A second problem is demographic. Obama took the presidency with the help of a “coalition of the ascendant” (the phrase is the analyst Ronald Brownstein’s): young people, Hispanics, and other growing elements of American society. One of those elements is white voters with college or postgraduate degrees, among whom Obama prevailed handily. By contrast, McCain enjoyed a decisive plurality among -non-college-educated whites—a segment that accounted for 53 percent of the overall electorate as recently as 1992 but that now stands at only 39 percent.
A third long-term challenge is geographical. Over the past five presidential elections, Brownstein writes, Democrats have built a “blue wall” consisting of 18 states and the District of Columbia; these account for fully 90 percent of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. In addition, Democrats control most of the Senate seats from those same 18 states, as well as more than 70 percent of the House seats, two-thirds of the governorships, every state House chamber, and all but two of the state Senates. In the Northeast, Republicans now hold just 18 percent of U.S. House seats and only one-seventh of U.S. Senate seats. Some parts of the country are nearly devoid of Republican -representation.
These two paragraphs are actually presented in the correct order. The geographical blue wall constructed by Democrats and described in the second paragraph which makes any Republican challenge for the White House or control of either house of Congress at best daunting and, at worst, virtually impossible, is caused by the demographics described in the first paragraph.
In politics demography is destiny. The second consideration about demographics is race. In America all politics is not as Tip O'Neill said, "local," rather all politics is racial. If the Democrats can obtain 90% of the black vote, that yields 10% of the voters. If they can obtain 80% of the Hispanic vote, that yields them roughly 10% of the vote. If they can obtain 70 to 80% of the Jewish vote, that yields them to 2 1/2% of the vote. If they can obtain 80% of the gay vote, that yields them to 2 1/2% of the vote. The problem is that they can and do consistently obtain these percentages of these racial/ethnic groups. If one adds these groups up the percentage totals 25% on election morning before the Democrat candidate even gets out of bed.
Within a few years America will be a majority nonwhite nation. Those demographics are destiny for the Republican Party and those demographics tell us why as the author writes , "Democrats have built a “blue wall” consisting of 18 states and the District of Columbia; these account for fully 90 percent of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. "
These are absolutely chilling statistics. If conservatives on these threads want to be serious about survival, nevermind revival, of their political philosophy we ought to direct our attention to coping with these realities. For example, all the problems of our Rinos are symptoms rather than causes of our current pitiable state. It is not something in the water in the blue wall states that makes Rinos of Republicans.
It is also true that if we put all three legs of Ronald Reagan's Republican school under the party, social conservatism, fiscal conservatism and national defense, the best we can hope for is to get to a point where if we have a tremendously appealing candidate and we make no mistakes we can eke out a national victory for the White House by counting the votes in Ohio were some other key state. In other words, if we do everything perfectly we might win if the stars are in alignment and the Democrats make a few mistakes. Otherwise, the Democrat enjoy the bulge of demographics which will justify James Carville's prediction -unless something intervenes to change the demographic reality.
Parenthetically, it is appropriate here to note that Barack Obama is rapidly changing America into a country divided in twain with nonwhites voting against whites. Obama's latest Rasmussen strong approval versus strong disapproval ratings show that his position has deteriorated to the point where non-African-American voters strongly disapprove of him by a ratio of 2 to 1 (41 -- 22). It does not take an actuary or a bleeding heart liberal to understand that he is pushing America toward a house divided.
It does no good now to look over our shoulder, but the Bush years in which he allowed the infiltration into this country of so many illegal immigrants have probably spelled the eclipse of the Republican Party for decades.
So if we want to change the world we must burnish our conservative image, find a candidate with the charisma of Ronald Reagan, and work like hell. In the meantime, some really fine minds must undertake to turn the demographics around by devising a true message for Hispanics and women, especially single women.
