Posted on 11/27/2004 10:21:36 PM PST by SmithL
By any measure, President Bush and his fellow Republicans had a good night on Nov. 2. The question now is whether the election results set the GOP up for a good decade -- or more.
As some partisan operatives and political scientists see it, Bush's reelection victory and simultaneous Republican gains in the House and Senate suggest that an era of divided government and approximate parity between the major parties is giving way to an era of GOP dominance. By this light, the Republican advantage on the most important issues of the day -- the fight against terrorism, most of all -- and the party's uncontested control of the federal government leave it in a position to win long-term loyalty among key voter blocs and craft an enduring majority.
If so, 2004 would qualify as what academics call a "realignment election."
Among a core of political analysts, nearly every presidential victory is scrutinized for evidence of an incipient realignment: a shift in voter allegiances from one party to the other in ways that can shape politics far into the future. Most predictions of realignments over the years have proved premature, and there are plenty of skeptics this time. These people argue that Bush's relatively narrow victory and the Republican victories in Congress should be taken at face value -- a close election in a time of war that broke in favor of the incumbent party -- and nothing more.
The realignment debate brewing since Nov. 2 is more than an academic parlor game. If Republicans have indeed seized the upper hand in national politics in a fundamental way, the implication for Democrats is that radical changes in their electoral strategies, and even issue positions, are needed to become competitive again.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
interesting idea, but could it just be that this election was a reaffirmation that this country is indeed patriotic and at its core conservative? just a thought....
Reduce the size of government. Get government spending under control. Reduce taxes. Reform education so that it is no longer indoctrination. Secure the borders and apply the rule of law to native and immigrant alike. Win the War on Terror and come home.
Is that a pipe dream?
'the implication for Democrats is that radical changes in their electoral strategies, and even issue positions, are needed to become competitive again."
Duh. They pay this guy for this?
If we don't do anything about Social Security it will go bankrupt. I don't see how transforming it weakens it.
It only weakens it if a Republican suggests it. If Clinton, Gore, or Kerry had been pushing it, it would have been a bold move. Of course, Gore at one time suggested something slightly different. Namely, he suggested that the government take the money and invest it in the stock market. This would have given the Federal Government complete control over all companies. The government would have been the biggest investor in the market, and could have crashed any company by simply investing heavily for a little while, then dumping the stock if a company got out of line. Even Walmart and Microsoft would have been gnats to them.
He makes a decent point. Up until now, all the Rats have been trying to figure out how to repackage the same old line Marxism they've been selling since FDR into something that the public will buy. None of them has even remotely considered changing their positions. Of course, they won't actually change positions, they'll just pretend.
No kidding! SS was a brilliant idea from the Democrats' point of view. It has kept older people, who would otherwise vote for a more conservative party, in the Democrat camp for nearly eighty years now.
Without SS, the Democrats' base would be cracked; that's why they scream like the Republicans are planning a mass murder when any talk of SS reform is undertaken.
Another important constituency to take aim at are public school teachers' unions. They are a Democrat base. Not only are they reliable Democrat voters, working for the government as they do, but since they have summers off they are an invaluable resource in doing campaign work.
Look for the Bush Administration to take aim at these constituencies in a second term.
The thing we have to do, is to try to assess our real position by "subtracting out" the influence of the war.
Would we have won the election if we weren't at war?
I don't think there's any answer to that admittedly rhetorical question, but just asking it is an important reality check - and at a future election where the war is no longer an issue, we need to be positioned to equally clobber the Demonrats despite not having the "security" issue upon which to run.
If we manage to "win" the war to the extent that Americans once again feel secure, any number of them may vote Demonrat, idiotically enough, just as a gesture of "putting the war behind them". Such a reactionary sentiment got Churchill thrown out as soon as WW II was over and it could happen to us too. If we let it happen, we will have only ourselves to blame, having the example of history to consider.
In order to ensure that this realignment is permanent, we need to use our present position of power during the next 2 (hopefully the next 4) years to make sure that the American people support us for a lot more reasons than just the war.
At MINIMUM -- a decade.
Most likely -- 20 years.
Very probable -- 40-50 years.
A certainty -- the self-implosion of the Democratic Party.
Assuming the Republican leadership doesn't shoot itself in the foot and alienate its voter base. But they did this in 1992, again in 1996 and yet again by letting Specter head up the SJC.
The brilliance of the plan to privatiize SS is its simplicity. We are hearing about plans to allow, say, people under age 30 to self direct invest, say, a "small portion" of their SS funds..well..once in place, the demand will grow rapidly to expand the % and the age...it's the proverbial camel's nose...
Re the "re-alignment" theory..2008 will be the year we finish off the Clintons. What is NOT pointed out is that it is also the last presidential election this decade. We then have a census, and re-apportionment....and if demographic trends contnue..another 7-10 Electoral votes will move from blue to red states....making the EV math much harder for the Dems..
Wolfson is right ( hee hee hee) the rats should NEVER change what they're doing ( hee hee hee).
You're right. The author's talking out his @$$, and clearly doesn't understand Social(ist) Security, or the problems with it.
51% is just that, a razor thin majority. We have to reform the education system or none of the fixes will be long term.
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