Why The Republican Party Died

Flickr/Rodney Buike

The Republican National Committee Monday unveiled the results of its Growth and Opportunity Project, the so-called "autopsy" (their term) from its 2012 election collapse.

The results of the report are pretty stunning. The committee assigned to figure out why the GOP got blown out of the water in 2012 found that the party failed on every level, from messaging and campaign mechanics to fundraising, campaign finance, and even the primary process itself.

Here are some of the key reasons why the GOP lost, according to the report:

1. Public perception: "The perception, revealed in polling, that the GOP does not care about people is doing great harm to the Party and its candidates on the federal level, especially in presidential years. It is a major deficiency that must be addressed." The report notes that public perception is at record lows, and that young voters and minorities are increasingly "rolling their eyes" at Republicans.

2. The Reagan fetish: "At our core, Republicans have comfortably remained the Party of Reagan without figuring out what comes next. Ronald Reagan is a Republican hero and role model who was first elected 33 years ago — meaning no one under the age of 51 today was old enough to vote for Reagan when he first ran for President. Our Party knows how to appeal to older voters, but we have lost our way with younger ones. We sound increasingly out of touch."

3. Demographics: Unsurprisingly, the GOP recognizes that it has to solve its problem with minority, women, and young voters if it ever wants to win another presidential election.

4. Digital Campaigning: As we reported last week, the RNC recognizes that it has been blowing it when it comes to campaign technology and data mining, and has proposed a complete overhaul of the party's digital campaign strategy going into 2016.

5. The Primaries: The RNC recognizes that the party totally lost control of the primary process in the 2012 election, and proposes halving the number of primary debates and moving the primary calendar up in 2016 to give the eventual primary nominee more time in the general election.

Read the whole report below:

Growth Opportunity Project