The Republican Ice Age
Mike Murphy, the Republican campaign strategist delivers the bad news to the GOP.
Despairing Republican friends have been asking me what I think we should do to rebuild the GOP and begin our certain and inevitable comeback. My answer disappoints them: "Build an ark."I say this because I've made a career out of counting votes, and 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.
I make it a habit when I'm driving in the morning to tune into Rush Limbaugh for a few minutes. He is getting increasingly spleenful, as if he just woke up to realize he is in a permanent minority and it bugs the hell out of him.
How are we here after two landslide elections of Ronald Reagan? How are we here after the Republican takeover of the House in 1994? "How in the world," we ask ourselves, "can the voters forget?" And the answer is, our side stopped teaching. Our side got wobbly. Our side wanted to make nice with the other guys. Our side thinks that the future is getting the gay marriage vote and the Hispanic vote.
Well actually Rush, what Mike Murphy is saying is that you are totally wrong. Demography is destiny.
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"Demography is destiny."
Especially when you choose to pander almost exclusively to an ever-shrinking demographic, while making overt moves to alienate almost everyone else who might otherwise consider your viewpoints.
June 13, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, when you have a Democratic President cutting hundreds of billions from Medicare and Medicaid, you can understand why conservatives don't need a Republican Party.
June 13, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
A corollary to the last line: demagoguery ain't destiny.
June 13, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Give Limbaugh credit. He asked the right question.
But it was his answer that was wrong. He is assuming, as so many Republicans do, that this is a right-wing nation and that they lost the Presidential election in 2008 because they did not work hard enough to motivate the base and get them to turn out to vote.
Only their assumption is wrong. They were winning because they DID turn out their base and the Democrats did not have a similar effective set of messages and techniques - and with Reagan, the candidate.
Unfortunately for them, their policies as implemented have done what what the Democratic candidates could not do. They turned out the Democrats in opposition. And this IS a center-left nation, not a right-wing one. Only they don't believe that. They have bought their own propaganda.
The Democrats have fielded two outstanding politicians as candidates, Clinton and Obama, but the final difference was the economic disaster that the conservatives and their economic policies have inflicted on this nation. Without the economy, McCain might have had a shot. But where is the connection to "teaching conservatism" in that? That has been used up in the normal turnout, an that turnout has been declining.
If Obama doesn't get health care passed and if (when?) the Recession comes roaring back, the next Presidential election will be a tossup at best. But we and the conservatives all know that.
June 13, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 14, 2009 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Explain, other than through more pure invention.
June 14, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the titular Ice Age global climate change reference, since some on the "right" are trying to say the world is headed pell-mell into an ice age!
June 14, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
9/11 was their ticket into power. The farther we get away from that the less influence they'll have. But make no mistake, their corporate sponsors are way too powerful for the Republican party to disappear.
June 29, 2009 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink