REPUBLICANS RESIGNED TO BEING MINORITY PARTY?

The core of the Republican Party are the wealthy and business people.  These people are not numerous enough to win elections so the core undertook a Southern Strategy to incorporate a large conservative group that had been the Solid South of the Democratic Party.  This move changed both the Republican and Democratic Parties in many ways, but the Democratic Party became more socially liberal and the Republican Party became more socially conservative.  For example, it was Republicans that put the Civil Rights Act of 1964 over the top (Republicans voted 27 for and 6 against in the Senate; 136 to 35 for the House).*  Even in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Republicans voted overwhelmingly for the bill (30 to 1 in the Senate and 111 to 20 in the House for the conference Report).**  This change also brought the religious right or so-called Evangelicals into the Republican Party, a group that had a lot of religious fervor.  The Republican Party also attracted many white working class people who viewed initiatives for Blacks, women, and other minorities as being unfair.  This coalition is big but seemingly not large enough to win national elections.

Perhaps the last straw was President Obama not only winning the electoral vote for his second term but the numerical vote as well.  Republicans were primed to fight the election because they were sure that Mitt Romney would win the numerical vote which would seem to be a move to the popular vote rather than electoral votes.  Thus the Republican Party seems to be resigned to being the minority party  and have abandoned a move to the popular vote endeavor.  So what can they do to win major elections?  They already had mastered the art of Gerrymandering congressional (redrawing congressional districts to favor one party) districts to win a sizable majority in the national House of Representatives even though the Democrats received more popular votes.  The Gerrymandering story with the state Senate and Houses have had even more success, if anything.  There was an original move to Gerrymander presidential electoral votes by district rather than state-wide voting, but this attempt has so far been abandoned, for now, by all except Pennsylvania (as of the date of this writing).

Perhaps Republicans can take some solace in that even though there are more Blue States than Red States (20 to 12 in 2012),*** there are 30 Republican governors and only 22 Democratic governors.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 (The vote among the South Representatives was 7 for and 97 against in the original House version.  The South here is the 11 states in the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.)
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act
888 http://www.gallup.com/poll/160175/blue-states-outnumber-red-states.aspx