Posted on 11/19/2008 7:09:24 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Where did the super-majority of votes gathered by Ronald Reagan in his presidential campaigns go in 2008? Can they be reclaimed by future Republican candidates?
Reagan's 1980 and 1984 victories were based on a coalition of three different groups. He attracted the fiscal-integrity/limited-government conservatives who had not given up since Barry Goldwater's campaign, the social conservatives who newly came into the political process to be active against the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion, and the Reagan Democrats (mostly blue-collar, Catholic and/or Irish) who sought a change from the stagflation of the Jimmy Carter years.
In 2008, the first two groups shrank because of lessened enthusiasm for the Republican candidate. Sarah Palin brought new life to the party, but it wasn't enough.
The Reagan Democrats were the biggest loss to Republicans when the No. 1 issue turned out to be the economy and the loss of good jobs. A New York Times headline gleefully proclaimed, "Goodbye Reagan Democrats."
That's why Barack Obama carried Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Indiana. John McCain got 300,000 fewer votes in Ohio than George W. Bush in 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
When did you stop beating your captured Islamo-Nazi?
In a TV interview Sunday, ruler-elect Obama, who supports killing the unborn, killing the newborn, federally-funded sacrilege, Hollywood, gays in the military, bribery, thieving and lying, said he plans to "rebuild" America's "moral stature in the world." So, he's thinking of appointing Hillary Clinton as top diplomat. Moral-stature-rebuilding-wise, it's considered a big step forward since we all know how moral the Clintons can be. Hillary got passed over for VP and left-wing NOW hags are screaming for the appointment of a woman, so this must have nothing to do with any of that.
In the same "60 Minutes" interview, Obama also vowed to "stamp out al-Qaeda once and for all," and towards that end the terror-hunter plans to give al-Qaeda Habeas Corpus, stop dunking al-Qaeda and the Taliban in water to get useful information, close Guantanamo even before Tony Rezko finds new housing for the inmates, withdraw from Iraq and do warm, catchy singalongs with Ahmadinejad. Obama is already getting praised by Euroweenies for how he plans to mindlessly cut defense spending.
And to restore America's "moral stature" even more, Obama will stamp out AIDS once and for all by closing the Department Of Deadly Viruses To Be Used Against People Of Color, Especially African-Americans. Maybe pal Jeremiah Wright knows something about this since he's overseeing the shutdown -- immediately after leading us in opening and closing prayers at the inaugural.
Liberals believe "moral stature" means getting applause from France and being loved by the Germans for trashing America. Libbies consider trashing America to be the ultimate expression of "true patriotism". It really gets their patriotism to kick in. (Coming in a close second is having your taxes raised.) In fact, liberals like Madonna spend so much time bad-mouthing America, our "moral stature" would scale new heights if ace ignoramuses like her would simply shut up for a week.
Regarding the imaginary horrors at Gitmo, Obama told "60 Minutes" that "I'm going to make sure we don't torture." Disemboweling and torturing human beings in the birth canal, yes, but never those peaceful little darling Muslims plucked from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. On the basis of zero evidence, Obama insists that "torture" is occurring at Gitmo -- but the opposite is the case, sadly. As notorious Free Republic spammer "JohnHuang2" wrote some months ago: "Liberals scream that Bush is running an Auschwitz-Birkenau down in Guantanamo, yet, for all the torturing Bush's doing, you wouldn't know it from your run-of-the-mill Gitmo jailbird who typically puts on 13 pounds while being "tortured" and "starved" to death there. The typical Gitmo menu STILL consists of culturally sensitive fresh fruit, honey-glazed chicken, rice pilaf, steamed peas and mushrooms, ginger chicken breast and lemon-baked fish -- all of it prepared by top-notch Navy cooks who run the death camp's kitchens."
If moral stature is your bag, the U.S. ponies up a good chunk for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and something like 2 million folks in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean are getting treatment through fascist Bushitler's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, even as the Great Satan cranks out a majority of the world's food aid and spends hundreds of millions in aid to the displaced people of Darfur while doling out almost a billion bucks helping tsunami victims, sending earthquake relief to Pakistan, aiding the displaced people of Georgia, sending $29 million in storm relief to Haiti, doubling aid to Latin America, bringing $60 million in debt relief to poor countries -- but Obama is upset that three Hannibal Lector types in Guantanamo got roughed up during interrogations. And didn't even get their John Edwards lawyers either.
Bush's 'immoral' foreign policy has liberated 60 million people from tyranny, but Obama is worried that the folks who danced and cheered on 9/11 and hacked Daniel Pearl's head off (then made a snuff video out of it) still don't like us. It's so important for a global superpower to be liked by homicidal Islamic maniacs seeking its demise. If Obama's 'Walk softly, and carry a big carrot' approach fails, try a bigger carrot.
From the looks of things, Obama's main achievement during the next four years will be to catapult past Jimmy Carter as Worst President Ever, doing just about everything humanly possible to avoid being competent, even as we discover how far up their posteriors Obama's jihad/Iranian-mullah-hugging supporters can wedge their heads when the Shia hits the fan. But enough about the media.
If Obama is to implement a number of disasters in his campaign platform, he won't have an easy go of it. Leafing through just some of the loony items Zero thinks he has ready to roll, whether it's hiking taxes to 'fix' the recession, hiking taxes to 'stop' "climate change", snuffing out the coal industry to 'fix' the energy problem, doling bailouts, doling still more bailouts to bailout the bailouts in the first round of bailouts, Sovietizing health care, resurrecting Smoot-Hawley, flipping off allies, fleeing Iraq, letting Iran get The Bomb, letting Gitmo inmates walk, playing patty-cake with his Three Amigos (Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad), wimp-o responses to Putin, scrubbing 'simpleton' Reagan's missile defense, inserting gays into the military, shrinking the military -- it's all the same corner the ruler-in-waiting has painted himself into.
But, don't worry, the press will stay on top of this. The Associated Press sums up the cold realities that await the messiah by cranking out a story entitled, "Cold realities await Gov. Sarah Palin in Alaska".
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
Sadly, many of the Reaan voters have passed away.
The largest chunk of the Reagan democrats were union members. The GOP of today is more interested in bashing them than working with them.
In my opinion, Reagan Democrats were not left with a clear choice ... they had two candidates posing as conservatives (both talking about tax cuts), with neither truly believing what they were saying.
John McCain is not Ronald Reagan — and honestly doesn’t even hold many of the economic beliefs that Reagan did. Thus, he couldn’t sell fiscal conservatism, or even properly explain it. The country was therefore left to decide between two candidates that were pretending to be fiscally conservative ... and they chose the more charismatic one.
H
Obama got fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry. The analogy does not hold. Usual voters in both parties remained home. The college students answered the calls of their (at least) daily text reminders to vote and gave Obama the difference. If you look at the county by county map, all the places that became more blue have a college or university in them or nearby.
Reagan came to Michigan in tough economic times, told us times were tough and offered hope for better. John McCain came to Michigan, said times are tough, your jobs are gone and that’s just plain tough.
btt
that’s what I was thinking “the greatest generation is passing-although many in the past have said they were democratic, I believe many were RR democrats”
Sadly their children the Hippies were not as conservative, even in their old age!
Obama talked of tax cuts. McCain attacked the greedy and wealthy on Wall Street.
Some Reagan Democrats went for the candidate who they thought sounded like Reagan.
(Yes, it’s a gross over-generalization, but McCain did a lousy job of presenting the Republican case.)
Well first you need a Reagan. Sorry John you are no Reagan.
Ronald Reagan left this world, and many of his voters have joined him.
It’s a different electorate now.
We will find out then if American's likes socialism, bait-and-switch policies and deadly incompetence.
Reagan Democrats are working people-it’s jobs baby jobs. The GOP has presided over a time of huge job losses-more to come. Many Reagan Democrats were Mid Western so don’t expect them to come back after the GOP is seen as killing or supporting killing of the big three-won’t happen. Many were lost when big steel went under as well. You will lose lifelong Republicans in Ohio and other Mid Western states permanently as well.
Gingrey of Georgia basically said on one of the cable news networks that now that the big three will be gone (happy days), the union who contributed x amount of dollars to Dems will be gone. He used to be my congressman-absolutely unbelievable. The GOP comes off as hating manufacturing and working people. I know many on this board despise unions. But if you worked with the rank and file as I do in GM, you would feel differently. They are just people.
I have a guy who works for me who’s wife is having a baby. He talked the doctors into inducing her on Friday so he won’t miss a day of work-very fearful of losing his job. By the way, he makes about $14.00 per hour-not $73.00 as some ridiculous posts suggest. Damn, what has this country become?
“Sadly, many of the Reaan voters have passed away.”
Indeed. This cuts to the heart of the question more than just about anything else.
Reagan was first elected almost 30 years ago. The older World War 1 cohort that voted for him is gone. And the World War II cohort is fading to the sunset.
One thing is for certain: today’s democrats do NOT resemble “the Reagan democrats”, in beliefs or persuasion (and in many cases, skin color). The chances of them being “converted” in our direction are next-to-nothing at best, and nil at worst.
- John
Reagan wasn’t running. A Democrat-loving RINO was running.
At the University where I work, the students waiting in line to vote the entire day was going around the corner. It wasn’t like this in 2004.
Union bashing is the global warming of the right. There are problems with the unions to be sure but the bashing has gone well beyond what’s realistic or rational.
Political donations are my biggest issue with unions. In my opinion no portion of union dues should be political. It leads to completely false idea that all union members are democrats and liberals. When I was a $12 per hour union member I voted conservative as did the other conservatives in the shop.
Personally I would prefer to work outside of a union because I want to be paid on merit not scale. As far as benefits are concerned, I’ll be happy with a month’s worth of paid vacation time after 5 years and decent medical insurance. The cost of that insurance isn’t the fault of the union or the company, it’s the fault of the insurers, medical and pharmaceutical costs.
Reagan took his case to the unions and to the companies and won because of it. They didn’t always love him but they did trust that he wouldn’t help their jobs to disappear. In fact Reagan would be called a protectionist if he were around today.
I agree about the money thing. Believe me up until this bailout thing, plenty of union guys were Republicans and didn’t want their money going to Dems. I think union bashing is despicable. To wish ill on fellow Americans who are just trying to support their families will come back and bite the GOP in the a$$-karma baby. One of my guys convinced his doctor to induce his wife-first baby and probably not a good idea health wise because he doesn’t want to miss work-he is afraid of losing his job. All he wants is a job; that’s all he cares about. This makes me so angry...there are no words. What is this country becoming? Is this what we want to happen?
Posters on this forum mostly live in Western or Southern states from what I can tell. They have no idea how bad the economy in the Mid West is. I am also sick of hearing Michigan bashed. It’s stupid and un-American. Unfortunately, they are about to discover what hard times feel like in those regions. I don’t hope for it (most of the time-I’m only human )I wonder it they will be as resourceful and brave as the people I know in Ohio have been. Somehow, I don’t think so. Character counts. I appreciate your thoughtful post. I enjoy reading a post from someone who is not suffering from UDS-union derangement syndrome. Have a good one.
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