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Honey, I Shrunk the GOP

By W. James Antle, III on 4.29.09 @ 11:39AM

Both demography and Bush have gotten the Republican Party to where it is now. Republicans faced long-term demographic challenges even when they were still in the majority. If the racial/ethnic composition of the electorate was the same in 2008 as in 1976, John McCain would have won the popular vote. Republicans have been unable to significantly increase their share of the black vote since it was decimated by the Goldwater campaign in 1964. Asians went from supporting George H.W. Bush more strongly than any other group besides white evangelical Christians in 1992 to becoming a Democratic bloc today. And of course, there is the rising Hispanic vote, which neither the Tancredo nor the McCain wings of the party knows how to win.

The Democrats can more or less directly make the electorate more congenial to their party through immigration policy, increased dependency on government programs, and expanded unionization. Republicans can only very indirectly and imperfectly try to encourage the growth of the "Investor Class." They obviously can do little or nothing to influence the numbers of white evangelical Christians.

But Bush looms largest in the Republican Party's recent decline. There was no major demographic transformation of the country between 2004 and 2006. Republicans made significant gains in party identification after 9/11, achieving parity with the Democrats. Those gains have been reversed and identification with the Republican Party is back to where it was in the early Reagan years or worse. That didn't happen because of demographics.

Take Arlen Specter's Pennsylvania: when recent ex-Republicans were polled, 68 percent of them said President Bush was a factor in their decision to leave the GOP. Another 54 percent said the Iraq war was. Even some of the demographic threats to the GOP, like the Democratic under-30 vote and the shift of many middle-class educated voters away from the Republicans, reflect the perception that Bush was a failed president.

Ironically, the Bushies worked hard at party-building and candidate recruitment. Bush did more to extend his narrow coattails to fellow Republicans than Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan did during their 49-state landslides. Karl Rove's strategies did produce short-term gains. But when people did not like the results of Bush's governance, those gains eroded quickly.

Ronald Reagan's path to the presidency was cleared by Jimmy Carter's failures. So too did George W. Bush make possible Barack Obama.

View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Aaron| 4.29.09 @ 12:48PM

And so too will Barack Obama make the GOP possible again. So goes the cycle of factious Presidents. Or in Carter's case lost in the comfort of his sweater and didn't have a clue.

David| 4.29.09 @ 1:44PM

The GOP can win back voters the moment it starts to look competent again. Bush looked competent after 9/11, but the WMD debacle, th Iraq insurgenency, Katrina, Harriet Miers, etc all gave the impression of ineptitude. Add to this his predelictions for 'big-government' programs, and you have a guy who not only managed to tick off his enemies, but also his biggest defenders. Even conservatives like me could barely stand Bush at the end of his term.

The demographic changes do present a problem. The GOP will have to think about undoing the 1965 immigration reform act (sponsored by Ted Kennedy, I think). We should begin to accept more Europeans and more refugee Christians from places such as Africa, Asia, et al.

L. Ross| 4.29.09 @ 2:25PM

Amen, David. The immigration reform act has been a real boon for bringing in 3rd world diseases. Typhoid is on the rise. Hurray! By the way, let's not discriminate against the uneducated.

Damn Frenchies and their Statue of Liberty.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door

Nice thoughts, but a really crummy way to run an immigration policy.

How's about this one instead.

Give me your best and brightest, so that they can make a difference for mankind.
Please keep all your losers.

jim rice| 4.29.09 @ 2:34PM

I think the Republican party can start making a comeback if the stop pandering to and relying on ANY sort of Religious base. I am all for limited government, but there is no way I'm voting Republican until they stop trying to shape the morals of our society.

That said, the two points made in the argument above were still good and valid. Everything about george bush was a dismal value. He looked competent after 9/11 right up until he decided to attack Iraq. From there on out, he was a bumbling idiot, and the only reason no one shot his dumb ass was b/c dick cheney would have been worse.

It's disheartening, however, to "blame" the election loss on a change in demographics. The Republican party is simply out of touch with the People. Maybe they should work on finding out what the People want instead of trying to make the People want what they're offering.

Tom Paine| 4.29.09 @ 3:06PM

L Ross -

What a stunning lack of knowledge about American history your post betrays.

Have you ever for a moment wondered if maybe you are the loser? If not -- you certainly are.

Tom Paine| 4.29.09 @ 3:10PM

As long as 2/3 of minority voters vote Democratic, the Republicans are doomed.

You are just too dependent upon an irate base of resentful, disgruntled white people.

The very IMAGE of the Republican party is now a red-faced middle-aged pudgy man, pounding his fist on the table and howling into a microphone.

That's going to be hard to live down. There is NO ONE out front -- in the public -- who represents civility, culture, and conservatism, as Buckley once did. Indeed, the loss of Buckley is huge for conservatism. He spent his whole life trying to marginalize the John Bercher / Glenn Beck paranoid style of politics.

I suspect if another Buckley were to come along now, he'd be unwelcome in the party of Joe the Plumber.

That's a huge problem for you -- more so than demographics.

Aaron| 4.29.09 @ 3:12PM

jim rice:

The Rebublican Party isnt out of touch with the people, they still represent the same values they always have and the people will return. If you choose not to vote Republican because they represent strong moral values, then I suppose you will be voting with the dems.

JP| 4.29.09 @ 4:02PM

The GOP's problems are not so bad that double digit unemployment cannot solve.

paultex| 4.29.09 @ 4:05PM

I'm with David.

I voted for G.W. Bush for Texas governor and U.S. President. I'm not exactly a Bush hater or an enemy. But, I have to say that he did a terrible job as President (ie. two wars, no child left behind, prescription drug benefit, the Katrina debacle, the Wall Street bailout and etc.) which will cause the GOP to suffer until voters forget about him. I hope the voters have a short memory. The example of Pres. Bush's performance in office makes me wonder what Harvard and Yale actually teach their students.

Carol Sullivan| 4.29.09 @ 9:05PM

I loved Ronald Reagan -- he was the first President I actually voted for without holding my nose. I have held my nose since for every stinking Republican candidate (two Bushes ,a Dole, and McCain -- good grief!) only because the alternatives were worse. Do I call myself a Republican? No way. Not until this self-righteous, pandering party gains some backbone on the real issues of liberty, free speech, states rights and a limited Federal government. Where, oh where, is the leadership that will set this direction? Nowhere in sight.

Basil Plumley| 4.29.09 @ 11:04PM

Tom Paine| 4.29.09 @ 3:06PM
L Ross -

What a stunning lack of knowledge about American history your post betrays.

Have you ever for a moment wondered if maybe you are the loser? If not -- you certainly are.

Oh, Tommy Pain/Jeremiah, the irony of your post is not lost on the rest of us who have had to endure your infantile prattle. My guess is you changed your handle when you were caught lying a few times.
It's too bad you aren't as enlightened as the original Thomas Paine.

@ jim rice
You said--The Republican party is simply out of touch with the People. Maybe they should work on finding out what the People want instead of trying to make the People want what they're offering.

Wait? Didn't John "Pander Bear" McCain do that in 2008?
The American People respect principled leadership not moderation. If that were the case, the Moderate Party would control all branches of government; leaving the GOP and Dems to the trash heap of history.

ashley| 4.30.09 @ 1:19PM

As the baby boomers lose power, so does the party of their time. The GOP needs to get a grip and stop trying to force Christian "values" (conveniently leaving out the 10 Commandments), on the people and the world. We're tired of their bitter, paranoid, divisive and righteous banter, they're intermittent memory loss, and the holier-then-though condascension exhibited by those who, rightly, realize they are losing their relevance.