Posted on 04/17/2003 3:27:45 PM PDT by fightinJAG
War may tilt partisan balance By Dr. David Hill
Wars make a difference. Like other cataclysmic events of our times, including assassinations and economic depressions or recessions, wars become milestones in the evolution of our individual political identities. Recent polling suggests that the war against Iraq may be shaping the partisanship — the political party that people identify with — of a new generation of voters.
Once upon a time, lasting well into the 1960s for most Americans, our partisanship was something we inherited. “Grandpa was a Republican, so I am, too.” “Us Thompsons are all Democrats.”
That was all there was to it. Our party was our tribe. We generally belonged to a social class and church that reinforced these tribal ties. We intermarried with our tribe. We took jobs close to home to maintain tribal ties. So our partisanship was seldom a matter that required much thought or introspection.
But the bonds of those partisan ties weakened. Higher education qualified people for employment outside their social classes. People moved far from ancestral homes. Episcopalians married Catholics. The assassinations of the Kennedys and King, the civil rights movement and Vietnam War are thought to have created an apocalyptic cocktail that changed the partisan complexion of this nation forever, leaving the white South more Republican and baby boomers everywhere more Democratic.
Such partisan ties have profoundly influenced elections in the past two decades. They have been competitive times, with the Republicans and Democrats closely matched in partisan percentages and electoral successes. Therefore, any trend that might upset that partisan balance merits close scrutiny.
That’s why we should pay attention to recent polls by the Pew Research Center and anecdotal reporting by The New York Times of college students’ views, both suggesting that voters under 30 years old are among the most supportive of the war with Iraq.
During a time when most young Americans are forming the political partisanship that they no longer inherit, along comes Sept. 11 and the war with Iraq. History will ultimately judge those as critical events in aligning the majority of today’s under-30 generation with the Republican Party.
Expect the first manifestation of those new Republicans to be visible during the 2004 election campaigns. We will see TV spots featuring young returning reservist veterans of the Iraq War endorsing Republican candidates who challenge Democrats who waffled on the war. We will see young parents endorsing Republicans with the courage to make the world safer for their families.
This war was fought and won by young men and women who will return as heroes in their communities. They work at the mall, the police station, the local insurance agency. They will become an inspiration and role model for others of their generation.
And they know which party supported them. It wasn’t the party of Daschle and Pelosi. That impression, formed in the crucible of war, could last a lifetime.
Dr. David B. Hill is director of Hill Research Consultants, a Texas-based firm that has polled for Republican candidates and causes since 1988.
This is true.
To my mind, Nixon, a very flawed person, was the death of the Rocky Pubbies, and cleared the way for Reagan, and the movement for small government. This is a cyclical thing in American History, and if we win, what will we do with it, I will be dead then, what will you do with it?
As an under-30 non-Partisan, this gives me hope.
1940's: Huge majority of voters registered as Democrats who hold White House for all of the decade and Congress for 8 out of 10 years.
1950's: Republicans win White House by nominating one of the great military heroes of the 20th century but are still a small minority of voters compared to Democrats who again hold Congress for 8 years. Republican Party stagnates as largely a me-too version of moderate Democrats.
1960's: Democrats hold White House for 8 out of 10 years. Nixon elected in reaction to how horrendously the Democrats screw up country both in terms of Viet Nam and domestic upheaval. Republicans still in minority but "Silent Majority" is voting with them.
1970's: Democrats regain power after (largely press fabricated) scandals and elect worst and most incompetent president in our history. Republicans still in minority but gaining ground.
1980's: Republicans hold White House for entire decade and Senate for most of it. Still in minority but the margin is reduced to a few percentage points.
1990's: Due to lackluster Republican presidential campaign and freakishly weird third party candidate Democrats manage to elect sociopathic "boomer" con artist to White House with 43 % of vote. Same candidate reelected with 49 % against weak opponent and same third party weirdo. But Republicans regain House for first time in 40 years and hold both houses of Congress for most of decade. They also draw statistically even in party registration by the end of the decade.
2000's: Intensely close election, reflecting 50/50 political divide, results in Republican White House, Senate, and House for the first time in almost a half century. First midterm election shocks Democrats as party in White House increases seats in both houses for only second time in US history. Democrats react by moving even further to the left of the electorate. Party affiliations begin to shift to Republican majority as voters notice Democrats espouse apologising and hiding from sponsors of first foreign military attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Republican president fights and wins two regional wars in unheard of time with fewer casualties than one week of Viet Nam and 70 % plus poll approval.
All in all guys, it's been a long struggle but the direction is in our favor. The depression and WWII generation is dying off. Boomers are entering early middle age and many are discovering common sense. Generations X and Y are noticably more conservative than their grey haired balding ex-hippy parents.
I may be a hopeless optimist, but this is honestly how I read the past fifty plus years.
... or Cowardness and love of political office, I believe in Freedom and Constitional Government where every citizen has a right to vote and advance himself, not secure himself as a parasite on our paycheck. Freedom is not FRee.
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