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Pat Buchanan: Is GOP Still a National Party?
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Is GOP Still a National Party?
Pat Buchanan
As President Barack Obama delivers his inaugural address to a nation filled with anticipation and hope, the vital signs of the loyal opposition appear worse than worrisome.
The new majority of 49 states and 60 percent of the nation Nixon cobbled together in 1972, that became the Reagan coalition of 49 states and 60 percent of the nation in 1984, is a faded memory. Demographically, philosophically and culturally, the party base has been shrinking since Bush I won his 40-state triumph over Michael Dukakis. Indeed, the Republican base is rapidly becoming a redoubt, a Fort Apache in Indian country.
In the National Journal, Ron Brownstein renders a grim prognosis of the party's chances of recapturing the White House. Consider:
In the five successive presidential elections, beginning with Clinton's victory in 1992 and ending with Obama's in 2008, 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 248 electoral votes among them, voted for the Democratic ticket all five times. John McCain did not come within 10 points of Obama in any of the 18, and he lost D.C. 92-8.
The 18 cover all of New England, save New Hampshire; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland; four of the major states in the Midwest — Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota; and the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii.
Three other states — Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico — have gone Democratic in four of the past five presidential contests. And Virginia and Colorado have ceased to be reliably red.
Not only are the 18 hostile terrain for any GOP presidential ticket, Republicans hold only three of their 36 Senate seats and fewer than 1 in 3 of their House seats. "Democrats also control two-thirds of these 18 governorships, every state House chamber, and all but two of the state Senates," writes Brownstein.
In many of the 18, the GOP has ceased to be competitive. In the New England states, for example, there is not a single Republican congressman. In New York, there are only three.
"State by state, election by election," says Brownstein, "Democrats since 1992 have constructed the party's largest and most durable Electoral College base in more than half a century. Call it the blue wall."
While that Democratic base is not yet as decisive as the Nixon-Reagan base in the South, and the Plains and Mountain States, it is becoming so solidified it may block any Republican from regaining the White House, in the absence of a catastrophically failed Democratic president.
What does the Republican base look like?
In the same five presidential contests, from 1992 to 2008, Republicans won 13 states all five times.
But the red 13 have but 93 electoral votes, fewer than a third of the number in "the blue wall."
What has been happening to the GOP? Three fatal contractions.
Demographically, the GOP is a party of white Americans, who in 1972 were perhaps 90 percent of the national vote. Nixon and Reagan rolled up almost two-thirds of that vote in 1972 and 1984. But because of abortion and aging, the white vote is shrinking as a share of the national vote and the population.
The minorities that are growing most rapidly, Hispanics and Asians, cast 60 to 70 percent of their presidential votes for the Democratic Party. Black Americans vote 9-1 for national Democrats. In 2008, they went 30-1.
Put succinctly, the red pool of voters is aging, shrinking and dying, while the blue pool, fed by high immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants, is steadily expanding.
Philosophically, too, the country is turning away from the GOP creed of small government and low taxes. Why?
Nearly 90 percent of immigrants, legal and illegal, are Third World poor or working-class and believe in and rely on government for help with health and housing, education and welfare. Second, tax cuts have dropped nearly 40 percent of wage earners from the tax rolls.
If one pays no federal income tax but reaps a cornucopia of benefits, it makes no sense to vote for the party of less government.
The GOP is overrepresented among the taxpaying class, while the Democratic Party is overrepresented among tax consumers. And the latter are growing at a faster rate than the former.
Lastly, Democrats are capturing a rising share of the young and college-educated, who are emerging from schools and colleges where the values of the counterculture on issues from abortion to same-sex marriage to affirmative action have become the new orthodoxy.
The Republican "lock" on the presidency, crafted by Nixon, and patented by Reagan, has been picked. The only lingering question is whether an era of inexorable Republican decline has set in.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Originally Published on Tuesday January 20, 2009
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat...onal-party.html
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This day just keeps getting better. |
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| Alex |
I think they need to change the platform, that's for sure.
They need to stop relying on historical tendencies and nostalgia from the good old days and kick some of the yahoos the hell out.
There is nothing wrong with being more conservative in some regards of government, but to be the "regressive" party in a lot of cases really isn't helping them at all. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | RNC chair race is all about race
By: Alexander Burns
January 22, 2009 11:04 AM EST
As the campaign for Republican National Committee chair enters its final stretch, the contest is pivoting on a potentially explosive issue: race.
Whether it’s due to the unusual composition of the candidate field, the attacks they are leveling on each other or the widespread recognition within the RNC that the party must do a better job of competing for minority votes, the overwhelmingly white RNC is wrestling with unaccustomed questions about diversity and racial symbolism.
And with race permeating the electoral landscape, all six contenders are competing to present themselves as the most minority-friendly candidate, the one most able to open up the party to new voting groups.
“I have heard all the candidates talk about it,” said Illinois Committeeman Pat Brady. “That’s where we got killed in the presidential.”
Though Republicans captured just 4 percent of the African-American vote in the last presidential race, two black candidates are vying to lead the GOP: former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.
Steele and Blackwell have not framed their bids in racial terms, and members of the committee say they won’t cast their votes based on a candidate’s race. But to some GOP leaders, the moment looks ripe for a black chairman — especially given the challenges of countering Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president.
“If the nation can celebrate the first African-American president, I would think the Republican Party would celebrate if we had the opportunity to celebrate an African-American national chairman,” said Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, who supports Steele.
Bruce Ash, the RNC committeeman from Arizona, said he hadn’t made up his mind in the contest and that race wouldn’t be a factor in his decision. But, he said, it could be useful to have a new kind of messenger for the GOP platform.
“When you hear, for example, Michael Steele appearing on Fox, this is a fellow who shows you can be an African-American and be a Republican and be conservative and be appealing, all in one package,” Ash said. “Ken Blackwell’s the same way.”
If Steele and Blackwell are benefiting, however subtly, from the party’s desire to expand its demographic base, other candidates have been persistently challenged by their connection to the GOP’s heavily white, Southern base — and its accompanying historical baggage.
The RNC contest was roiled nearly a month ago, after former Tennessee GOP Chairman Chip Saltsman mailed out a CD of partisan music that included a song titled “Barack the Magic Negro,” a controversial move that many Republicans say torpedoed his bid.
Now Dawson has found his Southern roots a nagging obstacle among Republicans concerned about the party’s narrowing demographic appeal.
Since the beginning of the race, Dawson’s campaign has been dogged by questions about his past membership in an all-white country club. The South Carolinian shot back at critics by pointing to his role in electing one of the RNC’s three black members, Glenn McCall, in his home state and in touting the endorsement of Ada Fisher, the African-American committeewoman from North Carolina.
McCall has consistently lauded Dawson’s outreach credentials, saying he had a “passion” for growing the party.
“I think Blackwell would do a great job at it. Even Steele,” McCall said. “I think Katon would be No. 1.”
Dawson’s counteroffensive has worked with many members of the committee.
“I judge people on what they’ve got in their hearts, and Katon’s not a racist guy,” said Nevada Committeeman Joe Brown, who is undecided in the race. “He has the issue of belonging to the country club, but he also has a lot of pluses in his column on race relations, as well.”
But Dawson hasn’t erased concerns about his Southern background. And more recently, his opponents have sought to damage his candidacy by circulating information about remarks he made at the University of South Carolina in 2003. In his comments at a seminar there, Dawson described his entry into politics as a reaction against 1960s-era school busing policies, telling students: “Government reached into my life and grabbed me and shook me at the age of 15.”
Dawson dismissed the latest wave of below-the-radar attacks as “slash-and-burn politics.”
“There are three African-Americans on the national committee, and two of them are supporting Katon,” he said. “To imply that Dawson is some segregationist, racist, Ku Klux Klan guy is what they’re trying to do, and it’s not right. It’s just not who we are.”
According to some Republicans, though, even misperceptions could be enough to damage the party’s national image.
“Immediately the party would be on the defensive with Katon, and not with somebody else,” said former McCain campaign strategist John Weaver. “Can you imagine in the first debate, or on Meet the Press or something, when they go head to head with the chairman of our party who has that background?”
And in a racially tinged contest, held amid the national celebration over Obama’s historic Inauguration, Republicans say the attacks could reinforce doubts some committee members already had about Dawson.
“Dawson’s been getting traction lately,” said a GOP consultant unaligned in the race. “Distractions matter, and these kinds of anonymous salvos from the past — fair or not — can really hurt momentum.”
Others in the contest, including incumbent RNC Chairman Mike Duncan and Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, are also running as candidates who can broaden the party’s appeal beyond its traditional constituencies.
Anuzis has played up his background as the child of first-generation Lithuanian immigrants, suggesting his heritage represents a kind of diversity that nonwhite voters could identify with.
He is the only candidate, other than Dawson, to be supported by one of the RNC’s African-American members, sporting the endorsement of Michigan Committeeman Keith Butler.
And Duncan raised the alarm about the GOP’s demographic challenges at a debate in Washington earlier this month.
“If we don’t do something about it, we are going to be the permanent minority in this country,” Duncan said, urging RNC members to take the news that Puerto Rico recently elected a Republican governor as evidence that the GOP could appeal to nonwhite voters.
For Duncan’s critics, though, the party’s persistent inability to connect with minority voters represents one more argument for change in leadership — or at least a dramatic reassessment of the party’s priorities.
“If we knew this was the direction the party needed to take, why were we going down a different road?” Greer asked. “We just didn’t have a vision up here before us in the last three weeks.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17776.html |
Grand Old White Men Part is not a formula for the future. |
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| winston |
| No, it's definitely not, but having solely one dominating party is not a healthy choice either. |
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| josh4 |
| quote: | Why Are There No Black Senators?
When the House of Representatives convenes tomorrow, it will contain 39 African-American members, not including non-voting delegates in places like the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. This number, representing about 9 percent of the Congress, falls somewhat short of the fraction of African-Americans in the population as a whole -- a truly representative House would have about 55 black members -- but perhaps not dramatically so. The situation at first glance would appear to be much better than it was prior to 1990, when there were generally only about 20 black members in the House at any given time.
The districts these 39 Congressmen serve, however, are not very representative at all. All 39 contain a higher percentage of African-Americans than the population as a whole, ranging from Keith Ellison's district in Minneapolis, which is just barely more black than the national average, to Jesse Jackson Jr.'s on the South Side of Chicago, which is 68 percent African-American. About 64 percent of the members -- 25 of 39 -- come from districts that contain an outright black majority. The districts are also much more Democratic than the country as a whole, with an average PVI of D +25; only Sanford Bishop's district in Georgia, which has a PVI of D+2, is anywhere close to the national average.
The chart below estimates the percentage chance that the Representative in a given Congressional District is black given the African-American population in that district, as based on a logistic regression. The chances of having a black Representative are virtually nil until the African-American share of the population hits 25 percent, at which time it begins to accelerate rapidly until the black population hits 60 percent, after which point having a black congressman is virtually certain.
The problem with this is that, while there are a decent number of Congressional Districts that have African-American populations of 25 percent or more, only six states do, and five of the six are culturally conservative areas in the Deep South. Suppose that we treat each state as though it were a Congressional District and evaluate its chances of having a black congressman based on two factors: its African-American population and its Partisan Voting Index.
State Black PVI Prob
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Maryland 28.9 D +9 15.2%
Mississippi 37.4 R +8 9.0%
Louisiana 31.6 R +6 5.6%
Georgia 29.8 R +6 4.3%
Delaware 20.7 D +7 4.3%
New York 15.5 D +15 3.9%
South Carolina 28.6 R +7 3.3%
Alabama 26.3 R +9 2.1%
Illinois 14.8 D +7 1.5%
North Carolina 21.4 R +5 1.5%
New Jersey 13.6 D +8 1.5%
Virginia 19.6 R +3 1.4%
Michigan 14.1 D +4 1.1%
Florida 15.4 D +1 1.0%
Tennessee 16.8 R +3 0.8%
Arkansas 15.6 R +3 0.7%
Connecticut 9.5 D +9 0.6%
Massachusetts 6.1 D +14 0.5%
If the states were Congressional Districts, then the most likely one to elect a black Representative would be Maryland, which nevertheless has only a 15 percent chance of doing so. All other states are below 10 percent, and in most cases, the probabilities are very small indeed.
Of course, the states are effectively big Congressional Districts for purposes of electing senators and governors. Suppose you added up the probabilities of each state electing a black congressman, and then multiplied it by two since each state gets to elect two senators. How many black senators would you expect? You'd expect there to be about one -- or more precisely, 1.2. And you'd need to halve that number to estimate the expected number of black governors, which would be 0.6.
If one looks at the composition of the House of Representatives, then, one shouldn't be surprised that there are so few black senators and black governors, because states are far more heterogeneous (racially and otherwise) than individual Congressional Districts, and African-Americans are by and large not getting elected to the House outside of a certain number of highly black, largely homogeneous, and often heavily gerrymandered Congressional Districts in the urban North and the rural South.
The question, of course, is why African-Americans aren't getting elected in these districts. Racism is undoubtedly part of the answer, but it probably can't be a complete one now that the country has just elected Barack Obama to the White House.
It would be helpful to know where in the chain the link has been broken. Are African-Americans declining to become candidates in swing districts? Are they becoming candidates, but losing their party's nomination? Or are they winning the nomination, but losing in the general election? I don't have this sort of information handy, and so I cannot say for sure.
I suspect that a lot of the problem, however, is that as Congressional Districts have become more and more gerrymandered, leading to the creation of more and more majority-minority districts following the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the black political apparatus has become more and more 'ghettoized'. Black candidates have not had to develop a message that appeals to white voters, because most of them don't have very many white voters in their districts (about half the nation's African-American population is limited to the 60 blackest Congressional Districts). Nor do they have very many conservative voters in their districts, and so they have not had to develop a message that appeals to conservatives, even though the black population itself is far more diverse in its political views than is generally acknowledged.
Because they are not very representative of their states as a whole, moreover, these districts are also not likely to be very good launching pads for ascension to the Senate or to the governor's mansion. Do I think Jesse Jackson Jr. would have some trouble winning statewide office? I do -- but I also think that Pete Stark, who lives in a mostly white and Asian but extremely liberal district in the Bay Area, would have trouble becoming a senator in California.
Conversely, of course, the majority-minority districts drain black voters from surrounding districts, and so white politicians have not had to develop messages that appeal to black voters. This may be particularly problematic for Republicans, who went from winning 16-18 percent of the black vote for the Presidency in the 1970s to only about half of that now.
Democrats ought to be mindful of these things when redistricting occurs again after 2010, aggressively challenging Republicans on both the wisdom and the legality of creating ghettoized Congressional Districts. Majority-minority districts harm Democrats by creating surplus Democratic votes, and in the long run, they probably hurt African-Americans too.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009...k-senators.html |
Lets consider a major problem for the GOP concerns the changing demographics in the country while the party's makeup remains steady (white). The party couldn't hope to be competitive in the future if this trend continues. If the answer is to push for more minority representation, especially reflected in its elected leaders, while at the same time the base resists such changes, it could be the party's undoing.
An internal struggle of this magnitude should prove to be quite the spectacle to watch. In order to stay viable, the party makeup needs to change which in order to attract new members, would require reexamining long held core values or at least compromises that I don't believe the base would easily submit to. How do you "color-up" a party with a history of illusions of racism from conservatism (see Palin rallies)? That would lead to a few possibilities a) the compromises are made and the party redefines itself, b) a compromise can't be reached and the party splinters.
Could the failure of the GOP lead to a more than two party system? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | A new Rasmussen poll further demonstrates that the GOP could be in for a long stretch in the wilderness: A majority of GOP voters now say that the party should be more like Sarah Palin.
The numbers: 55% of Republicans say the party should be like Palin, compared to 24% who say they should be like John McCain.
As I've previously noted, poll data like this could indicate that the Republican Party is getting ready to relive the classic cycle of ruling parties who get turned out of power in a landslide: With the party base itself shrunk down, the people who are still around are the most hard-line members, and are really the least fit people to fix the situation. |
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...-like-palin.php
:stongue: |
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| Capitalizt |
| They need to kick out the religious nuts and racists and build the party based on philosophy of liberty. I know this means losing half of their voters but it is their only chance of surviving over the long run. The classical conservative idea (less government = more freedom) still appeals to many people, but the crowd of old Jerry Fallwell types and rednecks that vote on "God Guns and Gays" scares away those who would otherwise be interested in voting republican. |
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| XaNaX |
| quote: | Originally posted by Capitalizt
They need to kick out the religious nuts and racists and build the party based on philosophy of liberty. I know this means losing half of their voters but it is their only chance of surviving over the long run. The classical conservative idea (less government = more freedom) still appeals to many people, but the crowd of old Jerry Fallwell types and rednecks that vote on "God Guns and Gays" scares away those who would otherwise be interested in voting republican. |
exactly
| quote: | A new Rasmussen poll further demonstrates that the GOP could be in for a long stretch in the wilderness: A majority of GOP voters now say that the party should be more like Sarah Palin.
The numbers: 55% of Republicans say the party should be like Palin, compared to 24% who say they should be like John McCain.
As I've previously noted, poll data like this could indicate that the Republican Party is getting ready to relive the classic cycle of ruling parties who get turned out of power in a landslide: With the party base itself shrunk down, the people who are still around are the most hard-line members, and are really the least fit people to fix the situation. |
Good quote Leb, this shows exactly what is wrong with the Republican party right now. The Republicans can't win an election even if they got 100% support of their candidate by their party. You need the votes of independents/moderates and of right-leaning democrats as well, and I would bet you if you asked those two groups who they think the Republican party should be more like those numbers would be reversed.
So by pandering to the worst elements in the party, the bible beating, anti-drug, anti-abortion, anti-gay wacko right wing religious zelots, the Republican party is effectively isolating itself from the voters it really needs to win an election.
The Republican party needs to reinvent itself, and the reinvention it needs is as the party that is fiscally conservative, focused on running the country in the best way possible with small government and responsible spending, the party that checks its religious beleifs at the door and leaves that crap out of Washington allowing individual Americans to make moral choices rather than legislating them.
If there was a message sent in the last election it was that the American people care about how you run the country, not how you feel about abortion, religion, gay rights, etc. Somebody in the party needs to wake up and smell the coffee before the next election. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
Of course Sarah Palin offers none of those ideas and yet the GOP wants to move in that direction...
I have an idea, run candidates that actually are the people intellectual superiors. It can be done, Obama won that way, if not actually being the peoples intellectual superior, he at least sounds that way.
Running idiots that are "just like me" is not going to work out anymore. People in the US are realizing that people just like them cant run the most powerful country on the planet. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
Of course Sarah Palin offers none of those ideas and yet the GOP wants to move in that direction...
I have an idea, run candidates that actually are the people intellectual superiors. It can be done, Obama won that way, if not actually being the peoples intellectual superior, he at least sounds that way.
Running idiots that are "just like me" is not going to work out anymore. People in the US are realizing that people just like them cant run the most powerful country on the planet. |
| quote: | Joe the Plumber advises GOP-ers
By ALEX ISENSTADT | 2/2/09 7:26 PM EST Text Size:
Fresh off his stint as a war correspondent in Gaza, Joe the Plumber is now doing political strategy with Republicans.
When GOP congressional aides gather Tuesday morning for a meeting of the Conservative Working Group, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher – more commonly known as Joe the Plumber — will be their featured guest. This group is an organization of conservative Capitol Hill staffers who meet regularly to chart GOP strategy for the week.
Wurzelbacher, who became a household name during the presidential election, will be focusing his talk on the proposed stimulus package. He's apparently not a fan of the economic rescue package, according to members of the group.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18324.html
Meanwhile:
| quote: | | JUNEAU -- The Alaska Senate voted Friday to find Gov. Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, and nine Palin aides in contempt for failing to show up when ordered by subpoena to testify in the Legislature's "Troopergate" investigation of the governor. |
http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/681638.html
The saga continues...
Since Obama won the election, Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother has been convicted of drug dealing; Sarah Palin has admitted that her daughter was named for the town of ESPN headquarters; Sarah Palin has engaged in a war of words with... Ashley Judd?; and now First Dude Todd Palin is found in contempt of the Alaskan Senate... God I hope she runs in 2012. |
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| Groundhog Boy |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
ealing; Sarah Palin has admitted that her daughter was named for the town of ESPN headquarters; |
I read this back during the election. Why is it news again? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
I read this back during the election. Why is it news again? |
It was only rumor then. |
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