Saturday, June 13, 2009
Bad demographics for GOP
Republican strategist Mike Murphy writes in a column over at TIME that the GOP will be demographically challenged for the foreseeable future:
"...the numbers tell a clear story; the demographics of America are changing in a way that is deadly for the Republican Party as it exists today. A GOP ice age is on the way.He wants the GOP to become more socially libertarian and less anti-immigration (though query whether Senator McCain already satisfied these features last fall, to no avail).
"Demographic change is irritating to politicos, since it works on elections much as rigged dice do on a Las Vegas craps table: it is a game changer. For years, Republicans won elections because the country was chock-full of white middle-class voters who mostly pulled the GOP lever on Election Day. Today, however, that formula is no longer enough.
"It was a huge shock to the GOP when Barack Obama won Republican Indiana last year. The bigger news was how he did it. Latino voters delivered the state. Exit polls showed that they provided Obama with a margin of more than 58,000 votes in a state he carried by a slim 26,000 votes. That's right, GOP, you've entered a brave new world ruled by Latino Hoosiers, and you're losing."
Read the whole thing, and let it rip with the comments.
My guess is that the future success of the Republican Party at the national level will depend more on the screw-ups of Democrats in Washington than any great appeal of the Republican political platform intended to enlarge the tent. Looking down the road at one possible scenario, in the context of an economy that has failed to rebound, Independents could well vote for Republican candidates who have a track record of competence and appear to be able to fix things.
27 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Jun 13, 01:51:00 PM:
I concur with you in the short run, TH. Over the longer term, with third world immigrants pouring in, I am not so sure.
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Sat Jun 13, 02:19:00 PM:
Mike Murphy: "Young voters need to see a GOP that is more socially libertarian, particularly toward gay rights."
Gay rights? Most people outside Europe and the Blue States are rather traditional in their views. And I say that as a libertarian Republican.
Most of my friends from south of the border dislike "big government." They have seen too many ineffective governments in places like Mexico over the years.
And look at this from Reuters last month:
"Ricardo Martinelli, a multimillionaire supermarket chain owner, won Panama’s presidential election on Sunday, defying a trend of left-wing political victories in Latin America.
"Panama’s electoral authority said Mr. Martinelli, a pro-business conservative, was the clear victor over his rival, Balbina Herrera of the governing center-left Revolutionary Democratic Party, whose government has struggled with crime and high prices."
Story link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world/americas/04panama.html
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 02:27:00 PM:
Several years back, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” which has a similar theme and addresses it in more depth.
http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Democratic-Majority-Lisa-Books/dp/0743226917#
The Democratic majority took a few more years to show up than the authors expected, but it seems to be here now. The Republicans’ most likely path back to power involves some kind of bad thing happening, but it could well be something relating to foreign affairs. There are lots of plausible scenarios such as Iran finally getting nuclear weapons and some kind of decent delivery system for them, control of Pakistan and its nukes falling into islamicist hands, etc. Things that will frighten enough Americans and play into traditional Republican strengths relating to national security.
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 02:36:00 PM:
Interesting, wasn't at the turn of the 19th century blacks were suppose to propel Republicans into predominate majorities. Now Latin immigrates are going to do the same for Democrats. I suppose its possible.
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 04:05:00 PM:
From Link,
The Republicans need to address constituencies they've affirmatively pissed off ... independents, Catholics, Hispanics, libertarians, small business owners, and the young. Old, angry, white Protestant males don't figure. That is, unless Obama burns down the mansion first.
2010 -- What can we expect?
There's a chance that Republicans win back Congress, but we'd need to have a financial debacle hit by 2010 for that to happen. Without that, I expect the Republicans to only make modest gains at best. So I'm caught wishing that we have a bad crisis by 2010, so that we won't totally collapse in 2012. I suspect that's all the Republicans have to run on as well. As I've ranted about here before, a party of Rush-Bush-Cheney-Palin, is not a national party.
I've feared that the catastrophe Obama will bring down upon us won't hit until after 2010 -- that we'll get some juice out of stimulus in 2010. But Obama now "owns" a lot of things that could go bad by 2010 -- GM-Chrysler-GMAC, Fannie-Freddie-mortgage rates, Arnold's California budget. But understand that until it affects them personally, many in Obama's base won't care about the bigger picture. As long as they're still getting their checks from government, they won't care. Many will be too stupid to understand the longer-term implications, some of Obama's base will even enjoy the Schadenfreude. Some will vote for Obama's Democrats out of fear -- including many elderly and anyone who works for government.
I expect foreign affairs / national security won't figure in any of this, barring extreme scenarios. Bush-Cheney have exhausted us on this. If you disagree with me, you probably don't live in regular America. Iran could level Israel, and I don't think it would drive Obama out of office -- as long as we had $2.50 gas. Right now, most of us are terribly domestically focused -- and Obama wants to be a domestic president.
2010 - 2012
So here's my main point: Much of Obama's dirty work is already done. What's left for him to do ... energy and healthcare ... and that'll be settled within a few months. Even without energy and healthcare, Obama has already put us on a path to perdition. It's hard to see a scenario where Republicans can meaningfully reverse this by gaining control of Congress in 2010. Obama will just hang in his bunker until 2012.
Link, over
By Elise, at
Sat Jun 13, 05:43:00 PM:
It sounds like what Murphy is saying is to push the traditionally Republican ideas of fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, and smaller government while going Democrat on the social issues. In other words, he thinks most Americans are fiscally conservative and socially liberal or at least moderate.
I think he's probably right but I have two problems with his prescription. First, I'm not sure how much credibility the GOP has on the fiscal side. TARP springs to mind, of course, but even before that Republicans didn't seem averse to pork barrel projects and government subsidies. They only started squawking when giving money to companies was linked to controlling those companies. It's pretty hard to explain why you're fine with giving my money to, say, ADM but would vehemently oppose any attempt by the government to tell ADM what to do.
Second, some of the social issues he wants Republicans to soften up on are ones that people believe in very deeply. I take a moderate position on abortion and on same-sex marriage but I'm absolutely opposed to legalizing illegal aliens. It would be extraordinarily difficult for me to set aside my convictions on that point. I imagine it would be even more difficult for people who oppose abortion to set aside their convictions. I don't know how it's possible to resolve that problem.
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 07:31:00 PM:
I've been a republican from the very start. I was a loyal party member.
I will not be voting republican anymore. The first Bush I, No new taxes and his globalization policies ended my enthusiasm for the party and George Bush II buried them a mile below the ground.
The last eight years of Republican rule disabused me of any thing good of the Republican party. It is not conservative, it is not principled, they don't have a clue what they are.
Demography is destiny. The GOP is over. It is buried. Rest in Hell. America is finished. It's now a turd world banana republic. It is not following the GOP into hell. Good riddance to it all.
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 07:34:00 PM:
It should read: "It is now following the GOP into hell."
By , at
Sat Jun 13, 10:30:00 PM:
To WLindsayWheeler from Link.
What I expect will happen -- it's just a question of when -- is that huge swaths of us will wake up and realize that government promises are hollow. I'm 52 but don't ever expect that I'll get a dime from Social Security / Medicare, as I'm over-educated enough to see the train wreck coming. But here I am paying in ... double that as I'm self-employed. Obama won't cry over me, and I don't expect him to ... but I find it immoral that our younger working people -- rich and poor, all stripes -- are in the same boat as I. Everyone in our political class -- both sides of the aisle -- knows this and is complicit -- as the CBO/GAO have been issuing scathing reports on this for more than a decade.
This has been talked about for awhile, but the day of reckoning is near. People hate paying taxes .. they hate being ripped of even more. As soon as a critical mass figures this out, wait for the fireworks.
George W Bush doubled down with the prescription drug benefit, so you can't say it's just Democrats. p.s. to the "true defenders of Republicanism" here -- McCain fought this ... I can't get my head around how deluded some of you are.
In my youth, I actually had my Social Security benefits legislated away -- so I know well that our social benefits schemes have no moral foundation. My parents died young, so under the rules myself and siblings should have gotten payments through college. It would have helped three kids raise an eight-year old.
"The Republican party left me" has been my mantra here. I'm obviously riffing on Reagan's old line about the Democrats. All is not lost ... even though Republicans have lost independents, Catholics, Hispanics, libertarians, small business owners, and the young. Am I missing anyone?
We are and will be a wealthy nation. But I can't see how we don't have a purely "how do we finance government" crisis at some point in the next decade that results in a major political realignment. Ironically, Obama is only making that more certain. Painful as it may be, we may better off for facing it sooner. This is solvable.
The young are a factor here. As I've posted here before, our young may be the most selfish group of people in history -- I say that in a good way ... does that mean I'm a Randian. I fully expect that our young will vote to put me on an iceflow, God love them.
Folks like Rush-Cheney and even Palin are just a lot of noise right now. They're irrelevant. So too is the Republican party, unless they play to this. If they don't, we'll see the once-in-a-century party sea change.
Articles like this from Time are also irrelevant -- I would have thought that only the good journalists were left. In June 2009! -- they're writing that the Republicans have a Hispanic problem. How do you spell No Shit!
Link, over
By , at
Sun Jun 14, 12:41:00 AM:
Well, you may be right, but I suspect the wheels are coming off the bus for the Dems also. We are out of money, and whether we see socialized medicine or not, I suspect that the majority of Americans know that we cannot afford it. Taxes are going to go way up, including for the 95% of Americans Obama says are getting a haircut, and the 45% who don't pay a thing. And, sooner or later, the shit's going to hit the fan, and with Obama's foreign policy, we are going to have more terrorism here, and there's going to be more war abroad. Maybe we will even see a draft, which I doubt will make the D team very popular.
Voter turnout last November was actually low, and I think it's because we ran an assclown in McCain. If the GOP shows up, and if they have to, are willing to stuff the ballot box like ACORN, we might see a turn of events sooner than the doomsayers think.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sun Jun 14, 03:16:00 AM:
"Mike Murphy: "Young voters need to see a GOP that is more socially libertarian, particularly toward gay rights." "
This one statement alone is irrefutable proof that Murphy doesn't know WTF he is talking about. California is now the bluest of blue states, voting overwhelmingly for BO, but it also voted for Proposition 8 that banned gay marriage. I live in the ultra-liberal SF Bay Area, and before the election I saw a street corner steadily manned by supporters of Prop 8. Not a single one was white.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Jun 14, 10:26:00 AM:
Wheeler: 'I've been ideologically offended, fuck my country.'
Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. Just aren't enough Catholic monarchists here for you I guess.
Back to the OP, if this guy is a GOP strategist then it's no wonder the Republicans are sucking.
"It was a huge shock to the GOP when Barack Obama won Republican Indiana last year. The bigger news was how he did it. Latino voters delivered the state. Exit polls showed that they provided Obama with a margin of more than 58,000 votes in a state he carried by a slim 26,000 votes. That's right, GOP, you've entered a brave new world ruled by Latino Hoosiers, and you're losing."
This is retarded. A whopping 5% of Indiana's population is Hispanic. 83% are Caucasian, 17.5% more than the national average. But this guy just decides that he's going to label the Latinos as the deciding factor. Why? Had 26,000 more whites or blacks or women from among all races voted the other way, it would have made the difference. There's nothing special about Hispanic voters that makes them the deciding factor here.
It's a shitty piece of evidence that casts doubt on his whole point. I think he just wanted to say 'Latino Hoosiers' and try to sound clever.
By , at
Sun Jun 14, 11:35:00 AM:
Dawnfire said, "I think he just wanted to say 'Latino Hoosiers' and try to sound clever." That is probably correct. Anyone who believes the Republican Party needs more race based politics in order to survive doesn't know the Republican Party I belong to.
There must be many reasons why our government felt is was important to flood our communities with millions of illegal immigrants. It would be nice to get honest answers from some of Nancy Pelosi's "Culture of Corruption" to let us know why this was done. Without any accurate data as to why illegal immigration was forced on the American people it is difficult to trust anything they say.
By , at
Sun Jun 14, 06:55:00 PM:
Demography is destiny. You've got to understand that and what demography is the majority--that will define the culture.
You don't get it. It is not just the basis of voting. Culture defines politics. The mass of supposedly "hispanic" immigration both legal and illegal is nothing more than Aztec/Mayans. They are an indegenious people. These mexicans, guatamaleans are like huge armies of American Indians---they are just like American Indians. They may speak "Spanish" but their blood is Aztec/Indians. They will be a majority! How is your standard of living going to be passed to your children and grand children, when the country is defined by Aztec/Mayans???????
You're flaming idiots. This is not the Land of the Free, America has become the Land of MORONS.
The minorities will band together, the Asians, Blacks, Hispanics with Jewish Leadership and throttle anything of the European Americans that built this country.
Don't you get it? It's over.
The Republican Party is not, WILL NOT, stand up with balls and stop all immigration or reverse it. It will not stop anchor babies or reverse it. It will not stop the brazilinization of America with the constant miscegenation going on with Black males with white females. Almost every black male in this town I live in has a white female. The Brazilinization of America is afoot. The Negrification of European young males is also going on through MTV.
It is NOT going to stop.
Republicans are chickenshit over race because the people who control the media have made it so.
Immigration is not going to stop. Its over. Kiss it goodbye. Sayanara.
You can not control the immigration, You cannot control the culture. You cannot control the educational establishment which is run by Marxists. You can't stop the miscegenation. You can't stop the Brazilinization of America. You can't stop the Negrification of America
You're emasculated white males cowering under Marxist political correctness and globalization.
You've LOST! Give it up.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Jun 15, 09:56:00 AM:
What, you're out of the hospital already Mr. von Brunn? You're a tough old bastard.
When I was in the Army, I knew a Honduran, a Nicaraguan, and several Mexicans. They had all immigrated here, a couple of them under questionable circumstances. And they were all Republicans.
So why don't you piss off to the same exile-from-polite-company in which Chambers lives and cease telling other people what they are and what they think?
By , at
Mon Jun 15, 01:57:00 PM:
As immigrants, Hispanics are a lot like the 19th century Irish. They have potential to be great citizens -- many already are. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a higher participation rate in US military service than most other demographic slices. Anyone want to bet on hispanic youth versus Ivy League grads?
We do have a Mexican border problem -- something that's been mishandled by government at all levels. But when the likes of Rush talk about the border problem, it's code for the message WLindsayWheeler just delivered -- that spics suck and they should all be deported. Republicans will have a hard time winning the White House without getting at least 40% of the Hispanic vote. As long as Rush looks like he's a leader of the party -- that will never happen.
Link, over
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Jun 15, 04:00:00 PM:
Subj: Limbaugh family
Rush Limbaugh isn't a racist, Link.
Rush comes from a fine Cape Girardeau (Missouri) family. Rush's grandfather was a member of the Missouri State Legislature and president of the Missouri Bar. Rush's father was a successful lawyer and a fighter pilot in the China-Burma-India theater during WWII. Rush's uncle was a judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Rush's cousin currently is a judge in the same court. Rush's brother David is a successful lawyer, author, and political commentator.
About 15 years ago the Limbaugh law firm (Cape Girardeau, Missouri) handled a case for one of my companies. Nice people. They did an outstanding job.
Web site for the Limbaugh law firm:
http://www.limbaughlaw.com/
By , at
Mon Jun 15, 06:52:00 PM:
Dawnfire,
50 years ago it was done, Dawnfire!!!
OPERATION WETBACK---Google it.
Operation Wetback was a 1954 successful project of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to remove about three million illegal immigrants from the southwestern United States. It focused on Mexican nationals.
Nature doesn't care what you think Dawnfire---the Latin poet Horace remarked a long time ago---"Throw out nature with a pitchfork, and she will return". You can't flee, ignore, disregard Nature.
"Blood is thicker than water".
You are consigning your grandchildren to persecuted minority status and even worse things. One thing the Hispanic knows that you liberals don't---Blood is thicker. They may smile now, but they will have the last laugh. They will control it. They will marry your daughters---while Western Civilization disappears. You are consigning your own kinsmen a slow suicidal death.
They will get and have their vengeance. Nature will have her way and loyalty to blood will win out everytime.
I've been to Mexico, have you? Go live there if you think it is so great.
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 07:57:00 AM:
To DEC:
Rush may not be a rascist, but on air he plays one. Rush is a talent -- he changed radio forever. Part of his shtick is to be provocative -- Imus and Stern do the same. They should all be as provocative as they want.
The trouble is that Rush mixes his show with contending to be the de facto leader of the Republican party. It alienates a lot of people -- incuding Hispanics who are a critical voting block. When you add the influence of the religious right, whole large demographic blocks see the Republican party as a club that doesn't real want them. I would fit well with latter-day Goldwater, but that's not what the Republicans have been about for the last decade.
Obama-Axelrod want Rush to be the face of the Republican party for this very reason.
Link, over
By , at
Tue Jun 16, 08:22:00 AM:
To DEC,
I looked up the Limbaugh firm website. Obviously, the Limbaughs were a highly prominent local family. Rush must have been the black sheep of the family for a long time -- the school dropout who took a loser's career in radio.
That reminded me of Bill Gates, who was the son of a prominent Seattle lawyer. The Gates family must have been embarrassed for at least a few years back in the 1970s, making excuses for their Harvard dropout.
Link, again
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Jun 16, 12:31:00 PM:
Link: "Obama-Axelrod want Rush to be the face of the Republican party for this very reason."
Yes, and you seem to have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.
In the future I would encourage you to refute Rush's specific arguments without generalized personal attacks. Often--but not always--that's much harder to do.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Jun 16, 12:45:00 PM:
P.S. Rush doesn't speak for the Republican Party. But he does speak for about 20 million carpenters, truck drivers, traveling salesmen and other hard-working folks. And most of them don't have Confederate-flag stickers on the bumpers of their vehicles.
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 02:03:00 PM:
Link response to DEC: " Rush doesn't speak for the Republican Party."
I disagree -- he does. Rush is a big problem for the Republican party. He may cost them the Presidency in 2012.
American politics has often been about building coalitions, sometimes surprising ones. Our parties haven't been defined by class and ethnicity as rigidly as European parties have. The need to build a winning coalition out of our remarkable national diversity has tended to moderate our parties and push them to the middle.
In the last 15 years or so we've gotten away from this -- the Republican party especially. Since FDR the Republicans have always started at a disadvantage because their "big tent" is smaller than that of the Democrats. Also, the Republican message is a harder sell ... "cut out fat, exercise regularly, you'll feel better in the long run." The Democrats give away Twinkies.
The Republicans actually have a hard time getting into the White House. Nixon won in 1968 because the Democrats self-destructed over Vietnam. Reagan beat Carter because Jimmy was a fiasco. Bush only eked out a win over Gore.
Once in office, Bush & Co took the Republican big tent and made it smaller. Rush would make it smaller still. When I voted for Bush in 2000 I thought I was getting relative fiscal prudence, no foreign adventurism and some commitment to keeping government small. I also expected relative competence in execution. I didn't think I was getting a bunch of bungling ideologues looking for a mission. Once in office, Bush & Co found ways to drive whole swaths of people out of the Republican party and to energize the most radical elements of the Democratic party ... whence Obama. Mission Accomplished, indeed.
My dad was a classic Reagan democrat -- immigrant truck driver turned unionized city bus driver. Uneducated but not stupid. Were he around, I expect that my dad and I would agree about 80% - 90% on political questions. I also think either of us would be in the 80% - 90% range with Rush. I pick my dad for a reason -- although "white" he's closer to the profile of a typical Hispanic. Reagan democrats were critical to Republican's winning the White House in 1968, 1980 and 2000. They were a critical part of Reagan's base in the golden years of recent Republicanism.
Rush is a great radio personality. Part of his shtick is to be hot and controversial. A big part of his audience are blue collar white men (BCWM). BCWM have a reason to be pissed off. No one has been getting screwed more over the last 30 years than BCWM. Their sons will get an even worse deal -- this will affect the daughters too. Rush speaks to this anger. He amplifies it. Politically, BCWM have been getting marginalized. They overlap with the Religious Right block to a degree ... together they're no longer a big enough coalition to win elections except for Congressional seats in some parts of the country. Thus, Bush's making the Republican party smaller has marginalized BCWM even more. They've been put in a corner ....
,,,,
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 02:04:00 PM:
Link, continuing ...
Rush is more than a radio personality -- he wants to be the Republican kingmaker -- but he's not a coalition builder. He may be entertaining to BCWM but politically he's just isolating his radio listeners. I hadn't known about Rush's coming from a family of prominent jurists, until DEC ... it's illuminating. He's a pontificating judge, not a politician.
Rush forced Palin onto the McCain ticket -- but still broke McCain's balls throughout the campaign. I don't think this affected the outcome, but it could have. Rush is a power broker in the party, but an unaccountable rogue one. Early in the campaign he actually said he'd rather have had Hillary or Obama win than McCain.
Even if I agree with Rush 80% of the time -- he'd call me a RINO and not worthy of being in his party. His delivery is intentionally provocative and even nasty. It makes for great radio -- but most Americans would say he's a racist hate mongerer ... even if it it's not really true. That's why Obama & Co are happy for Rush to get airtime as the face of the Republican party. Rush is too conflicted to have this kind of influence. Part of him cares about ratings more.
Expect Rush to push for Palin as the nominee in 2012. Obama will have to be far worse than Carter for her to win in 2012. Palin's no Reagan.
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 06:49:00 PM:
The blurb for the book The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America
"As the 2000 census resoundingly demonstrated, the Anglo-Protestant ethnic core of the United States has all but dissolved. In a country founded and settled by their ancestors, British Protestants now make up less than a fifth of the population. This demographic shift has spawned a "culture war" within white America. While liberals seek to diversify society toward a cosmopolitan endpoint, some conservatives strive to maintain an American ethno-national identity. Eric Kaufmann traces the roots of this culture war from the rise of WASP America after the Revolution to its fall in the 1960s, when social institutions finally began to reflect the nation's ethnic composition."
There it is in a nutshell---destroy the Anglo-Saxon character of America by destroying the racial makeup of America will change the character of this country.
It's over. The Mayan/Aztec/Jewish/African coalition is not going to uphold your Anglo-Saxon standard of living or government. It's over. Goodbye.
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 08:14:00 PM:
Listen folks, Rush Limbaugh is NOT a conservative and neither is the Republican party.
The Republican party at its very inception was progressive and not conservative. It advanced the abolition of slavery---a progressive position. Throughout its history, the voting for the income tax, voting for the Civil Rights Act, it is has always been progressive. It is not conservative never was. George Bush himself proved that with all his progressive policies.
Limbaugh is not a conservative for he calls himself the "Dr. of Democracy". For you dumb yahoos, the word 'conservative' was coined during the French Revolution for those who OPPOSED democracy! Rush Limbaugh is hemmed in by political correctness. He adheres to it. To say, "I am not a racist" is adhering to political correctness.
He is in it to make money. That is all. There are no principles that make up American psuedo-conservative thought.
By , at
Wed Jun 17, 08:23:00 PM:
Bill Clinton gets it and is proud of it!!!!
"""""In a speech a couple of days ago to a Muslim activist group, Bill Clinton said that the impending loss of America’s white majority is a positive development. He also spoke approvingly of the rise of Islam, Hinduism, and other religions which are reducing the Christian majority and weakening the powerful Jews in our nation. He drew large applause when he praised Obama’s Cairo speech."""""
Bill Clinton gets it-----Why don't you? Culture defines politics and race and religion define culture. It is that simple and if you can't defend and uphold the variables----well---you lose.
