WP: GOP-Leaning Majority Seen Fading in U.S.

[Baculus]

I dont think it can happen either just because passions are so high when discussing things like abortion, gay rights, etc that lines are drawn naturally.

Exactly, and people tend to gravitate towards others of a like mind.

[Thiebear]

Plenty of room for the 68% Republican Colen Powell

And the radical 95% tow the line republican Cheney.

Until that is acknowledged and both work together to talk to the people around the press.

They are doomed to being told what they stand for.

[Johnny Punani]

I seriously do not think a party-less system is possible in the US. People will always form political associations of common interests. Either that, or those without a party will become disenfranchised like many of the non-voting, apathetic citizens. That, or we'll end up having one party rule if a political party exploited a party-less situation.

Why not? This is an elected form of government based on the votes of individual citizens not groups, parties, or orgs. Political parties bring out the worst in people. There are many who's votes are based only on if someone has a R or D by their name. It's pathetic and shows how lazy and foolish people are in this country. Have you ever read Washington's warning about political parties in his farewell address?

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address

[JimboDaMan]

People will always band together to protect their common interests. Parties are the most inclusive way to make that happen. If you were able to outlaw political parties, then PACS would absolutley rule.

[Bang]

Many "middle of the road Dems" would be more then willing to LISTEN to conservative ideas IF they are presented in logical, thoughtful and articulate ways and go against what Republicans did this past decade

As usual SHF

I am not a Democrat, and you just stated why I voted for them. The arrogance in which the hard right presents it's case is enough to turn my stomach, and it simply facilitates the "us vs them" attitude that has really gotten in the way of American progress.

~Bang

[Kunia5]

Interesting read, but premise is incorrect. Alot of Presidential politics, in the last thirty years, has been pure chance.

a) Nixon resigns, during his second term, when he was still overwhelming popular. But for Watergate he would have been popular through his second Presidency. Republicans would have probably stayed in power.

Ford loses because he did the honorable thing in pardoning Nixon. Jimmy Carter wins the election. Chance for a "new start."

c) Jimmy Carter had the bad luck of the hostage crisis in 79. Who could have handled that situation looking good? Before the election, Carter had already instructed Volcker to contract the economy to stop the inflation problem. Reagan just continued Volcker's policy.

c) Bill Clinton wins because Ross Perot splits off a large segment of potential Republican voters. Again, just good luck.

d) The 2008 race was a dead heat until the economic/banking crisis flared up in September. If I recall, Obama was not the shoo-in the article makes him out to be. Many moderate Republicans and Democrats liked McCain.

Obama is being hyper-careful in what he does because he knows how easily popularity can fall. History pinges on chance and coincidence, not decisions of party leaders.

[88Comrade2000]

Who gives a **** about the republican party. They are finished as a national party, they just haven't realized it yet. In 2012 when either Obama wins reelection or we elect our first Independent candidate; they will finally see the picture.

[Hubbs]

HH, in my opinion, you're overestimating how much the Tea Parties were pro-GOP.

[scruffylookin]

d) The 2008 race was a dead heat until the economic/banking crisis flared up in September. If I recall, Obama was not the shoo-in the article makes him out to be. Many moderate Republicans and Democrats liked McCain.

Obama is being hyper-careful in what he does because he knows how easily popularity can fall. History pinges on chance and coincidence, not decisions of party leaders.

I get tired of reading stuff like this and have it painted as somehow a negative against Obama. Fact is this shows exactly the mood of the American people. We had a crisis and the American people FINALLY stopped swallowing the Republicans divisive, low road, Swift Boat, Willie Horton, Lee A****er/Karl Rove gutter election wins and went with the canidate they trusted to deal with the crisis the country was in.

What's the logic going on here? Obama should consider himself lucky that a crisis focused the people into paying attention to how the canidates would address a real crisis instead of being distracted by the typical right wing smear machine that tried to label him as un-American, a closet commie and really a Muslim with terrorist sympathies? Yeah, Obama should count his lucky stars.:doh:

Obama's election was the purest one, in terms of public will untarnished by phoney baloney made up issues and controversies, that we've had in a long long time and that is why he is so popular.

As for the Republicans future. They really need to disassociate from the right wing nutjob wing of their party. I don't know how they do it but they are going to have to in order to remain relevent. Otherwise they will disappear like the Whigs before them and some new party will rise up.

[Hubbs]

Scruffy, uh... what did you quote that painted Obama in a negative light? Kunia is right - a lot of elections are determined by things outside of the candidates' control. That's not a reflection on the candidates. That's just life.

[Larry]

Many "middle of the road Dems" would be more then willing to LISTEN to conservative ideas IF they are presented in logical, thoughtful and articulate ways and go against what Republicans did this past decade

But where would I find such a Republican?

Why am I asking you?

[JMS]

Interesting read, but premise is incorrect. Alot of Presidential politics, in the last thirty years, has been pure chance.

It's not chance at all. The country jumps back and forth when one party fails..... Hoover fails we get FDR, Truman...

If Obama screws up like Carter did, the GOP will be back in 2014. It's very very unlikely the GOP will be out of power for 50 years..... If Hoover only took them out of power for 20 years, I'd say Bush is at best only good for 30 years, and that's only if the Democrats are competent.

Other than the other party screwing up, the other best way for the out of office party to break into office is to elect a war hero, as the Republicans did with U.S. Grant, and D.D. Eisenhower.

[JMS]

But where would I find such a Republican?

Why am I asking you?

Fact is the way the Democrates took over the Senate and House was to recrute very conservative candidates who were not happy with Bush. Like Jim Webb here in Virginia, former Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy.

Bush's formula for sucess was to impower the base and count on them to carry him at election day.... It worked for him too.

Typically the Democrates forumula for sucess is to drive to the middle and allienate their base, like Clinton was famous for doing; and Obama with his political appointment seems to be emulating.

[Larry]

It's not chance at all. The country jumps back and forth when one party fails..... Hoover fails we get FDR, Truman...

If Obama screws up like Carter did, the GOP will be back in 2014. It's very very unlikely the GOP will be out of power for 50 years..... If Hoover only took them out of power for 20 years, I'd say Bush is at best only good for 30 years, and that's only if the Democrats are competent.

Other than the other party screwing up, the other best way for the out of office party to break into office is to elect a war hero, as the Republicans did with U.S. Grant, and D.D. Eisenhower.

I think odds are that you're right.

I think, before the Democrats begin their 1,000-year reich, they should win two elections in a row.

[mjah]

Kunia, I agree with a lot of your post. A couple of points though:

c) Bill Clinton wins because Ross Perot splits off a large segment of potential Republican voters. Again, just good luck.

Not really -- It's a misconception that Perot stole predominantly from Bush voters. He stole from both sides in roughly equal amounts, with an impact far too small to spoil the election. Bush lost due to the economy, his broken pledge on taxes, and the fact that his strong foreign policy background was seen as unnecessary after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of Desert Storm. Also, Slick Willy was slippery as hell and got away with a lot during the campaign.

d) The 2008 race was a dead heat until the economic/banking crisis flared up in September. If I recall, Obama was not the shoo-in the article makes him out to be. Many moderate Republicans and Democrats liked McCain.

The 2008 race was not a dead heat for a large portion of the campaign. Once the primaries ended, it was not unusual to see Obama with a 4-5 point lead over McCain in blended polling averages. That definitely was not within the margin of error. After the RNC the race became a dead heat for a short time, until opening permanently as you mention with the economic situation.

Surprised you didn't mention the 2000 election, which arguably was accidentally spoiled by Nader. Exit polls in Florida suggested that without Nader in the race, 38% of his 97,000+ votes would have gone to Gore and 25% would have gone to Bush. (And the rest of the Nader voters wouldn't have voted at all.) Assuming that's anywhere near correct, Gore would have picked up something like 37,000 votes and Bush would have picked up something like 24,000 in Florida. Given that the margin in Florida was only 537 votes, Gore would have won the state by thousands.

Of course, Gore could have helped himself by doing things like winning his home state. People only say the whole thing hinged on Florida because Florida was the last state to report. There were other reasonably close states which, with results flipped, would have changed the election outcome. Even little New Hampshire (48%-47% in favor of Bush) could have flipped the outcome for Gore, had a few thousand people voted differently.

[Henry]

Interesting article by Peggy Noonan today. I've always thought she was a little too Rah Rah Reagan for my tastes, but I have to admit she's starting to grow on me.

Anyway, I thought it was a good read:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124475205079307455.html

In America almost everybody has a base, not only political parties. Businesses do, and public figures, and Web sites. We attempt to quantify to the nth degree everybody's numbers, ratings, page views. These tell us how big a base is and, roughly, who is in it.

"The base" is a great if largely unspoken preoccupation in broad segments of our public life. In fact we have developed baseitis. Is this good?

What occasions the question is the USA Today story this week on a Gallup poll saying nearly half the country's Republicans and Republican-leaners can't come up with a name when asked who their party's leader is. Of those who could think of a name, 10% said Rush Limbaugh, 10% Newt Gingrich, 9% Dick Cheney. Among Democrats, on the other hand, 83% could think of a leader of their party. Most of them said it was President Obama. This makes sense, yes?

The poll was a source of, or excuse for, interparty needling (the base likes that) and faux sympathy on cable news (their base likes that too.) What no one notes is the poll makes no sense, or rather makes so much sense that it's not news.

The Democrats have a leader. He's the president. When a party has a president, he's the leader.

Parties out of power, almost by definition, are in search of one. When parties do not hold the White House and Congress they are, of necessity, retooling and reshaping themselves. Leaders of various party factions, being humans in politics and therefore bearing within themselves unsleeping little engines of ambition (that's what Billy Herndon said lay inside his friend, unassuming prairie lawyer Abe Lincoln) will jostle each other for place.

The last time the Republican Party was in this position was 1977-78, after Watergate and the 1976 victory of Jimmy Carter. The Republicans then had no leader of the party, or rather there were a number of leaders: Rep. John Anderson was a leading moderate, Howard Baker was in the Senate, and Rep. Jack Kemp was a promising conservative. Out West, Ronald Reagan, nearing 70, was writing commentaries and contemplating a third presidential run.

No one knew what would happen, who would rise.

The last time Democrats were in this position was eight years ago, when they'd lost the presidency and Congress. Who exactly was the Democratic leader at that time? Teddy Kennedy had the liberals' heart but he was going nowhere, Al Gore was in Europe growing a beard, Bill Clinton was out getting rich. Hillary Clinton was settling into New York. There was no leader. But there were people coming up in the states, including a state senator from Chicago named Barack Obama.

click on the link for the rest of the article

[PeterMP]

Interesting article by Peggy Noonan today. I've always thought she was a little too Rah Rah Reagan for my tastes, but I have to admit she's starting to grow on me.

Anyway, I thought it was a good read:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124475205079307455.html

click on the link for the rest of the article

I've made the point before that a move to leadership by the radio personalities is that they are interested in ratings; not necessarily winning elections.

[Predicto]

Here's our problem: "Opposing Judge Sonya Sotomayor, Obama's Supreme Court nominee, because of her pride in being a Latina, won't help solve that problem."

The woman said, paraphrasing, that BECAUSE she is a Latina, that she would come to a better decision than a white male who hasn't had the same life experience.

That statement is racist. Period. It's not up for debate. Want proof? Turn it around so that the double-standard is no longer in play....

Because I am a white male, I would come to a better decision than a Latina, who hasn't had the same life experience.

You know what else she said?

[W]hen a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant -- and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases -- I can't help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position....

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.

Horrible. She thinks her ethnic background gives her some special insight into judging discrimination cases. She's clearly a racist, right?

Oh wait, that wasn't Sotomeyer. It was Samuel Alito, Bush's nominee who was confirmed 2 years ago. Nevermind.

[TheLongshot]

When Reagan was elected in 1980 the media was saying the samething about the Dems.

And it took them 12 years to find someone who could win the white house and they couldn't keep it together enough to beat a weak candidate in Bush (and couldn't oust him 4 years later when a lot of his weaknesses were known.)

[wilsonian]

Peter Schiff, as always, is dead on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x13VYMLfDw

Glad there are some other Schiff fans here. The guy is just awesome, plain and simple. It looks like he's strongly considering running for Senate in Connecticut. He should announce his decision within the next few weeks.

[mjah]

And it took them 12 years to find someone who could win the white house and they couldn't keep it together enough to beat a weak candidate in Bush (and couldn't oust him 4 years later when a lot of his weaknesses were known.)

...All of which makes you wonder just how badly the Republicans might fare over the next decade-plus.

The Democrats had no Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Hannitys encouraging their respective mouthbreather wing to further marginalize themselves.

Time will tell.

[WARLORD1863]

Anyone remember the 2004 election? Bush re-elected without a problem and Republicans form an even stronger hold on the government with a very large majority in the house and congress. People kept talking about why democrats simply couldn't get anything right and whether the party would survive.

Republican party isn't going anywhere, and nothing historically shows that it will. If you take the pulse of the nation on any given day on any given year you'll have either the dems struggling or the repubs struggling. Right now the GOP is on the ropes, but will they fail as a party? There's nothing to support that.

The conclusions of this journalist is questionable, and what gives it away is this line:

Democrats have now won the popular vote in four of the last five elections, though in one case (2000) they did not end up in the White House.

He uses this to show a striking trend. My point is that every election is different, not in how candidates run their campaigns but in the context in which voters choose their president. When Bush was reelected in 2004 it was because he was a wartime president that had swept through Afgahnistan after 9/11 and had just entered Iraq in 2003. Voters made up their mind to reelect him based on a different set of circumstances than in the 2000 election.

I can say with absolute certainty that if this economic downturn occured near the end of Obama's last year in his first term, he would not be reelected. A different set of circumstances would be facing the voters, and the vote would change.

This article suggests less people claim to be Republicans, well I don't see that as the Republicans losing voting power. Why do you have to be registered a republican to vote for a republican? I don't consider myself a republican and I did vote for Obama in the last election, however I did vote for Bush over Kerry in 2004. I will vote for a Republican again if I feel he/she is the better candidate.

[WARLORD1863]

The Democrats had no Limbaughs and O'Reillys and Hannitys encouraging their respective mouthbreather wing to further marginalize themselves.

mjah man, I said it before and I'll say it again. You can't make statements like that and still keep that sig of yours.

[Burgold]

The Republicans of 2009 remind me a lot of the Democrats of 2000. They are leaderless, rudderless, and the party of opposition instead of a party with solutions. More, they are the party that many are sick of. It took the Dems about 6 years before they began to find a new crop of worthies to resurface: Obama, Webb, Kaine... even Hillary.

I disagree with some here. I think the best chance of a Republican recovery is if Obama is masterful and brilliant because if he is and the damage done by the Bush years are seen as being slight, then it will be easier to shift back when we get party fatigue again. If Obama can't right the ship that many think that Bush and the Republicans steered into an iceburg, they may be more forgiving of the Dems and still leery of the Repubs...

The worst thing the Repubs have going for them now that the Dems didn't have in 2000 is the toxicity of the radio and tv talking heads. The fact that we are more sensationalistic and more bombastic than ever means that Repubs have people who are constantly pouring gas on their own fire even as they try to burn down the Democratic House.

[Madison Redskin]

Supposedly, the GOP may have its eyes set on one of the firefighters involved in the case decided by Sotomayor regarding race discrimination. If the GOP looks to try to make him some sort of poster child, they're in deeper trouble than I thought.