Posted on 01/18/2004 7:35:06 PM PST by Texas_Dawg
It's the latest political cliche: this is a divided country. Or this is a polarized country. Or this, if you prefer, is a nation that has been split since the 2000 election between the heartland "red states" that supported George W. Bush and the Northeast and western "blues" (map, below) that went for Al Gore. Ipso facto, 2004 is going to be a really close election.
But wait. While the political cognoscenti have been frantically trying to handicap the Democrats--first in Iowa, and now busily recalibrating their prognostications for the New Hampshire primary--something quantifiable has actually been happening among voters. They're divided all right, but while Democrats have been openly attacking one another, Republicans have been making steady subterranean progress on Democratic turf--in statehouses, on the issues, among swing voters--all while solidifying their party. Combine that with the GOP's dominance in Congress and the national split starts teetering--toward Republicans. "Yes, the country is evenly divided," presidential pollster Matthew Dowd told me. "But there's a possession arrow in our direction."
How so? An extensive Gallup survey shows that 45.2 percent of voters lean toward the Democrats and 45.5 percent lean toward the Republicans. But the numbers don't tell the whole story. First, there's the extraordinary unity among Republicans when it comes to George W. Bush: They don't just like him; they love him. By some accounts, more than 90 percent of Republicans approve of the way President Bush is doing his job. When Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996, his approval rating among Democrats was 79 percent.
Yet the GOP advantage is more subtle. It's about cultivating the undecided. Republicans, by and large, agree with Bush on Iraq, fighting terrorism, and tax cuts. But recent GOP efforts to woo seniors with a prescription drug plan and Latinos with an immigration plan are truly base broadening. The Democrats, meanwhile, are deeply divided. According to a CBS News survey, a majority opposed the Iraq war, but 43 percent supported it. They're also split about the civil liberties issues involved in fighting the war against terror. With the Democratic presidential hopefuls spending so much time fighting over whether to repeal all or some of President Bush's tax cuts, is it any wonder their voters are divided on that, too?
Substantial inroads. All of which leads to the question: Are Republicans poaching on the Democratic base? Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman notes that the GOP has registered 500,000 more Republicans since the last election. Bush pollster Dowd argues that Republicans have made substantial inroads with Latinos and with white union voters who were once Democrats. Even Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg--who has a new book out called The Two Americas--admits that Democrats have lost their southern stronghold. But the fight isn't over. Who wins in a country evenly divided between married and unmarried voters (who vote differently)? Who wins in a country where a quarter of the voting population is minority? It's a new world out there, with one slight GOP advantage: While the Republicans are challenging the Democrats for their base, the Democrats have had no such success with Republicans. Married white men, evangelicals, and the wealthy are still happily Republican. "We are competing for their base," says Dowd, "but they're not competing for ours."
So it's no surprise that the Republicans are making some headway in Al Gore's blue states. When Newt Gingrich took over the House in 1994, he bragged about an imminent national Republican realignment. Didn't happen. Now Republicans are whispering about what a key strategist calls a "rolling alignment." The evidence: In 1992, 59 percent of state legislators were Democrats. Today, it's 49 percent. "The red states are getting redder," Mehlman is fond of saying, "and the blue states are turning purple." And what about Congress? No one is predicting a Democratic takeover anytime soon. "The Democrats' best hope is for divided government," Dowd says. "We'd like a unified one."
They're working on it.
Destroying the Democrats by becoming them. Will the "other conservative issues" include Hillarycare? It's a short step further.
"are you going to be paying more money this year from your paycheck for this hike?"
Since the costs of the largest new entitlement since LBJ are not yet being incurred, I am not paying more money. Yet. However, spending is only funded through taxes or deficits. Either way, they get my money by reducing my paycheck or inflating the currency reducing the value of my assets. There is no government spending program that I do not pay for. So, this entitlement is precisely "more money...from your paycheck for this hike."
"Or are you paying the federal government increasingly less money under GWB?" If you are paying less, why do you care?
Dr: "Sorry Mr. Jones, we had to cut off your right leg to save you." Jones: "Thanks for saving my life, doc, but I had a brain tumor. Why'd you cut off the leg?"
I'm paying less temporarily. With massive new entitlements like this for me to fund, I will have to work several additional years before retiring. That theft of my life is not acceptable. Ever.
Now that I've answered your questions, please answer me one. What part of this program do you like: A $2,000,000,000,000.00 perpetual entitlement, shown to be disliked by its beneficiaries, that takes money from poor young working people and gives it to rich retired people?
The only argument I see from you so far is that we defeat Democrats by becoming liberal and selling out conservatism.
Do you hate Ronald Reagan too? His deficits were going to destroy us all as well, remember.
With massive new entitlements like this for me to fund, I will have to work several additional years before retiring. That theft of my life is not acceptable. Ever.
Huh? Sorry, this is not true.
What I like about the program is that it was a smart political move to keep GWB in office and continue to move the political spectrum to the right (as it has in the past 2 decades). Once things are more conservative, the spending can be cut (as it was with a Democrat President having to pass welfare reform after years of Democrats hating this idea).
It puts the "Blue States" in play and from an electoral college standpoint it is better to be at 49% nationwide than 90% in half the states and 12% in the other half (Al Gore's problem).
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