Billy,
Yup, like it or not, those of who were young in the 60's have had an outsized influence on things since we were born in the ancient Ozzie and Harriet black-and-white TV era of yesteryear. We are a complex group, but we all witnessed the social, sexual, racial, and anti-war movements of the late 60s and early 70s. That said, most of us have mellowed and gotten more conservative over the years, but that conservatism is tempered by long-ago idealism lodged in our brains from our youthful years. For me, that shaped me into a radical centrist. I can understand the arguments on both sides of the polarized political debate of today. I am intrigued by the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street activists even though I may strongly disagree with many of their positions. So how will the senior block vote? I don't think it favors the radical Ryan government-slashing agenda, but it does favor sensible balancing of the budget. (We may be relying on Medicare soon.) By some miracle, a Democrat, Bill Clinton, presided over the first balanced budget in (then) 30 years even though his presidency was otherwise flawed. Clinton took over in the wake of an economic mess in the George Bush, the 1st, administration. I would accept flaws if we could get another president who could create a prosperity-based balanced budget. Chris From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:27 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [RC] Democrats and Republicans and Senior Voters There are several problems with the demographic analyses in the article below even though it does point to Democratic strengths in various population numbers. Gentrification in the cities does add to Democratic prospects, the rise in the % of minorities in America also does. However, this mostly is a "puff piece." Worth knowing about in order to try and understand Democratic strategy, and as a counterweight to Republican puffery, some of which is also valuable. But about one factor, a few words would be a good idea. It used to be said about churches, that they were all doomed because most parishioners / communicants were older. That is, they would soon doe off and with them would go Christianity. This argument was first made, that I know of, in the sixties. And of course Christianity was dead by the 70s. Which, obviously did not happen and , for about 15 or 20 years Christianity enjoyed a revival, at least it did among Evangelicals. The reason for the flawed forecast was flawed demographic analysis based on wishful thinking. The young want to take their place in the Sun ; the old are "in the way." It would be nice if they stepped aside ; since that won't be happening, the next best thing is that they will "go to their reward." This kind of mindset interferes with sober analysis. Not to dismiss the long range implications of graying populations. This clearly is important and very troubling. But if we are talking about the next decade or so, trying to diagnose the next election, or even the next few elections, then long range calculations are beside the point. What happened with the churches in the 70s and 80s was that many more seniors came into the churches as the oldest passed away, not to mention the fact that Christians became energized and motivated to create a revival that brought into the fold a large number of younger people. The problem was not solved, today there is what may well be the start of negative consequences from effects of long term trends, but that is another issue. In terms of American politics, especially since seniors vote at 60%+ rates, much higher than all other demographic cohorts, how seniors vote is anything but a side issue. AARP has 50 million members, roughly 35 million votes. And they are concentrated where it matters most. Most --well over 80%-- are white. The Baby Boomers have started to enter this cohort and, for the next decade and more it will grow substantially. This is one of only a few critical factors in determining the outcomes of the next few elections, say, until some point in the 2020s. In politics that is an eternity. Not that seniors can be depended on to always do the right thing. What a joke. Many seniors really should drop out of the system altogether and relocate to Outer Baldonia. This is to speak of the addled, the senile, the incompetent, and people who generally are so out of touch with reality that their voting decisions are based on nothing so much as all kinds of false premises. Maybe we all know the type, as if the Democratic Party was really still the party of FDR, or as if the Republican Party was still dominated by Reaganism. which, of course, ceased to be true starting in about 1996 and certainly no later than 2001. That is, I am not "romanticizing" the role of seniors in elections. Not at all. Many seniors essentially strike me as relics who live in the past, or as burnt out shells of their former selves, etc, and in many cases, given educational realities of past years, are less than optimally educated, hence ignorant of all kinds of things that really are essential in the world of 2012. But this hardly is praise for the young who, by and large, are even worse in terms of base of knowledge and other social qualities. That is, the senior voting bloc is flawed, imperfect, and a mess. As are other voting blocs. But what will be the impact of this bloc in future elections during the next 10 or 15 years ? The fact is that perhaps the fastest growth of any demographic group in the USA between now and 2020, or 2025, will be seniors. Yes, many will drop dead along the way, but for the next time period, for each that kicks the bucket there will be 2 or 3 to take their place. The party that fails to capture the senior vote will lose the future. This is the --extremely ironic-- truth. Billy ===================================== NY Times April 17, 2012, 11:03 pm The Impermanent Republican Majority By TIMOTHY EGAN <http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/timothy-egan/> For those who believe that demography is destiny, there was no more jaw-dropping figure from the 2004 presidential election than this finding from the nation's far-flung metropolitan frontier: George W. Bush carried 97 of the nation's 100 fastest growing counties. You could look out from say, Riverside County, Calif., or Henderson, Nev., to a vast, red-roof-tiled future. New century America was pulling young families and newly middle class immigrants to the far exurbs, creating a vibrant new habitat for the Republican Party. Many of the cities, at least some of the more hollowed-out and aging urban cores, were written off as inconsequential. The new electoral game was in the places where farm fields were being plowed under for asphalt. In Karl Rove's strategy for a "durable Republican majority," as he called it, lasting at least a generation, the exurbs were a key component of his master plan. After a monumental housing collapse, and eight years of less-predictable changes in where Americans live, that thinking has been thrown out. Democrats made significant inroads in Rove's demographic sanctuary, starting in the 2006 midterm election, which, it turns out, was the exurban population's growth peak. In 2008, Barack Obama won 15 of the 100 fastest growing counties, including the three largest: Riverside County, Clark County (Las Vegas) and the Research Triangle of North Carolina, Wake County. And now the population boom to the exurbs is over, at least for the moment, according to Census Bureau figures released earlier this month <http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb12-55.html> . An analysis of those numbers done by William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, found that growth <http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2012/0406_census_exurbs_frey.aspx> in the cities, and densely-populated older suburbs, has eclipsed that of the exurbs since 2010. For political strategists reading the fine print in county-by-county population shifts, Frey's point is one of several reasons to junk Rove's majority scenario. Among the factors driving the urban growth spurt are a desire by young people to live closer to the urban core than the urban frontier, high gas prices and the toxic housing and lending environment. More American live alone than ever before - about 33 million people, 28 percent of all households - and most of them live in cities. Solitary living and coupling without children are the top two residential choices, according to the Census Bureau. All of which bodes well for Democrats, the urban party. Obama won 21 of the 25 largest metro areas in 2008. Among population clusters in swing states, he carried the Denver metro area by 17 points, Las Vegas metro by 19 points and Orlando, the fastest-growing urban area in Florida, by 9. He also won the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, by five. Each of these showings were big moves for Democrats. By winning the urban vote - which made up 30 percent of the electorate in 2008 - in such a lopsided manner, Democrats could afford to lose rural areas, which were 21 percent of the overall vote. When Sarah Palin talked on the campaign trail about the "real America," she was referring to a shrinking one. The biggest prize is the suburbs, where half of all voters live. In 2008, Obama carried the suburbs by two points. The trends since the housing collapse have made older suburbs denser, and thus more likely to vote Democratic in the minds of some strategists. Racial diversity, and the need for more government services and infrastructure, tend to make the older suburbs more like cities in their voting behavior, said Ruy Teixeira, who has written extensively about changing election demographics <https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:nBDZXXa9AaUJ:www.americanprogres s.org/issues/2009/03/pdf/progressive_america.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=A DGEESgg78DMHG2FX1nfjqYe4RvEGvm4vQNwDFuqAfFMeSMBcb4-6x5fP8HmhOERtrHSYgD5v38AU U3nSze8ZGuJEh9DFBZikQtGgT34730ZwSUa-ZDK419Um6fv7aT4wzZPEkhScLAo&sig=AHIEtbQ3 p8YrC5phaOXkXw-yobTuM6yPYg> . Teixeira has been predicting an emerging Democratic majority since 2002 - based on voting trends of young people, ethnic minorities and white, college-educated city dwellers. In polling for this year's presidential election, Obama is doing even better with Latinos than in 2008, and holding a strong lead (though down a bit) with the youth vote. The new population figures have only fortified Teixeira's view. At the same time, turnout in this year's Republican primary has been dominated by aging white male voters, not exactly a roadmap for the future, given the trends. Republicans were crushed in the first two tiers of suburbia in 2008 - that is, the more settled communities. Obama lost what Teixeira called "emerging suburbs," places like Loudoun County, Va., outside Washington, but made sizeable gains for his party from the 2004 election. It was only in far exurbia that Republicans showed real strength in any kind of urban setting. And exurbia, Teixiera said in an interview, makes up only 3 percent of the vote. But before these Home Depot-cluttered counties can be painted blue, some caution is in order. It's misleading to think the exurban frontier is closed, or even emptying out. What has settled down is the growth rate. Americans have always pushed out. Even if greater Phoenix is no longer growing at the rate of an acre an hour, as it was during the peak of its expansion, that particular phoenix will no doubt rise again, given the lure of the Sunbelt. Low interest rates, stable gas prices and a bounce back in the housing industry could bring fresh life to the far fringes. And Texas, the biggest and one of the fastest growing of Republican-dominated states, defied the trends of other red states that saw stagnant exurban growth. Of the 20 fastest growing metro areas over the last two years, four of them are in Texas. And don't forget the 2010 midterm election, when Tea Party fervor overwhelmed many of the positive trends for Democrats and returned Republicans to power in the House. Still, for Democrats, the geography of tomorrow is the urban renaissance - a boundary that now includes big parts of suburbia. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
