"Voter ID Laws Are the Last Gasp of a Fading GOP Strategy" By Kevin Drum at Mother Jones

[applegrove]

Voter ID Laws Are the Last Gasp of a Fading GOP Strategy

By Kevin Drum at Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/voter-id-laws-are-last-gasp-fading-gop-strategy

"SNIP...........................................

I wrote about the long-standing hope of Democrats that demographic changes are working in their favor and will soon create a durable national Dem majority. There are several moving parts to this theory, but the two big ones are (a) young people are trending Democratic, and (b) the Dem-leaning nonwhite population is getting bigger and bigger. As far as I know, Republicans don't really deny that these things are happening. After all, the trend in the youth vote jumps out in every poll, and the growing nonwhite share of the population is regularly front-page news. George Bush and Karl Rove, who desperately wanted to pass a comprehensive immigration bill in 2006 in order to stanch the flow of Hispanic votes into the Democratic column, knew perfectly well how important this was.

So what's the Republican response to all this? They have two options:

1.Start to move leftward on social issues, especially gay marriage, in order to win back their share of the youth vote; tone down the anti-immigration rhetoric from the tea partiers; and stop tolerating casual racism among their core supporters.

or

2.Double down on the demographic groups who already support them. This is basically the South, angry white men, the rich, and the elderly.

Eventually, they might be forced to adopt Option 1, but for now they seem to have abandoned the idea of pushing back against their base (as Democrats eventually did in the late '80s), and instead have gone all in on Option 2. There are two elements to this. The first is to push ever harder for higher turnout among the Fox News set. That was pretty successful in 2010, when the "enthusiasm gap" powered a Republican landslide that year.

...............................................SNIP"

[struggle4progress]

1. I'm paranoid enough to expect we may suffer from a very long and dark age

if the Republicans successfully consolidate power in the fashion they have attempted in recent years

[Kteachums]

2. ID's need to be provided to folks for free if required to vote.

If these requirements for photo ID's are going to be required they need to provide free IDs to people and free BC. When you apply for a BC it is $20.00. I know because a friend of mine just did that to get his WV driver's license renewed. I think about some of the places where my previous students lived. When I was campaigning for Obama I went to visit these places of poverty. These people wouldn't be able to afford to pay for the BC or the ID card. They all come with costs. It is very unfair for states to be requiring this without aide or help for the poor.

Can't we start petitions in these states asking for help for the poor to be able to acquire these BC or ID cards?

[snot]

3. You know, since Cheney's "last gasp" of the Iraqi insurgents,

that phrase just doesn't have the same effect for me.

[Ruby the Liberal]

4. They may be a last gasp,

but they are effective in disenfranchising voters in urban areas and the elderly.

[AlinPA]

6. They have been effective in taking over the state government in PA.

[midnight]

5. K&R