The (Finally) Emerging Republican Majority

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/27/03 | Fred Barnes

[NutCrackerBoy]

As long as the GOP promises a bit more safety, free schooling, free old age care, and free prescription drugs, they can stay the majority. Saving Medicare, Social Security, and providing money for schools and health care is the key to majority status.

What to do with "our" majority status? To keep our eyes on the ball, we must remember how we are getting it, and stay true to that. The Democrat majority got everything it wanted, and much of it is not good. There are so many problems with their worldview and policies; the targets are so numerous we shoot them down with pop guns.

One example: too many guaranteed jobs in fed bureacracy.

You don't stay politically dominant by eliminating wasteful but sentimental programs like Head Start. I will never forget for as long as I live the image liberals projected of Newt Gingrich snatching a poor black kid's breakfast. But you can change regulations that make so many government jobs cushy.

[Fledermaus]

Well, the way government calculates anything, who is really to say?

[Torie]

Hate to break it to you, but Romanians are genetically speaking Slavs (including the Hungarian component, living in Translyvania, who are also Slav, but kissing cousins of the Finns, and also like the Finnish, don't speak a Slav language, but rather a rather sui generis one).

[Cowboy Bob]

That 206 million figure is correct only if you include the population of Russia (146 million). Ukraine, the biggest of the 3 mentioned, has a population of 50 million.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

Realignment has already happened, and there's no reason to pretend otherwise.

If it's sustainable. I know many Conservatives who have now left the party. The Republicans can no longer take their vote for granted. The Republicans went so far Left in an attempt to grab voters, that they're lost their base. We'll know in 'O4.

[ChicagoHebrew]

If there has been a realignment, it is because conservatives have continued to talk about what they want and for what the stand, while liberals have become more and more shrill, more dependant on the smear

I disagree on two points.... First, I don't think there's been an "ideological" (conservatives, liberals) realignment. The parties have realigned because they've both moved LEFT over the past 10-20 years, placing Republicans in the center.

Look back a mere 10 years to the Gingrich Revolution. Then, the GOP rode to power promising to eliminate 4 cabinet departments, slash federal spending etc. Today, the GOP Congress with a GOP President have expanded spending faster than at anytime since LBJ. That's moving to the Left my friends.

Similarly, Dems have moved socially Left bigtime in the past 10 years. A decade ago, gay marriage was unthinkable to anyone Left or Right. Today, support for gay civil unions are part of the standard Democratic creed. Similarly, 10 years ago the Dems claimed to be the party of the middle-class-- backing middle-class tax-cuts (a Clinton 92 campaign promise which he broke), free trade, and middle-class entitlements such as college aid. Today, the Dems are increasingly the party of single-issue seperatists--- victim feminists, victim minority activists, cooky environmentalists who preach over and over again a message about how America and the West are evil, imperialist, racist, etc. That's a message the mainstream American center doesn't buy.

[Torie]

Good point, but the issues in play at any given time that have traction tend to determine just how costly it is to "sevice" the core constituencies, and that goes for both parties. Right now, the cutting issues that tend to be in play are somewhat superficial and ephemeral. I know that is not the conventional wisdom, but it is my wisdom, and I am sticking to it.

[Stultis]

Then along came Nixon, who not only established the EPA to pacify the left, but then allowed the label of corrupt party to be pasted on Republicans for nearly a generation.

Yes, but now the 'Rats have had their Nixon; and what's worse (for them) is that they have embraced him and continue to do so. As bad as the fallout from Nixon's Presidency was for the Republican Party, imagine how much worse it would have been if:

• After leaving office in disgrace Nixon had been hailed as a party hero, a great success, and been treated by the party faithful like a rock star.
• He had been utilized by the party as a fund raiser and campainer.
• His wife had obtained office keeping his name in the limelight (assuming here that Pat had been deeply involved in multiple scandals during her husband's administration).
• Nixon had been allowed to control the Republican Party in a major state.
• Nixon had been allowed to hand pick the Chairman of the RNC (say, Bebe Rebozo).
• Nixon had been allowed dicated the distribution of Party campaign funds.

And so. All this has been the case with The Rapist. Because of the cover provided by the liberal media and intelligencia (see my preceeding post on this subject) the price that 'Rats have paid, and will continue to pay, for this is not as obvious or immediate as it was in the case of Nixon, but it is apt to be even more enduring.

[rdb3]

Why is it that the United States is limiting immigrants from Russia and eastern Europe, while allowing potentially dangerous people from north Africa and the Middle East to arrive in such large numbers?

Are immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe not "potentially dangerous?"

[rdb3]

Although Hispanics disapprove of Homosexuality, so do Black Americans, yet that hasn't helped the GOP get any significant amount of the Black vote.

You know who's to blame for that? You got it. The GOP.

[Torie]

Yep, the GOP needs to pump more money into black districts supporting GOP candidates which will lose in the short term, thinking about the long term. It won't happen.

[rdb3]

Yep, the GOP needs to pump more money into black districts supporting GOP candidates which will lose in the short term, thinking about the long term. It won't happen.

I have no choice but to agree. Thus, I'll remain independent.

[beckett]

...until sometime after I depart this mortal coil.

Shuffle off, dearest...one shuffles off a mortal coil according to Will Shakespeare. I assume he's referring to the flesh and bones coiled around one's spirit. Forgive me for failing to resist the impulse to point that out to you.

Otherwise your analysis is quite interesting, as usual. You really know your stuff about elections.

[EGPWS]

First, I don't think there's been an "ideological" (conservatives, liberals) realignment. The parties have realigned because they've both moved LEFT over the past 10-20 years, placing Republicans in the center.

Well said.

The "conservative" politician doesn't exist on the same level as a conservative did 20 years ago. A liberal Democrat then has the same or somewhat to the right mindset as a considered conservative today without dispute.

[Torie]

I like the idea that my spirit will remain in situ after my flesh and bones are peeled off.

[Qwinn]

"Although Hispanics disapprove of Homosexuality, so do Black Americans, yet that hasn't helped the GOP get any significant amount of the Black vote."

First off, the black Republican vote has been increasing, not decreasing. Secondly, the whole issue of homosexuality has not been at play all that long - 10 years ago, the discussions going on about it today would've been pretty much unthinkable. The idea of gay marriage was never taken seriously until very recently.
Not enough time has passed for that impact to be felt.

And there have been more conservative black leaders making names for themselves than ever before. Same with hispanics. I think a lot of people are going to be very very surprised by minority voting patterns in 2004.

Qwinn

[ktw]

There can be many reasons why this is happening, but these are the two greatest.
(1) As people grow older, the majority of them get to be conservative.
(2) Therefore, the minorities are voting more GOP than before. The Democrats know this and are trying to get other groups of younger people to vote. For example. The effort to allow people in Jail/Prison to vote. Lowering the Voting age to 16. Allowing Non-US people to vote. By giving Non-US people drivers licenses, they can go down to the local Motor Registration and get a Voters Registration card and fill it out.
As you can see, the Democrats know this and are trying to combat it by allowing NEW groups to vote.