jam through something President Barack Obama can sign. But current signs point to failure. The House will be tied up all fall over fiscal issues — and there’s unlikely to be time to litigate immigration reform even if most members want to, which they don’t.

“If Republicans don’t pass immigration reform, it’ll be a black cloud that’ll follow the party around through the next presidential election and possibly through the decade,” warned Scott Reed, senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

( PHOTOS: Senators up for election in 2014)

• African Americans. Republicans hurt themselves with other minorities by responding lamely — and, in some cases, offensively — to the Trayvon Martin case, and to the Supreme Court ruling that gutted Voting Rights Act protections.

“You can perform an autopsy until you’re blue in the face,” said Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman, now with Purple Nation Solutions. “But if the people you’re trying to reach have no faith or trust in the words you are saying, it doesn’t matter.”

It would be easy to dismiss Steele as bitter because he was forced out of the RNC and has feuded with his successor, Reince Priebus, since. But he has done something few Republicans have: risen to the top of American politics as a black Republican. On voting rights, Steele said, the party needs to actively deal with African-American complaints about voter suppression and impediments to voters’ registration. “We need to be saying: ‘We respect, yes, the rule of law. But we also respect your constitutional right to vote,’” he said. “We just can’t sit back and rely on, ‘Oh, gee, you know, we freed the slaves.’”

Steele was even more incensed about Republican reaction to the Martin case. “What African-Americans heard was insensitive,” he said. “Republicans gave a very sterile or pro forma response. There was no sense of even expressing regret or remorse to Trayvon’s mother.”

Republicans tell us privately that pressure from conservative media only encourages their public voices to say things that offend black audiences.

( Also on POLITICO: Stockman invites Obama rodeo clown to Texas)

• Gays. Polls show the Republicans’ traditional view is rapidly becoming a minority view in politics, but the party has done nothing this year to make itself more appealing to persuadable gay voters.

“We come off like we’re angry and frustrated that more of our fellow Americans aren’t angry and frustrated,” said a senior Mitt Romney campaign official who asked not to be named.

Republicans did show progress in the form of restraint, with many leaders offering a muted reaction to a pair of Supreme Court rulings related to same-sex marriage. In the past, many would have taken to the airwaves to condemn what they see as the crumbling culture around them. A number of top Republicans are counseling a more libertarian approach, letting people live their lives and letting states, or better the church, set the rules for marriage at the local level.

( Also on POLITICO: Gay marriage issue entangles Gov. Tom Corbett)

• Swing voters. Republicans are in jeopardy of convincing voters they simply cannot govern. Their favorable ratings are terrible and getting worse. But there is broad concern it could go from worse to an unmitigated disaster this fall. Most urgently, according to a slew of key Republicans we interviewed, conservative GOP senators have got to give up their insistence that the party allow the government to shut down after Sept. 30 if they don’t get their way on defunding Obamacare.

The quixotic drive — led by Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — is part of Rubio’s effort to make up with the conservative base after he was stunned by the backlash over his deal-making on immigration. Pollsters say the funding fight makes Republicans look even more obstructionist and causes voters to worry about the effect a shutdown would have on their own finances.

Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research, who has been drilling down on this issue for the conservative public-opinion group Resurgent Republic, said: “Shutting down the government is the one way that Republicans can turn Obamacare from a political advantage to a political disadvantage in 2014.”