Last gasp of the GOP?
2012 or Never
Republicans are worried this election could be their last chance to stop history.
Actually History will continue on regardless of who is in power or elected. I think what you meant was to say it would be their last chance to alter the future, which becomes history for those who live and come afterwards. As for Obama and history as we know it he certainly has spent or approved more spending than any (in fact all others combined) other President. History will also, I believe, will record that Obama has tested the President's Constitutional authority and power more than any other President before him. Also I believe history will record that President Obama has been the lest respectful President, with respect to the position of the Presidency, than any contemporary President. There could have been worse in History but either they were were not recorded or we have no way of knowing as of this date.
"The deepest effect of Obama’s election upon the Republicans’ psyche has been to make them truly fear, for the first time since before Ronald Reagan, that the future is against them."
The GOP has reason to be scared. Obama’s election was the vindication of a prediction made several years before by journalist John Judis and political scientist Ruy Teixeira in their 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. Despite the fact that George W. Bush then occupied the White House, Judis and Teixeira argued that demographic and political trends were converging in such a way as to form a majority coalition for Democrats.
Actually Obama's election was the result of factors you fail to cite. First you had a energized Democratic electorate who was still reeling from Bush's defeat of Gore, in the State of Florida even though Al Gore received more popular vote numbers. You had a media who not only was as hostile as any media ever was toward a President (Nixon included) who continuously was highly negative toward Bush and totally ignored anything to do with investigating the background, history, associations or anything else to do with a Candidate Obama. Last you had, as Samuel Jackson said, voters who voted for Obama, in record minority numbers, just because he was considered as a minority himself. If there was any trends then those were them and the amazing thing was that Obama didn't have to campaign against Senator McCain but the Democrats campaigned against George Bush who wasn't running nor could run.
The Republican Party had increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites who, as Obama awkwardly put it in 2008, tend to “cling to guns or religion.” Meanwhile, the Democrats had increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. As a whole, Judis and Teixeira noted, the electorate was growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, making every successive election less favorable for the GOP.
Interesting to note that most Colleges are mostly Liberal in their faculties and instructors. Very seldom will you find a Conservative Instructor or institution today, even Harvard is Liberal therefore it should be no surprise that many College graduates come out of College, initially, LIberal in their thinking and voting. Obama was also elected with the votes of many white Americans but those people usually voted for Obama for reasons other than his apparent race whereas most minorities voted for Obama based on his skin color and a highly biased opinion against anything or anyone Republican even though Bush had a historic number of minorities employed in the Highest positions within the Government than any other President. If you are also insinuating that people voted for Republicans because they were less educated I totally disagree however such a statement doesn't reflect education or intelligence as much as prejudice, bias, and complete arrogance. Just an observation. What is seemingly apparent is that a great number of Democratic voters vote not based upon thinking about who stands for what or the platforms and positions of the candidates rather they vote because of the party affiliation. Yes Republicans do that also but not like the Democrats who count on the gullibility of Union Members and Minorities to vote in blocks without regard for what has actually been accomplished for them in the past. Thought, education, intelligence plays little in the equation, I would submit, but more allegiance to a group (unions, minority status, race) plays more of a factor.
One measure of how thoroughly the electorate had changed by the time of Obama’s election was that, if college-educated whites, working-class whites, and minorities had cast the same proportion of the votes in 1988 as they did in 2008, Michael Dukakis would have, just barely, won. By 2020—just eight years away—nonwhite voters should rise from a quarter of the 2008 electorate to one third. In 30 years, nonwhites will outnumber whites.
Very true only I doubt very seriously that the coming majority will be as benevolent and caring as the current majority is toward the minorities. I also predict that all minority legislation, that gives the minority a helping hand or assistance to offset their minority status, will cease and become history itself. Again that's a personal opinion.
As conservative strategists will tell you, there are now more of “them” than “us.” What’s more, the disparity will continue to grow indefinitely. Obama actually lost the over-45-year-old vote in 2008, gaining his entire victory margin from younger voters—more racially diverse, better educated, less religious, and more socially and economically liberal.
Portents of this future were surely rendered all the more vivid by the startling reality that the man presiding over the new majority just happened to be, himself, young, urban, hip, and black. When jubilant supporters of Obama gathered in Grant Park on Election Night in 2008, Republicans saw a glimpse of their own political mortality. And a galvanizing picture of just what their new rulers would look like.
There was also a galvanizing of another group of people as a response to the new Administration and it's first two years of total Democratic leadership and that was the forming of the "Tea Party Movement". Interesting that in such a short time this "new" racially diverse, better educated, less religious, and more socially and economically liberal people were able to approve and enact greater spending and increasing of our nations debt more than all Presidents and administrations of the past together. Also interesting that the way you emphasize this new coming majority in terms that seemingly indicate a personal bias toward each you mentioned since your mention of them in a negative light/way. Maybe you are right but I fully believe that we need BALANCE between Liberal and Conservative politicians and leadership. Balance between the two parties and non-alignment of a national free media (independent and non-aligned). A skeptical and investigative non-aligned and non-biased media is one of the essential (I believe) checks against abuses of an office.
…
Following Obama’s win, all sorts of loose talk concerning the Republican predicament filled the air. How would the party recast itself? Where would it move left, how would it find common ground with Obama, what new constituencies would it court?
The most widely agreed-upon component of any such undertaking was a concerted effort to win back the Hispanic vote. It seemed like a pure political no-brainer, a vital outreach to an exploding electoral segment that could conceivably be weaned from its Democratic leanings, as had previous generations of Irish and Italian immigrants, without altering the party’s general right wing thrust on other issues.
Instead, incredibly, the party adopted a more hawkish position, with Republicans in Congress rejecting even quarter-loaf compromises like the Dream Act and state-level officials like Jan Brewer launching new restrictionist crusades. This was, as Thomas Edsall writes in The Age of Austerity, “a major gamble that the GOP can continue to win as a white party despite the growing strength of the minority vote.”
Talk like what happened and why always follows any election. I remember the election and reelection of Reagan being talked about like the death null of the Democratic Party. Then when the Republicans won Congress (House & Senate) putting Clinton's 2nd term in Check, was seen as the nation turning away from the Democrats. I believe that the intense negative responses and feelings toward George Bush was as responsible for much of Obama and the Democrats victory as anything just as Reagan's election was a large factor of disappointment and rejection of Jimmy Carter and his administration policies. Note also the moving of the House from uncontested Democratic control to uncontested Republican Control.
The electorate and Tea Parties input into Checking the unchecked power that the Democrats yielded and had in the first two years of Obama's administration. What should be evident and revealing to any Democrat or Liberal was that little to nothing was done by the Democrats when in TOTAL control to effect the economy or the troubles that our nation was in. They could have done anything no matter what the Republicans or nations voters wanted or felt like yet all they accomplished, in any major way, was to implement record historic spending and increasing our national debt and the passing of a Healthcare Bill that many fell and believe is unconstitutional, a bill that the leadership of the House said they had to pass (in the way they did, deeming it to be passed) in order to realize what is in the bill and to know what was in it. This from an administration that was supposed to be and touted as the most transparent. The only reason for passing this bill this way was that their uncontested control of Congress had ended with the election (as far as the Senate is concerned) with the election of Scott Brown. In fact the reckless attitudes and actions of the totally Controlled Democratic leadership of the Executive and Legislative branches led to the loss of historic Democratic held jobs/positions in places such as New York, Mass, and New Jersey. FEAR is a great motivator. Fear of loss of our freedoms and fear of a run a way administration which seemingly doesn't care about the Constitution or the rule of law.
Voter ID laws: A life-preserver cobbled together by a drowning party
None of this is to say that Republicans ignored the rising tide of younger and browner voters that swamped them at the polls in 2008. Instead they set about keeping as many of them from the polls as possible. The bulk of the campaign has taken the form of throwing up an endless series of tedious bureaucratic impediments to votingin many states—ending same-day voter registration, imposing onerous requirements upon voter-registration drives, and upon voters themselves. “Voting liberal, that’s what kids do,” overshared William O’Brien, the New Hampshire House speaker, who had supported a bill to prohibit college students from voting from their school addresses.
What can these desperate, rearguard tactics accomplish? They can make the electorate a bit older, whiter, and less poor. They can, perhaps, buy the Republicans some time.
[Enter: The Party of NO!
On January 20, 2009 Republican Leaders in Congress literally plotted to sabotage and undermine U.S. Economy during President Obama's Inauguration.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...omy-with-Frank-Luntz ]
During the last midterm elections, the strategy succeeded brilliantly. Republicans moved further right and won a gigantic victory. On the other hand, if they lose their bid to unseat Obama, they will have mortgaged their future for nothing at all. And over the last several months, it has appeared increasingly likely that the party’s great all-or-nothing bet may land, ultimately, on nothing. In which case, the Republicans will have turned an unfavorable outlook into a truly bleak one in a fit of panic. The deepest effect of Obama’s election upon the Republicans’ psyche has been to make them truly fear, for the first time since before Ronald Reagan, that the future is against them.
http://nymag.com/news/features...t-2012-3/index3.html
