Republican Forecast: Cloudy

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Republican Forecast: Cloudy
Party's Woes Go Beyond Bush as It Bleeds Support Among Key Groups
By JACKIE CALMES
September 5, 2007; Page A8

WASHINGTON -- For Republicans hoping the 2008 campaign will bring a fresh start after the troubled tenure of President Bush, there are sobering signs: Evidence indicates that the party's problems with the American electorate are much bigger than the president and won't go away when he leaves office. Recent voter surveys, including private polling done by a leading Republican strategist, suggest a broader erosion of Republicans' appeal. In particular, three groups crucial to Mr. Bush's goal of a "permanent Republican majority" are drifting away: younger voters, Hispanics and independents.

The reasons include the Iraq war, conservatives' emphasis on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research, and a party-led backlash against illegal immigrants that has left many Hispanic and Asian-American citizens feeling unwelcome. The upshot is that Republicans face structural problems that stem from generational, demographic and societal changes and aren't easily overcome without changing fundamental party positions.

Longtime Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio this year conducted an exhaustive survey of his party's voters to update one he did in 1997. He found that the party is significantly older and more conservative than it was a decade ago. That, he says, suggests a Republican Party increasingly at risk of being seen "as very old-fashioned, very old and not in touch with the realities of today's society." Those problems contributed to Republicans' loss of control of Congress last year. Overall, though, Republicans' defections to date haven't necessarily been the Democratic Party's gains. Many renegade Republicans instead are declaring independence of either party and becoming swing voters.

(snip)


The forces now at work already have hurt Republicans in Mr. Reagan's California -- home to many Hispanics, social liberals, the young and those always trying to be young. Now Democrats are making inroads in other once reliably Republican states -- among them Florida, Virginia, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and even Mr. Bush's Texas.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118895742058917747.html (subscription)

[Vincardog]

1. Mr. Bush's Texas my a$$. jr is a Connecticut cowgirl.

[UrbScotty]

2. Please don't insult cowgirls!

J/K!

[Superman Returns]

3. Moral Issues are Dead

Remember how after the 2004 election, the elite media and their faithful pundits decried that Democrats had to embrace religion and move to the right on moral issues in order to connect with middle America?

WRONG!

[Berry Cool]

6. Just goes to show you

Some of these "experts" just look at what happened and then come up with an "explanation" to fit the bill, rather than truly understanding what went on.

If tomorrow every grocery in America suddenly sold out of orange sherbet, they'd say there's been a trend in the air for a long time toward an American obsession with eating orange sherbet at every meal.

[mahina]

4. ...with a chance of meatballs."

Classic kids' book, and an appropriate headline in this case.

[cleveramerican]

5. Arrogance and incompetence are a toxic mix

as if we didn't already know that.

[Perry Logan]

7. Nothing like a little Republican rule to turn America blue.