I have now officially entered the stage of parenting where I will be seeing lots and lots of kids movies. This isn't really a complaint - after all I am a lover of films in all forms and I have no problem encouraging that in Anabelle and (eventually) Charlotte. However, there are times where it is a lot more fun than others. The Muppets, Finding Nemo, and Winnie the Pooh? Fun. Hotel Transylvania? Not so much.
While I was sitting in the theater Sunday counting down the minutes until Hotel Transylvania ended (like an inmate awaiting parole) I started thinking about an interview I heard last year. Kevin Pollack was interviewing Billy West on his podcast. If you don't recognize the name, Billy West is a voice actor best known for doing the voices of Ren and Stimpy as well as Fry in Futurama. During the interview, Billy was lamenting how his profession is being eliminated. Modern-day animated features just don't employ true professional voice actors for anything more than bit parts anymore - choosing instead to give all the main roles to established screen actors.
From a pure business standpoint, I understand why this is the case. As animated films have become increasingly sophisticated and expensive, studios want "star power" to help ensure that they have big names to put on the posters and commercials, and faces to do the talk circuits and promote it. But something is lost artistically. In its simplest terms, I think that the skill of a screen actor is the way in which they inhabit a character while the skill of a voice actor lies in the creation of a character. In other words, when an actor appears onscreen, there are a whole range of things he can do to communicate to the audience in ways both subtle and not subtle. In addition to the voice, he can use gestures, facial expressions (in both speaking and reacting), and blocking. In animation, all you have is the voice because the rest is out of your control. So everything needs to be laser-focused and channeled into that. That's just not something a screen or stage actor excels at.
Need an example? Just try imagining an exchange between Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny with different voices. It's almost impossible. Now as a counterpoint, try imagining Woody and Buzz from Toy Story with someone other than Tom Hanks and Tim Allen doing the voices. I don't know about you, but I find that a lot easier to do.
So that led me to thinking about when this shift occurred. And if you have made the connection to the title, you have the answer I came up with - Aladdin in 1992. I remember seeing Aladdin in theatres (random fun fact: it was the first movie Christy and I saw together), which was a big deal because at age 13 most teens are trying to prove how much they've outgrown "kiddy" stuff. But the big talk was of how awesome Robin Williams' portrayal of the Genie was. There was even talk that he'd garner an Oscar nomination for it (he didn't, but did snag a "Special Award" at the Golden Globes). It was (and still is) a fantastic performance and he deserved all of the praise he received. But I think it had some unfortunate consequences.
I think the period of 1989 to 1994 was a seminal period in the history of animation. Starting with The Little Mermaid, then through Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and culminating with The Lion King - this is when studios started thinking about animated movies in terms of blockbusters that might even have award potential instead of just cheap movies that could be counted on to turn a small but dependable profit in the kid market. Looking at the casts of these films reveals this shift pretty clearly. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast have barely any recognizable names - the "big" star in Little Mermaid is Buddy Hackett and in Beauty and the Beast it's Angela Lansbury. Then Aladdin comes along with the first true blockbuster star in Robin Williams - although Gilbert Gottfried also has what is probably his most memorable role as Jafar's parrot. Then by Lion King it's pretty much all stars for the big parts - Jonathan Taylor Thomas (who is nobody now but was big due to Home Improvement at the time), Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, and Nathan Lane. From that point on, nearly every animated film from a major studio has utilized established screen actors for almost all the major roles. Heck, even Wall-E (which is 75% of the way to being a silent film) felt the need to use Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Sigourney Weaver, and John Ratzenberger (although technically Fred Willard is actually screen acting since you see him via live action shots).
Now, I'm certainly not saying that animated films as a whole are worse now than they were prior to 1992. There's a reason why 75% of the animated films I own are Pixar. It's just unfortunate that just as this particular genre of film started to really take off and achieve huge financial success, the individuals that worked so hard their whole lives to contribute towards that success - actors that most people have never heard of precisely because they were so adept at concealing their identities behind the characters they created - have largely been left out in the cold. I hope that down the road studios will realize that the reason animated films have gotten so much better was due to the focus on better writing, augmented by the technological advances, and that they have been succeeding in spite of employing screen actors, not because of them.
In the meantime, at least we still have The Simpsons.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Some More Random Thoughts
You know that horror movie cliche where just when you think the killer is dead and buried there is a shot of the undead hand reaching up through the earth in front of the tombstone? This is the political equivalent of that. It appears that it took exactly 11 days after the 2012 presidential election for the first steps towards 2016 to be taken. I know that it has always been said that politicians are perpetually campaigning, but didn't it seem like they used to do it more subtly than this?
In other news, panic is gripping our obese nation as Hostess announced it is going out of business. But fear not my fellow plump friends, it is very very unlikely that you have seen your last Twinkie. People seem to think that in a bankruptcy everything just sort of dissolves into the ether of the universe, but that is not the case. In truth, every asset of the company is still owned by someone - usually in these cases it's a creditor but after that it's the shareholders (everyone with an interest is collectively called the stakeholders). In a bankruptcy case, a trustee is placed in charge of liquidating the assets in order to pay back the stakeholders as much as possible. So really, anything of value is going to be sold. And judging by the rabid response of individuals rushing out to horde or scalp boxes of Twinkies, it appears that they still do retain some value.
In all likelihood, the recipes and naming rights to all of the Hostess products will be sold off to the highest bidder, so unless some uber-millionaire with an Eric Cartman complex buys them all for the sole purpose of having them personally made for him and no one else, you will likely continue to have all your favorites available to serve your 3 A.M. overeating needs. The only difference is now the next time you have one you will bite into it, shake your head slowly, and say to whatever unfortunate soul happens to be within earshot of you, "they're just not the same anymore." When in fact they will be exactly the same but what has changed is how you built them up in your mind when you thought you'd never have one again.
By the way, here is my rough guess as to the recipe for a Twinkie:
2 parts unnaturally spongy and obscenely yellow cake
1 part room-temperature dairy-like substance
3 cups sugar
A dash of loneliness
For the record, I love Twinkies. But to paraphrase Jim Gaffigan, I've never finished a Twinkie and said to myself "I'm glad I ate that. I feel good about myself."
In other news, panic is gripping our obese nation as Hostess announced it is going out of business. But fear not my fellow plump friends, it is very very unlikely that you have seen your last Twinkie. People seem to think that in a bankruptcy everything just sort of dissolves into the ether of the universe, but that is not the case. In truth, every asset of the company is still owned by someone - usually in these cases it's a creditor but after that it's the shareholders (everyone with an interest is collectively called the stakeholders). In a bankruptcy case, a trustee is placed in charge of liquidating the assets in order to pay back the stakeholders as much as possible. So really, anything of value is going to be sold. And judging by the rabid response of individuals rushing out to horde or scalp boxes of Twinkies, it appears that they still do retain some value.
In all likelihood, the recipes and naming rights to all of the Hostess products will be sold off to the highest bidder, so unless some uber-millionaire with an Eric Cartman complex buys them all for the sole purpose of having them personally made for him and no one else, you will likely continue to have all your favorites available to serve your 3 A.M. overeating needs. The only difference is now the next time you have one you will bite into it, shake your head slowly, and say to whatever unfortunate soul happens to be within earshot of you, "they're just not the same anymore." When in fact they will be exactly the same but what has changed is how you built them up in your mind when you thought you'd never have one again.
By the way, here is my rough guess as to the recipe for a Twinkie:
2 parts unnaturally spongy and obscenely yellow cake
1 part room-temperature dairy-like substance
3 cups sugar
A dash of loneliness
For the record, I love Twinkies. But to paraphrase Jim Gaffigan, I've never finished a Twinkie and said to myself "I'm glad I ate that. I feel good about myself."
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Busting a Couple Political Myths
I promise I am not going to turn this into a full-time political blog, but I find that lately it seems to be the only thoughts I have that I feel are worth writing about. There are two "myths" I want to talk about, although "political spin" is probably a more apt term for these.
Myth #1: Republicans are the America First party, and Democrats are the Blame America First party.
This is a quick one. It's definitely true that Democrats and liberals (not necessarily the same thing) show up in force to protest a whole lot of things; from wars to Wall Street abuses to animal cruelty to union strikes. But the right is certainly no stranger to protesting the "injustices" of America, whether it's holding tea party or NRA rallies or putting up giant, horrific anti-abortion posters in the Loop. And as much as the left likes to bitch and moan about things, you know what they don't do? File petitions to secede from the U.S. How one party attempts to be the "Party of Patriotism" and the "Party of Secession" at the same time is a level of bi-polarism that is so stunning to me that I'm almost impressed. Rest assured that the next Republican who tries to slap the "un-american" tag on a liberal idea is going to get this thrown directly in their face.
Myth #2: Republicans were ready and willing to work with President Obama in his first term, but he failed to bring them to the table.
It doesn't surprise me in the least to hear Republicans saying this one, especially around election time, but I was surprised to hear it said by many Democrats and pundits as well. These people all have very short memories. Let's just review a couple choice examples of the "goodwill" Obama faced in the first couple months:
From an e-mail from RNC chairman Mike Duncan on Wednesday, November 12th 2008 (note this is 2 months before Obama is even sworn in):
"There are three seats in the House and two in the Senate that still hang in the balance. Winning these races and strengthening our Republican numbers in both chambers of Congress is critical to blocking Barack Obama’s left-wing agenda . . .The Obama-Biden Democrats and their liberal special interest allies are trying to steal these election victories from Republicans. . .Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are hoping to add more seats to the Democrats’ Senate and House majorities so they can steamroll our opposition to their extreme, ultraliberal schemes. . . Every Republican vote we can add now will help our Party stop the Obama Democrats’ leftist policies in the U.S. Congress. "
On January 19th, 2009 Rush Limbaugh summed up his hope for the Obama presidency in 4 words: "I hope he fails."
In February of 2009, the first of many national tea party protests were held.
On May 10th, 2009 (i.e. 110 days after Obama took office) Dick Cheney goes on Meet the Press to tell the country that the U.S. is less safe under Obama.
A veritable love-fest yes? These are the examples I was able to dig up in less than 5 minutes, although I have every confidence I could come up with about a dozen more in short order. The fact is that the first example of bi-partisanship Obama was offered by Republicans was in John McCain's concession speech on election night 2008, and the next was in Mitt Romney's concession speeh in 2012.
Myth #3: A tax increase directly leads to higher unemployment.
This is the one I really wanted to talk about. It really surprises me that this is not common knowledge but either people are not well-versed in how our taxes are calculated or (more likely) they have opted to remain willfully ignorant.
The key to understanding this is in understanding what is taxed: profits. Again, that sounds extremely simple (and it is) but this is where people fail to connect the dots. Profit, in its simplest form, is revenue minus expenses. All employee wages, including those of the CEO and board members, are fully deductible as expenses. The only thing which is affected is retained earnings (i.e. where dividends and additional bonuses are paid from).
Let's work through a quick, simple example: suppose you have a business making $100 million annually. They also have a total of $80 million in expenses (of which employee wages and associated payroll tax comprise $40 million). That leaves the company with a total profit of $20 million, which is subject to tax. So, at a 15% tax rate that would be $3 million, which would leave $17 million going into retained earnings (or distributed via dividends) after taxes.
So now let's say the tax rate increases to 20%. Given the same facts as above, the business is now left with 80% of their $20 million profit, or $16 million. So the difference in these two scenarios is an additional cost of $1 million to the business.
How do they make up for the $1 million hit? The first question is, why do they need to? The increase in taxation had absolutely no effect on whether or not the company was profitable. The only effect was the amount available to go into retained earnings or to be paid in dividends.
But let's say that, for whatever reason, they need after-tax income to be at least $17 million. That means you have to cut wages, right? Hardly. Presumably, the individuals you employ actually, you know, do something right? If you cut your sales force by $1 million, how much will your revenue drop by? If it drops by more than $1 million, than you have just cost yourself even more money by cutting wages. More importantly, if it drops by less than $1 million, that means they are currently costing you more money than they are bringing in and you should lay them off anyway, regardless of the tax structure.
Let's say that instead of cutting your sales force, you want to save the money by cutting from support staff like HR or IT. Again, the same principle applies. You will still need those functions, so if you can meet your company's needs either by utilizing less staff or by outsourcing the function, then you should do so regardless of the tax structure.
Please also keep in mind that everything I'm talking about above applies to an increase to the corporate tax rate. I thought it went without saying that an increase to personal tax rates would have no impact on employment decisions, but that is the connection a lot of these CEOs tried to make during this election cycle.
So am I trying to suggest that an increase to the corporate tax rate has no negative effects? Definitely not. As I mentioned, the impact is to retained earnings and that is what is used to pay out dividends. That means that if, in the aggregate, retained earnings decrease there will be less overall dividends paid out and that will lower the rate of return on investments. That means a direct hit to the bottom lines of investment banks as well as to 401(k)s. Retained earnings is also what a corporation uses to make large purchases (like another company) or to expand their business. Thus you can certainly make the argument that an increase to corporate taxes negatively affects business investment and lower GDP growth, which in turn will lower the rate at which new jobs are created. But saying "less new jobs will be created" is a far cry from "existing jobs will be eliminated." And as with most things, it appears that politically we'd rather throw around sound bites and argue about false problems than have a real dialogue about the true consequences of our decisions.
Myth #1: Republicans are the America First party, and Democrats are the Blame America First party.
This is a quick one. It's definitely true that Democrats and liberals (not necessarily the same thing) show up in force to protest a whole lot of things; from wars to Wall Street abuses to animal cruelty to union strikes. But the right is certainly no stranger to protesting the "injustices" of America, whether it's holding tea party or NRA rallies or putting up giant, horrific anti-abortion posters in the Loop. And as much as the left likes to bitch and moan about things, you know what they don't do? File petitions to secede from the U.S. How one party attempts to be the "Party of Patriotism" and the "Party of Secession" at the same time is a level of bi-polarism that is so stunning to me that I'm almost impressed. Rest assured that the next Republican who tries to slap the "un-american" tag on a liberal idea is going to get this thrown directly in their face.
Myth #2: Republicans were ready and willing to work with President Obama in his first term, but he failed to bring them to the table.
It doesn't surprise me in the least to hear Republicans saying this one, especially around election time, but I was surprised to hear it said by many Democrats and pundits as well. These people all have very short memories. Let's just review a couple choice examples of the "goodwill" Obama faced in the first couple months:
From an e-mail from RNC chairman Mike Duncan on Wednesday, November 12th 2008 (note this is 2 months before Obama is even sworn in):
"There are three seats in the House and two in the Senate that still hang in the balance. Winning these races and strengthening our Republican numbers in both chambers of Congress is critical to blocking Barack Obama’s left-wing agenda . . .The Obama-Biden Democrats and their liberal special interest allies are trying to steal these election victories from Republicans. . .Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are hoping to add more seats to the Democrats’ Senate and House majorities so they can steamroll our opposition to their extreme, ultraliberal schemes. . . Every Republican vote we can add now will help our Party stop the Obama Democrats’ leftist policies in the U.S. Congress. "
On January 19th, 2009 Rush Limbaugh summed up his hope for the Obama presidency in 4 words: "I hope he fails."
In February of 2009, the first of many national tea party protests were held.
On May 10th, 2009 (i.e. 110 days after Obama took office) Dick Cheney goes on Meet the Press to tell the country that the U.S. is less safe under Obama.
A veritable love-fest yes? These are the examples I was able to dig up in less than 5 minutes, although I have every confidence I could come up with about a dozen more in short order. The fact is that the first example of bi-partisanship Obama was offered by Republicans was in John McCain's concession speech on election night 2008, and the next was in Mitt Romney's concession speeh in 2012.
Myth #3: A tax increase directly leads to higher unemployment.
This is the one I really wanted to talk about. It really surprises me that this is not common knowledge but either people are not well-versed in how our taxes are calculated or (more likely) they have opted to remain willfully ignorant.
The key to understanding this is in understanding what is taxed: profits. Again, that sounds extremely simple (and it is) but this is where people fail to connect the dots. Profit, in its simplest form, is revenue minus expenses. All employee wages, including those of the CEO and board members, are fully deductible as expenses. The only thing which is affected is retained earnings (i.e. where dividends and additional bonuses are paid from).
Let's work through a quick, simple example: suppose you have a business making $100 million annually. They also have a total of $80 million in expenses (of which employee wages and associated payroll tax comprise $40 million). That leaves the company with a total profit of $20 million, which is subject to tax. So, at a 15% tax rate that would be $3 million, which would leave $17 million going into retained earnings (or distributed via dividends) after taxes.
So now let's say the tax rate increases to 20%. Given the same facts as above, the business is now left with 80% of their $20 million profit, or $16 million. So the difference in these two scenarios is an additional cost of $1 million to the business.
How do they make up for the $1 million hit? The first question is, why do they need to? The increase in taxation had absolutely no effect on whether or not the company was profitable. The only effect was the amount available to go into retained earnings or to be paid in dividends.
But let's say that, for whatever reason, they need after-tax income to be at least $17 million. That means you have to cut wages, right? Hardly. Presumably, the individuals you employ actually, you know, do something right? If you cut your sales force by $1 million, how much will your revenue drop by? If it drops by more than $1 million, than you have just cost yourself even more money by cutting wages. More importantly, if it drops by less than $1 million, that means they are currently costing you more money than they are bringing in and you should lay them off anyway, regardless of the tax structure.
Let's say that instead of cutting your sales force, you want to save the money by cutting from support staff like HR or IT. Again, the same principle applies. You will still need those functions, so if you can meet your company's needs either by utilizing less staff or by outsourcing the function, then you should do so regardless of the tax structure.
Please also keep in mind that everything I'm talking about above applies to an increase to the corporate tax rate. I thought it went without saying that an increase to personal tax rates would have no impact on employment decisions, but that is the connection a lot of these CEOs tried to make during this election cycle.
So am I trying to suggest that an increase to the corporate tax rate has no negative effects? Definitely not. As I mentioned, the impact is to retained earnings and that is what is used to pay out dividends. That means that if, in the aggregate, retained earnings decrease there will be less overall dividends paid out and that will lower the rate of return on investments. That means a direct hit to the bottom lines of investment banks as well as to 401(k)s. Retained earnings is also what a corporation uses to make large purchases (like another company) or to expand their business. Thus you can certainly make the argument that an increase to corporate taxes negatively affects business investment and lower GDP growth, which in turn will lower the rate at which new jobs are created. But saying "less new jobs will be created" is a far cry from "existing jobs will be eliminated." And as with most things, it appears that politically we'd rather throw around sound bites and argue about false problems than have a real dialogue about the true consequences of our decisions.
Friday, November 09, 2012
What Now For the GOP?
A couple weeks ago I listed out the 5 big reasons that I chose to support Obama. With the election now in the rear-view mirror I want to expound on the last point I made, which was that I hoped an Obama reelection would send a message to the GOP that they needed to return to the center if they ever hope to move back into the White House again.
Specifically, they need to jettison most, if not all, of their platform on social issues. While I could talk at length about a dozen or so, I really want to concentrate on 2 - gay marriage and illegal immigration. While I don't necessarily think that these are the two biggest issues in the country at the moment (though they both are very important) I'll put it bluntly: the GOP will never have success on a national level (i.e. presidential elections) until they jettison their opposition to gay marriage and soften their hardline stance on illegal immigration.
For both of these I am not arguing these on the basis that they are the right thing to do, although I think anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I do feel that way. I am simply presenting this in the context that these two positions are impacting the Republican party in a significantly negative way, and I just don't see any path forward for them other than to reverse themselves.
For gay marriage, the reasoning is pretty simple. 8 years ago, opposition made complete populist sense. At that time, nearly 2/3rds of the country was against it. That is not the case anymore. Support for gay marriage has grown considerably over that time, particularly in the last 2 years, and now stands at approximately 54% in favor vs 42% opposed. A party should not be purely a reflection of the majority opinion, but continuing to hold this position would not only defy political logic it would also fly in the face of pretty much everything the GOP purports to stand for. The rallying cry of the Republicans, and the Tea Party in particular, since 2009 has been a rejection of government overreach. So to take a purely social issue (I don't think anyone rejects gay marriage on economic grounds) where the majority of the country is on the opposite side from you and say that while you disagree with government interference in general you still think this is one case where the government absolutely needs to be involved just presents a huge credibility problem. Rather, changing positions on this issue actually presents a golden opportunity for the GOP. Much as a free speech advocate will defend Nazi hate speech, the Republicans have a chance to conclusively demonstrate that they really do believe in limited government - even if the result of that is allowing something which they think is morally wrong. In that way, this is actually not a compromise for them at all; it's just a return to the values they have claimed to hold all along.
The 2nd issue is a bit trickier and would definitely be a reversal for the GOP. And really, this is about demography. This election, black voters made up 13% of the electorate. Latinos made up 10% (up from 8% in 2008) and they are the fastest growing segment of the country. That's nearly one full quarter of the electorate that currently votes overwhelmingly Democratic. That leaves the GOP with the daunting task of needing to capture about 60% of the remaining vote to have a majority.
Now, I don't have a silver bullet when it comes to telling the GOP how to win over black voters, and I don't think anyone else does either. But there most certainly is one when it comes to Latinos and it's immigration reform. What does the GOP need to do? Well, for starters they need to tone down the rhetoric, stop blaming illegals for all the country's problems, stop crusading against every public service that gets provided for an illegal, and generally expand their list of solutions from the current roster that is pretty much limited to self-deportation and building bigger walls. Those are good starts. Then whatever they end up presenting better have the words "path to citizenship" in there somewhere. How do you sell that to your base? It won't be easy, but I think you start by reminding people that we are a nation of immigrants and that the reason we have this "problem" is because opportunities in this country are better than just about anywhere else. You tell them that by providing a path to legality you will clamp down on seedy businesses who are thriving on what is essentially black market labor and you will increase tax revenue when their earnings are now reported on W-2s instead of getting paid under the table.
As a side note, I wrote most of this yesterday and today I saw this article where Sean Hannity (of all people) and John Boehner have basically come to the same conclusion.
This is all a very tricky situation for the GOP. If Tuesday demonstrated anything, it was the great chasm between local and national politics. Even though President Obama won a pretty decisive victory, the Democrats only managed to pick up 3 seats in the house and will be in the minority by a 233-193 margin over the next 2 years. To understand why, I think it's helpful to take a look at this map of the House election results. Look at states like California and Illinois. Even though Obama carried each of those states easily, there are significant chunks of red in each of them. More interestingly, look at states like Ohio and Florida where Obama pulled out narrow victories. Even though those states went blue for him, those states are overwhelmingly red when it comes to Congressional elections. But then look at the states that went for Romney, like Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana. Outside of New Orleans, St. Louis, and the Chicago metro area (respectively) there's barely a drop of blue to be found. This creates a very difficult problem for the GOP to solve, because while their path back to the Presidency lies in tacking to the center, they are going to have to do it by asking Representatives from very conservative districts to make compromises that will almost certainly prove to be very unpopular back home. And unpopular decisions back home will almost certainly lead to fiercer primaries that is likely to produce even more conservative candidates.
It's a dangerous tightrope that the GOP must walk. But walk it they must if they ever want to get back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave again without a visitor pass. If they don't, then it is likely that the present makeup of our government will be the status quo for the next decade - red House, blue Presidency, and the Senate in flux (but a very slow flux since only one third of seats are up every 2 years). That will not foster compromise and will not lead to effective governance. And the country will suffer for it.
Specifically, they need to jettison most, if not all, of their platform on social issues. While I could talk at length about a dozen or so, I really want to concentrate on 2 - gay marriage and illegal immigration. While I don't necessarily think that these are the two biggest issues in the country at the moment (though they both are very important) I'll put it bluntly: the GOP will never have success on a national level (i.e. presidential elections) until they jettison their opposition to gay marriage and soften their hardline stance on illegal immigration.
For both of these I am not arguing these on the basis that they are the right thing to do, although I think anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I do feel that way. I am simply presenting this in the context that these two positions are impacting the Republican party in a significantly negative way, and I just don't see any path forward for them other than to reverse themselves.
For gay marriage, the reasoning is pretty simple. 8 years ago, opposition made complete populist sense. At that time, nearly 2/3rds of the country was against it. That is not the case anymore. Support for gay marriage has grown considerably over that time, particularly in the last 2 years, and now stands at approximately 54% in favor vs 42% opposed. A party should not be purely a reflection of the majority opinion, but continuing to hold this position would not only defy political logic it would also fly in the face of pretty much everything the GOP purports to stand for. The rallying cry of the Republicans, and the Tea Party in particular, since 2009 has been a rejection of government overreach. So to take a purely social issue (I don't think anyone rejects gay marriage on economic grounds) where the majority of the country is on the opposite side from you and say that while you disagree with government interference in general you still think this is one case where the government absolutely needs to be involved just presents a huge credibility problem. Rather, changing positions on this issue actually presents a golden opportunity for the GOP. Much as a free speech advocate will defend Nazi hate speech, the Republicans have a chance to conclusively demonstrate that they really do believe in limited government - even if the result of that is allowing something which they think is morally wrong. In that way, this is actually not a compromise for them at all; it's just a return to the values they have claimed to hold all along.
The 2nd issue is a bit trickier and would definitely be a reversal for the GOP. And really, this is about demography. This election, black voters made up 13% of the electorate. Latinos made up 10% (up from 8% in 2008) and they are the fastest growing segment of the country. That's nearly one full quarter of the electorate that currently votes overwhelmingly Democratic. That leaves the GOP with the daunting task of needing to capture about 60% of the remaining vote to have a majority.
Now, I don't have a silver bullet when it comes to telling the GOP how to win over black voters, and I don't think anyone else does either. But there most certainly is one when it comes to Latinos and it's immigration reform. What does the GOP need to do? Well, for starters they need to tone down the rhetoric, stop blaming illegals for all the country's problems, stop crusading against every public service that gets provided for an illegal, and generally expand their list of solutions from the current roster that is pretty much limited to self-deportation and building bigger walls. Those are good starts. Then whatever they end up presenting better have the words "path to citizenship" in there somewhere. How do you sell that to your base? It won't be easy, but I think you start by reminding people that we are a nation of immigrants and that the reason we have this "problem" is because opportunities in this country are better than just about anywhere else. You tell them that by providing a path to legality you will clamp down on seedy businesses who are thriving on what is essentially black market labor and you will increase tax revenue when their earnings are now reported on W-2s instead of getting paid under the table.
As a side note, I wrote most of this yesterday and today I saw this article where Sean Hannity (of all people) and John Boehner have basically come to the same conclusion.
This is all a very tricky situation for the GOP. If Tuesday demonstrated anything, it was the great chasm between local and national politics. Even though President Obama won a pretty decisive victory, the Democrats only managed to pick up 3 seats in the house and will be in the minority by a 233-193 margin over the next 2 years. To understand why, I think it's helpful to take a look at this map of the House election results. Look at states like California and Illinois. Even though Obama carried each of those states easily, there are significant chunks of red in each of them. More interestingly, look at states like Ohio and Florida where Obama pulled out narrow victories. Even though those states went blue for him, those states are overwhelmingly red when it comes to Congressional elections. But then look at the states that went for Romney, like Louisiana, Missouri, and Indiana. Outside of New Orleans, St. Louis, and the Chicago metro area (respectively) there's barely a drop of blue to be found. This creates a very difficult problem for the GOP to solve, because while their path back to the Presidency lies in tacking to the center, they are going to have to do it by asking Representatives from very conservative districts to make compromises that will almost certainly prove to be very unpopular back home. And unpopular decisions back home will almost certainly lead to fiercer primaries that is likely to produce even more conservative candidates.
It's a dangerous tightrope that the GOP must walk. But walk it they must if they ever want to get back into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave again without a visitor pass. If they don't, then it is likely that the present makeup of our government will be the status quo for the next decade - red House, blue Presidency, and the Senate in flux (but a very slow flux since only one third of seats are up every 2 years). That will not foster compromise and will not lead to effective governance. And the country will suffer for it.
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