Free Republic

Despite the endless verbiage expended trying to explain America’s remarkably stable division into Republican and Democratic regions, almost no one has mentioned the obscure demographic factor that correlated uncannily with states’ partisan splits in both 2000 and 2004. Clearly, the issues that so excite political journalists had but a meager impact on most voters. For example, the press spent the last week of the 2004 campaign in a tizzy over the looting of explosives at Iraq’s al-Qaqaa munitions dump, but, if voters even noticed al-Qaqaa, their reactions were predetermined by their party loyalty. The 2000 presidential election, held during peace...

Republicans Outbreed Us, Democrats Fret http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/10/114946.shtml Democrats' endless and often clueless stewing over the GOP's latest election triumphs just keeps getting funnier. Have you heard of "natalists"? They’re the left's new boogeyman. These curious Middle American creatures, it seems, care more about having a family than a summer home in the Hamptons. They tend to have conservative moral values. And ... they're reproducing! Now the media elitists are examining this phenomenon of flyover country as if it's some sort of exotic species that must be dissected, though perhaps not exterminated. The New York Times' David Brooks frets: "They are having...

Democrats' endless and often clueless stewing over the GOP's latest election triumphs just keeps getting funnier. Now they’re worried, with some justification, that fertile young conservatives are replacing dried-up old liberals. Have you heard of "natalists"? They’re the left's new boogeyman. These curious Middle American creatures, it seems, care more about having a family than a summer home in the Hamptons. They tend to have conservative moral values. And ... they're reproducing! Now the media elitists are examining this phenomenon of flyover country as if it's some sort of exotic species that must be dissected, though perhaps not exterminated. The...

In the face of the right's 2004 election victories and shrieking triumphalism, the Democrats picked Harry Reid of Nevada, a pro-life, pro-war, anti-flag-burning buddy of President Bush, to be their leader in the Senate. One of Reid's colleagues, Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, had this to say about the new minority leader, who is taking over from Karl Rove's drive-by victim Tom Daschle: "When the conservative talk show hosts start saying bad things about Harry Reid, it will be like attacking Mr. Rogers."This is the Democrats' idea of mounting an opposition to the rightwing takeover of all three branches...

Heretofore, the US Senate was a formidable bump in the road for those defending womb babies. But no longer. Thank you, Mr. President, for bringing in all those long lines of voters who cast their ballots for you in November. Thank you, America, for changing the Congressional voting chemistry. Thank you, America, for standing alongside the biblical ethic rather than handing the nation over to J F Kerry, prime endorser of womb baby killing. Thank you, America, for keeping Ms. T out of the White House for she would have become an arch supporter of womb baby killing, as was...

The news has been filled with giddy Republican talk of the 2004 triumph as a realigning election — one that ushers in, as Newsweek put it, "political dominance that could last for decades, as FDR's New Deal did." The Republicans are living in a fool's paradise. It's true that over the next few years Republicans will have enormous power. In the long run, however, they're doomed. Doomed, I tells ya! Doooomed! OK, I may have gotten slightly carried away there. Perhaps "doomed" overstates things a tad. But President Bush's political formula does carry the seeds of its own demise. The...

Now that President Bush has been re-elected to a second term, Republicans are already looking ahead to the midterm Senate races in 2006 and dreaming of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority. Some say it's a dream that could come true. Five of the 17 Senate Democrats whose terms expire in 2006 are from states that voted for Bush. If they stay in the Republican column two years from now, the GOP could reach that magic 60 number. For that to happen, however, Republicans have to shore up states where they may be vulnerable. Of the 33 Senate seats that will be...

Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. But the greater their power, the more they have focused on one of its few limits: the Senate filibuster. They are so concerned that Democrats will use the filibuster to block a few far-right judicial nominees that they are talking about ending one of the best-known checks and balances in government. Rather than rewrite the rules of government for a power grab, Republicans should look for ways to work with Democrats, who still represent nearly half the country. The filibuster is almost as old as America itself....

All of the "Red State, Blue State" talk is nonsense, as are the discussions on Blue State secession, the needless worrying by Conservatives, and the whistling past the graveyard by Leftists praying for a miracle. The Election is over and the result is a clear, decisive victory for the Republicans. When the Congress is sworn in next January, Red Nation will be officially in power.There is a reason so many of the Lefties have lost their heads. It's funny, really. Their era is over and they know it. The decades of dominance from FDR on down started to turn our...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - The once mighty Southern Democrats are an increasingly endangered species on Capitol Hill. In the new Congress, only 4 of the 22 senators from the 11 states of the old Confederacy will be Democrats, the lowest number since Reconstruction; as recently as 1990, 15 of those Southern senators were Democrats. In the House, the Democrats suffered smaller but still significant losses in Texas, where a Republican redistricting plan took down a group of veteran lawmakers, including the paradigmatic Southern conservative: Representative Charles W. Stenholm, a 13-term deficit hawk and longtime leader of the Blue Dog Democrats,...

KARL ROVE SAID LAST YEAR that the question of realignment--whether Republicans have at last become the majority party--would be decided by the election of 2004. And it has. Even by the cautious reckoning of Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, Republicans now have both an operational majority in Washington (control of the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives) and an ideological majority in the country (51 percent popular vote for a center-right president). They also control a majority of governorships, a plurality of state legislatures, and are at rough parity with Democrats in the number of state legislators....

WASHINGTON - Newt Gingrich is preparing to unfurl a new Contract with America. The last time he did so, the ideas catapulted Republicans to a majority in the House for the first time in a half century. Now the former House speaker is plotting a way to keep conservatives in power "for a generation or more." Yet it is Democrats who are being urged to look to him for inspiration as they contemplate their future in the minority. "A 21st Century Contract with America" is the subject of a book scheduled for release in January.

President Bush says winning elections is refreshing. And losing them? Bitter medicine, indeed. Every political concession speech is a tale of heartache. Over time, though, comes a "you win some; you lose some" equanimity that allows even the most disappointed to go on--to the next campaign, the next candidate, the next cause. But after their dismal showing this year, congressional Democrats face a difficult future. In a painful replay of 2002, they didn't just lose some; they lost almost everything. "I just want to die," confessed one Democratic congressional aide, "or stay drunk for a long time."It's no wonder....

As Senator Kerry rightly noted in his concession speech, now is a time for Americans to come together, accept the results of a hard-fought election and work to heal the wounds of personal bitterness and partisan division. President Bush now has a clearer mandate, having won both the popular vote as well as an Electoral College victory free of litigation. On a practical level, we have a real chance for Congress to move past the relative gridlock of the past few years and govern more effectively. Beyond providing Republicans with a larger majority of 55 votes in the Senate, yesterday’s...

Dear FReepers, I have put together analysis of 2006 Senate Races. Bottom Line: We look STRONG! There are many more retirements on the Democratic side (Feinstein, Byrd, Kohl, Bingaman, and maybe even Ted Kennedy) versus less on the GOP side (Frist plus Lugar, Lott, and Hatch are rumored to be mulling retirement). There are also a lot of other factors: Republicans (15) Solid Win - George Allen of Virginia – Allen’s seat is very safe Win - Conrad Burns of Montana – Democrat Brian Schweitzer gave him a run for his money in 2000, but Schweitzer is the only prominent...

When the press misses a story By John McCormick the deputy editor of the Tribune editorial page November 9, 2004 The four political memos landed at the home office on Sept. 26, a Monday. One was headlined "Sensing a Bloodbath" and warned, "[W]e hope you do appreciate the depth of the antipathy" toward liberal members of Congress. A second, titled "Incumbent Bash," confided that two supposedly secure congressional leaders were imperiled and added that "a lot of other Democrats are in trouble." The memos--their identical timing was serendipitous--were bundled with other story suggestions from bureaus around the U.S. and delivered...

The exodus of rural Georgia conservative Democrats started on Monday, even before their caucus met to elect new leaders. "If you are in the minority and are from rural Georgia, you are not going to have much say in the legislative process," said state Rep. Chuck Sims of Douglas, who was elected as a Democrat to his fifth term last Tuesday. On Monday, he joined the new Republican majority in the Georgia House of Representatives. "You are not in the game if you are in a minority party, and rural Georgia can't afford that," he repeated. State Rep. Hinson Mosley...

Not everything came up roses for Republicans on Election Day. Republicans have much to crow about after last week's election. They have solid control of the White House and both houses of Congress for the first time since before the Depression. But this is still a closely divided country, and while the GOP won the major league pennants, Democrats did well in the AAA league of politics, the state legislatures. Republicans have to pay attention not only to where they are gaining votes, but also to the states and demographic groups where they are losing them. Last week, more than...

Life After Daschle Will a 55-seat majority be enough to end Senate obstructionism? BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL Friday, November 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST The pressure builds on those red-state Senators up for election in 2006. Is New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman going to vote down a Miguel Estrada nomination, with a state home to the largest proportion of Hispanics in the country? Look too for Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota to be heeding the Ghost of Daschle's Past. The GOP's best shot for leveraging this fear of home state voters is...

The future is Republican Bush has policies that could keep his party in power for decades, says Michael Barone Last week I wrote that America was a 49% nation, equally divided between the parties, as indeed it was in elections for the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2000 and in the 2000 presidential election. I was wrong. George W Bush beat John Kerry by 51% to 48%. That does not sound like a large margin — but it is when you consider the circumstances. Bush was not running, as most winning incumbents do, in a time of peace and...