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Maybe you have noticed a decided effort by Republicans this week to
shift towards the center, admit the mistakes of practicing extreme politics.
Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) who barely survived a bruising reelection, sounded
quite like a party switcher on C Span, and defeated Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
said he is considering leaving the GOP, whatever that means for his future. Even if there are no party switchers in the 110th Congress (as
of Friday there were 9 House races pending final decisions, so that may
determine a few things) some zealots may be relieved to rehabilitate, delete
Karl Rove from their email list and look at our problems and issues employing
critical thought and consensus in mind – for the common good. Nevertheless, this analysis clarifies that this election was won by the
Independent swing voters more decidedly than ever. We will see more Independent
candidates and more temporary alliances between disparate groups around a
single issue. Life just got more complicated for party activists, but that’s
better for this American experiment in democracy. Democratic Victory May Signal The
Emergence Of A New Coalition WASHINGTON — Republicans
lost more than an election Tuesday. They lost their chance to extend the
conservative Republican majority that's dominated American politics since
Ronald Reagan seized the presidency in 1980. They may be able to get it back.
Or they may be falling victim to one of the decisive shifts in the political
landscape that occur about once a generation, when a new coalition consolidates
around one party to dominate politics for decades. It happened in the presidential
elections in 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932 and arguably in 1968 - only to be
interrupted by the Watergate scandal, then rebuilt and expanded in 1980. It
hasn't happened since, but the preceding midterm congressional elections often
signaled the shift. Will such a new coalition emerge in 2008? Democrats hope that
this week's elections signal that the American electorate is up for grabs again
as it hasn't been in decades because the long-dominant Republican coalition has
fractured. Pivotal blocs of swing
voters - including independents,
Hispanics and Roman Catholics
- moved away from Republicans this year. Even parts of their once-loyal base,
such as evangelical Christians, suddenly were open to voting for Democrats. It's not that America
has shifted to a liberal Democratic course. Many of the Democratic gains came
with conservative or centrist candidates, such as anti-abortion-rights,
pro-gun-rights Democrat Bob Casey Jr., who won Pennsylvania's Senate race.
Also, seven of eight states approved amendments banning gay marriage. In an Election Day
survey, Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen found that 53% of voters said the
Republicans didn't share their values, and 47% said the Democrats didn't share
theirs. "There's a strong sense that
the two parties are out of touch with the mainstream," Schoen
said. Thus the country
enters the next 2 years with no dominant ideological or partisan consensus,
unable or unwilling to coalesce into a solid majority behind either party. How
voters align for the next era could hinge first on how Democrats govern in
Congress, and then on the 2008 presidential election. Given the rapid
changes under way in American society - where party loyalty is a quaint notion
for many,
and large blocs such as independents and Hispanics swing back and forth from
Republican to Democratic - it's
unlikely that either major party can build a durable majority simply with
partisan appeals to its base supporters, as both have tried to do in the past. "We're in a
period of great foment," said John Green, a political scientist at the
University of Akron. "There are so many elements of the electorate in
play. The
demographic structure is changing rapidly. We're seeing regional migrations; we can't build exurbia fast enough.
Also, the globalization of the economy is by no means over. An
awful lot is going on socially and economically." The result is a
shifting political landscape that's ripe for what Green called "attempts
at coalitions that might not last longer than one election." Or temporary
coalitions built issue by issue. One such coalition
could be built around comprehensive immigration restructuring, for example,
which was supported by President Bush, moderate Republicans in the Senate and
Democrats, but blocked by Republicans in the House of Representatives. The
president wanted to keep building Republican support among Hispanics, the
fastest growing part of the population. Hispanic support for Republicans
increased from 31% for Bush in 2000 to 37% in the 2002 midterm elections to 44%
for the president in 2004. Yet House Republicans,
appealing to a conservative base that refused to support any plan that let
illegal immigrants remain in the United States, blocked comprehensive
immigration revisions despite being criticized as anti-Hispanic. Hispanic
support for Republicans plummeted Tuesday, to 26%. Hispanic immigration
helped break the Republican grip on the fast-growing Southwest and Mountain
West region, as Democrats gained offices in Arizona and Colorado. Indeed, the way
Republicans governed the last 6 years - catering to their base for short-term,
narrow victories in 2002 and 2004 - probably cost them the chance to build a
broader and more durable majority that might have weathered this year's anger
at the Iraq war and scandals in Congress. First they lost
support from Hispanics. Second, they lost ground among Catholics and
evangelical Christians. Once dependably
Democratic, Catholics were lured away by Reagan in the 1980s and have leaned
Republican ever since. Two years ago, Catholics voted for Bush over their
fellow Catholic John Kerry by 50-47%. This year they supported Democrats by
55-44%. In the pivotal state
of Ohio, Catholics went for Democrat Sherrod Brown by 54-46% over fellow
Catholic Mike DeWine, the Republican senator who was defeated. "This could
mark a change in alignment in which religious divisions might work well for
Democrats," Green said. The Republican share
of the white evangelical Christian vote dropped from 80% in 2000 to 70% this
year. As they drove away parts
of their coalition, Republicans also governed Congress in a partisan way that
turned off independents and moderates. They shut out Democrats from negotiating legislation, all
but closed down bipartisan ethics monitoring and refused even to inform the Democrat on the
board that oversees the House page program of suspected problems involving
former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. Independents went for
Democrats this year by 57-39%, after dividing almost evenly between the major
parties since the mid-1990s. Moderates went for Democrats by 60-38%. "There are a
bunch of people in the center who aren't satisfied with the way everything
became so polarized," said Holly Brasher, a political scientist at the
University of Alabama at Birmingham. "People may be growing more conscious
of the need to balance the right with the left. People do think consciously of
that; it's not an accident." Leading Democrats
appear conscious of the pitfalls of trying to move the pendulum too far to the
left, but the party's liberal base wants exactly that. Pro-impeachment forces
plan a rally in Philadelphia to pressure the Democrats to throw Bush out of
office. As many as 60 congressional Democrats planned to meet next week to
discuss a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq with George McGovern, whose 1972
Democratic presidential campaign defined antiwar activism. But Rep. Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., a liberal who's expected to be the next speaker of the House,
has signaled that she wants the new Democratic House to avoid partisan
ideological battles on issues such as impeachment or forcing a quick withdrawal
from Iraq. Al From, the president
of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, agrees that the path to building
a Democratic majority lies in not repeating Republican mistakes. "In pursuing
the Bush-Rove formula over the last 6 years, Republicans have deliberately
abandoned the political center and invited Democrats to occupy it," From
said. "While Democrats
benefited from an energized party base, the key to the victory was . . . among moderates, middle-class voters and
suburbanites.
These voters could represent an expanded Democratic base and an enduring
progressive majority - if Democrats use their new power wisely." http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15983516.htm |
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