Lack of focus was a big problem for the GOP in this election cycle. It's tempting to say lack of "unity," but really if your party is focused on broadcasting a coherent message, unity isn't necessary. The Dems were not "unified" in 2018 but they were focused.
Plenty of blame to go around for the lack of messaging focus, from Trump to his fiercest GOP critics. It's a problem that predates Trump in any case. GOP does very well when it focuses on a message, but that doesn't happen as often as it should.
Lack of consensus on what the message should be is a big problem. Also, Republican politicians are easily frightened away from winning issues where a coherent message could be sent.
The GOP is also hindered by the fundamental distrust many of its voters feel for party leadership. The leadership earned that distrust with years of failure theater and broken promises. Insurgent campaigns from the Tea Party heyday through 2016 opened wounds that haven't healed.
That lack of focus is an especially acute problem when trying to reach independent voters. Laugh all you want about the NPCs and their Orange Man Bad messaging, but it IS a loud and focused signal pumped through high-voltage media transmission towers.
There wasn't anything remotely comparable to that coming from the GOP this time around. They didn't send a strong message about the good economy or establish a connection between those achievements and Congress.
The tools were there for Repubs to do MUCH better than they did, but the tools were not picked up. Some of the heartbreaking losses were candidates that swung between messages, trying out different costumes - moderate GOPe stalwart, Trump ally - while the Dem stayed on message.
And there's a persistent problem with GOP campaigns that reared its head once again: Republicans remain timid about moral and cultural messaging. They were scared away from "populism" and then beaten by Dems running populist campaigns.
It's not enough to present yourself as a better steward of the economy. You have to make a MORAL case for free-market capitalism and attack socialism as the moral horror it is.
You can't just say "look at how unemployment is down and Dems were wrong about tax cuts." You must speak with passion about the good things that flow from independent people working for prosperity in a market eager to buy their labor.
More jobs and higher pay are the beginning of a mighty social evolution toward independence, not the end of the process. Dems talk with focus and energy about how they want to mold society with their ideology. The GOP scarcely gets a word in edgewise in that discussion.
And that's where the focus necessary to hold independent voters in the GOP coalition fizzled out. Repubs were intimidated out of sending a moral message of any kind by the Trump factor. Did the constituencies they lost hear any such message from Republicans at all?
Put it this way: you win independents and leaners by going big. Democrats went big in the races they won, with the inherent advantage of biased media helping them. GOP had a mostly small message of, "We're doing a pretty good job here, so please don't fire us."
The big GOP issues were a muddled mess. They were saved from a worse drubbing by the Democrats' Kavanaugh debacle, the strength of the economy, and immigration concerns - and the latter is an issue the GOP can hardly be said to have a coherent message on.
Blame Trump, blame NeverTrump, blame the wobbly Republicans who threw away the winning issue of health care, blame the open-borders crowd for refusing to win on immigration. Blame everyone, but understand this MUST be addressed quickly. Focus must be restored by 2020.
Don't fool youself into thinking the Dems can't win with absurd joke candidates, because they just did. Don't fool yourself into thinking voters won't throw away a hot economy by voting for socialists, because the Dems who ruined health care are currently WINNING on that issue.
And don't believe passionate support can win without a focused message. Energy with focus makes an army that wins battles. Energy without focus leads to aimless panicked thrashing that cannot defeat a focused adversary. You want to go on offense? Make a plan and execute it. /end
