I disagree nathanbedford. The last election was the Republicans’ to lose, and lose it they did. That is the entire story.
The Republican Party has been shedding Conservatives at a furious rate, ever since Reagan, especially (exponentially) since 2004, and now the majority stand outside of the party. That should tell you volumes.
Look at what an average Conservative family should have produced demographically (in voters)since 1980, and compare that to the numbers the Republicans have been able to garner. Conservatives are doing what they always do - They are sitting it out, and have been in larger numbers all along.
The “vote for us because we’re better than Democrats” shtick has worn thin. Boogey-man tactics will not suffice. Blame-shifting and phony promises will not do.
Put up a “Contract with America” espousing actual Conservatism, lead by actual Conservatives and watch how fast the tables turn.
Amen. That is exactly what I want to see. A new contract with America, based on workable conservative solutions. And true conservatives to implement it.
That is certainly not the "entire" story is not even part of the story because it is based on a false premise. There is no perspective from which a reasonable person could conclude that the last election was the Republicans' to lose. They were running after 12 years in power. They were running unavoidably on the record of a miserably unpopular president who had been conducting a miserably unpopular war.
The economy was in shambles and there was absolutely no confidence in the land that the president who had managed Hurricane Katrina could manage a worldwide economic crisis. The Republican brand had been disgraced by the Republicans, who, led by President Bush, engaged in unrestrained spending and so dishonored their legacy that the populace actually believed that that the Democrats were better on the issue than Republicans. Likewise on the issue of defense. Likewise on the war in Iraq. Likewise on Social Security, healthcare, the environment, and education and just about any other issue one can think of.
After eight years of unremitting fifth column work by the nation's media, unaccountably not countered by the administration which was apparently operating under a rope-a-dope strategy, the party was left beleaguered and virtually leaderless.
We nominated a candidate who was old, who had betrayed the base, who was not charismatic, who was wrong on immigration, wrong on energy, and right only on the war in Iraq and that was unpopular. He shrank from attacking his opponent and failed to support his running mate.
Under these circumstances when the Democrats nominated a "clean" African-American, the media simply would not countenance any result other than a victory for the Democrats. They generated what I described in the vanity before the election as an "Obama Pathology" which was an emotional state in which there was no hearing of any biographical fact or previous association of Barack Obama's which might betray him for the Manchurian Marxist he is.
One cannot conceive of a more difficult environment for the Republicans to win an election. If anything, it was the Democrats' to lose. But my main objection to this false premise is that it diverts our attention away from the true challenge which confronts conservatism today.
That is the reality of the demographics currently facing the Republican Party which I described in a reply of a few days ago. In politics demography is destiny. In America race is demography. It is a daunting landscape which Republicans face which might be overcome by strict adherence to conservative principles but that is by no means guaranteed. It certainly will not be overcome by glib assertions that we got the mechanics wrong. After this reply there are some other considerations which we ought to think about which suggests that our entire assumption that preaching conservatism is a winning combination might be wrong. That comes in the second reply. Here is the first reply:
Here is the money quote from the analysis that is significant because, although the other reasons cited by the author for the Republican predicament might well be true, the ones expressed in these two quoted paragraphs are the most important and, alas, largely irremediable:
A second problem is demographic. Obama took the presidency with the help of a coalition of the ascendant (the phrase is the analyst Ronald Brownsteins): young people, Hispanics, and other growing elements of American society. One of those elements is white voters with college or postgraduate degrees, among whom Obama prevailed handily. By contrast, McCain enjoyed a decisive plurality among -non-college-educated whites-a segment that accounted for 53 percent of the overall electorate as recently as 1992 but that now stands at only 39 percent.
A third long-term challenge is geographical. Over the past five presidential elections, Brownstein writes, Democrats have built a blue wall consisting of 18 states and the District of Columbia; these account for fully 90 percent of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. In addition, Democrats control most of the Senate seats from those same 18 states, as well as more than 70 percent of the House seats, two-thirds of the governorships, every state House chamber, and all but two of the state Senates. In the Northeast, Republicans now hold just 18 percent of U.S. House seats and only one-seventh of U.S. Senate seats. Some parts of the country are nearly devoid of Republican -representation.
These two paragraphs are actually presented in the correct order. The geographical blue wall constructed by Democrats and described in the second paragraph which makes any Republican challenge for the White House or control of either house of Congress at best daunting and, at worst, virtually impossible, is caused by the demographics described in the first paragraph. In politics demography is destiny. The second consideration about demographics is race. In America all politics is not as Tip O'Neill said, "local," rather all politics is racial. If the Democrats can obtain 90% of the black vote, that yields 10% of the voters. If they can obtain 80% of the Hispanic vote, that yields them roughly 10% of the vote. If they can obtain 70 to 80% of the Jewish vote, that yields them to 2 1/2% of the vote. If they can obtain 80% of the gay vote, that yields them to 2 1/2% of the vote. The problem is that they can and do consistently obtain these percentages of these racial/ethnic groups. If one adds these groups up the percentage totals 25% on election morning before the Democrat candidate even gets out of bed.
Within a few years America will be a majority nonwhite nation. Those demographics are destiny for the Republican Party and those demographics tell us why as the author writes , "Democrats have built a blue wall consisting of 18 states and the District of Columbia; these account for fully 90 percent of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. "
These are absolutely chilling statistics. If conservatives on these threads want to be serious about survival, nevermind revival, of their political philosophy we ought to direct our attention to coping with these realities. For example, all the problems of our Rinos are symptoms rather than causes of our current pitiable state. It is not something in the water in the blue wall states that makes Rinos of Republicans.
It is also true that if we put back all three legs of Ronald Reagan's Republican stool under the party, social conservatism, fiscal conservatism and national defense, the best we can hope for is to get to a point where if we have a tremendously appealing candidate and we make no mistakes we can eke out a national victory for the White House by counting the votes in Ohio or in some other key state. In other words, if we do everything perfectly we might win if the stars are in alignment and the Democrats make a few mistakes. Otherwise, the Democrat enjoy the bulge of demographics which will justify James Carville's prediction -unless something intervenes to change the demographic reality.
Parenthetically, it is appropriate here to note that Barack Obama is rapidly changing America into a country divided in twain with non whites voting against whites. Obama's latest Rasmussen strong approval versus strong disapproval ratings show that his position has deteriorated to the point where non-African-American voters strongly disapprove of him by a ratio of 2 to 1 (41 -- 22). It does not take an actuary or a bleeding heart liberal to understand that he is pushing America toward a house divided.
It does no good now to look over our shoulder, but the Bush years in which he allowed the infiltration into this country of so many illegal immigrants have probably spelled the eclipse of the Republican Party for decades.
So if we want to change the world we must burnish our conservative image, find a candidate with the charisma of Ronald Reagan, and work like hell. In the meantime, some really fine minds must undertake to turn the demographics around by devising a true message for Hispanics and women, especially single women.
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The second dilemma which faces conservative is the assertion that preaching conservatism in its purest, pristine form will win the day. I'm not so sure this is true. One should consider the health care debate and ask oneself are the teabaggers and protesters in town hall meetings raising a conservative Banner or are they merely protecting their entitlements?
That is not to say that conservative arguments are not being employed in the protection of those entitlements, but their protection itself is essentially an anti-conservative position. A true conservative position on health care would be to repeal Medicare. But that is being advocated by no one.
Here is the second reply:
Dick Morris's thesis is that 15% and the largest single portion of the Democrat base, the elderly, are about to abandon the party fear of loss of healthcare services.
I think that he is largely right in this reading of the numbers. But let us be mindful of what is occurring here: His thesis says that the seniors are abandoning the Democrat party because the party which had given them Social Security under Roosevelt and had given them Medicare under Lyndon Johnson now threatens to take away the rice bowl. In effect, the parties have swapped positions. The Democrats are looking like Scrooge and the Republicans appear to be defending the right of seniors to keep their entitlement.
This is essentially an anomalous situation that will not long obtain. Either the Democrats will wise up and find a way between now and November 2010 to posture as the great entitlement givers or they will find a way, as they have every election cycle, to libel the Republicans as satanic princes who would take away their Social Security.
It is really by accident of overreaching and incompetence that the Democrats found themselves on the wrong end of this issue. But, for the Republican to continue to to profit from the issue, they must find a way of taking credit for defending an entitlement which many of us feel is unconstitutional and wrongheaded. This dilemma is personified in the figure of Mitt Romney who is taking flak from the Republican right because he created in Massachusetts an entitlement which they allege spends too much. Can the same Republicans be heard to say in the next breath that they are supporting senior citizens entitlement to healthcare?
The analogy is to a pole reversal in the Earth's magnetic field. Sooner or later the Democrats will find a way to give away more money to more interest groups which require Republicans to stand athwart the gravy train tracks shouting, "stop."
I believe the key to avoiding this trap perennially laid on by liberals to make conservatives look mean is to continue to pound on the issue of liberty. Republicans are defending the right to die in dignity with every right to an equal portion of the commonweal's assets devoted to their care. The Democrats find themselves in the position, unaccountably, in which they put on the green eye shades and insidiously deprive one class, the elderly, of equal share of society's assets to favor another class. That is the issue for us.