Posted on 11/09/2006 4:58:44 AM PST by Leroy S. Mort
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican Party ceded the center of American politics and its many groups of swing voters to the Democratic Party in the 2006 midterm elections - with predictable results.
The GOP lost the House and the Senate.
Republicans lost badly among independent voters, suburbanites, white Catholics, the middle class and Hispanics - groups it had been courting successfully in recent years, exit polls found.
``The one thing that is so frustrating is when you hear the Karl Roves and Ken Mehlmans talking about focusing on the base because there are no swing voters,'' said GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio, who says there are still plenty of swing voters.
A fourth of voters this year were independents, according to exit polls, and they voted heavily for Democratic candidates.
Fabrizio was referring to Rove, top White House political strategist, and Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Mehlman's spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt, countered that the RNC chairman has been working hard for the last couple of years to expand the party ``to expand the number of swing voters who call themselves Republicans.''
Using a playbook that has served them well over the past few elections, the administration and GOP strategists turned out Republicans and conservatives at the usual levels.
``The Republican base turned out and held,'' said Whit Ayres, a GOP strategist. ``To generate a Republican turnout in this climate was remarkable. ... But for the first time in a decade, independents preferred Democratic over Republican House candidates, this time by 18 points.''
Anger at the Bush administration and its war in Iraq drove part of this shift toward Democrats, exit polls found.
The evaporation of the political center had Republican strategists searching for answers. Many acknowledged that the party is not likely to regain ground with swing voters as long as the war in Iraq drags on. The exit polls found heavy opposition to the war from voters who cast their ballots for Democrats.
``Republicans are going to have to look at how to rebuild this coalition,'' said GOP strategist David Winston.
Some Republicans didn't want to acknowledge publicly that the midterm losses and loss of the political center to the Democrats are very large political problems.
``It comes from mistakenly believing you can own an issue forever - terrorism,'' Fabrizio said. ``It's mistaking voters going along with you on a single issue with a political realignment.''
More than two-thirds of voters said terrorism was very important in their vote on Tuesday, and they divided their support between Democrats and Republicans.
Among the swing groups that tilted heavily toward Democrats:
Independents backed Democrats by 57-39 - after voting for the GOP by 48-45 in 2002.
Moderates backed Democrats by 60-38 - after voting Democratic 53-45 in 2002.
Suburbanites backed Democrats by 50-48 - after voting for the GOP 57-40 in 2002.
Those in the middle class - those who make more than $30,000 a year but less than $75,000 a year - backed Democrats 52-45 after more than half supported the GOP in 2002.
Hispanics backed Democrats 69-30 - after backing Democrats 61-37 in 2002.
The 2006 results come from a national exit poll of 13,208 voters conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
Results for the full sample were subject to sampling error of plus or minus 1 percentage point, higher for subgroups.
The loss of the swing voters and the political center may be only a temporary setback for the GOP.
``It wouldn't surprise me to see them come back and vote for a Republican for president in 2008,'' said Ayres. ``That depends on who's nominated and whether things change in Iraq.''
AP polling director Mike Mokrzycki, AP manager of news surveys Trevor Tompson and AP news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this story.
When Ken "purse strings" Mehlman called me to donate, I gave him heck about pulling the old democrat trick of just trying to scare people.
The entire thing was just like the democrats saying " Republicans want to hurt women, children and the elderly".
His was "vote Republican or Nancy will be house leader".
He would not support most Conservatives.
I call for "Purse Strings" to step down.
Yeah, an if we had budget-balancing spending cutting Congress, we would have done better with the base and better with Independants. Instead the GOP was looked at like a bunch of big special-interest pork-barrel free spenders.
Wait until the Independents get two years of Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Hillary.
Rove's concept of "the base" (how do you say that in Arabic?) is flawed because his base is not now, and never will be a majority.
What's happened is that the Liberty voter has been pushed out - and somebody, preferably somebody other than Karl Rove, is going to have to figure out how to get him back.
Pelosi will certainly have to keep her troops disciplined so that the Crazy Aunts don't get out of the basement for the next two years. Should be fun to watch.
Not if the base continues to make the tent smaller.
This is a flawed analysis.
The independents WHO TURNED OUT were motivated by anti-war.
There wasn't a sizable block of independents WHO TURNED OUT that supported the war.
The problem wasn't LOSING support of independents, it was MOTIVATING independents to turn out based on 'no-pelosi'.
The anti-war (dem-leaning) independents were motivated, the republican-leaning independents were not.
Mehlman is gay, too, and I don't think he can be relied on to support DOMA and an amendment to protect marriage from the army of gay lawyers (there are hundreds working on this issue) who are trying to level it.
More pressing by far, though, is how to get the level playing field back. The Dems in the media just lied, lied, lied for three years about Iraq. That was their strategy from the first moment.
Now, what is the GOP going to do about that 'Rat monopoly in the MSM?
That's twice in 10 years the GOP has been burned, and burned bad in a national election, by MSM campaigning for the 'Rats.
Which independents were motivated to turn out this year?
When you try to stand for everything you stand for nothing. You lost because the RNC does not stand for anything.
The ones who voted for Democrats. We had these voters in previous elections for various reasons.
So the AP implies that Republicans were not Liberal enough and that's why they lost.
Interesting that despite all the "comprehensive immigration reform," the Democrats got an even higher percentage of Hispanic votes. What a waste of time the administration spent courting the votes of illegals and those that support them. If they started building a wall 2 years ago, when we had Republican majorities, they might have brought in "independent" voters instead of turning them away. Now the money earmarked for the wall will be spent on comfort stations in the desert for illegal aliens.
Democrats beat the bushes in more ways than one. While Republican voters yawned.
Simple: abandon all logic and put Party Uber Alles.
I think you make some good points about independents and the war. The war was a hard case to make when the media was atively working against it. I still believe it was the right decision and the middle east will be far better (as will we) if some form of representative government can be established there. Will we ever be able to win a war that takes longer than a year again? That is a serious question.
40-20-40...........
While Republican voters yawned? We YELLED AND SCREAMED! The RNC leadership did not listen........
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