Login HereA very interesting analysis by the National Committee for an Effective Congress (NCEC). Republicans are now hopelessly outnumbered on the coasts, and are rapidly becoming a minority in the West and Midwest (with the exception of rural districts).
According to the NCEC:
Republicans are now in jeopardy of evolving into a regional party with a solid foundation in the South and to a lesser extent in the rural Midwest and Rocky Mountain states. While becoming an endangered minority in the remainder of the country.
....
If the Republicans are isolated as a regional party, dominant in the South, competitive in the Midwest but hopelessly outnumbered on both coasts, their chances of regaining a majority of the House in the near future are remote.
Republicans built up their party by pandering to intolerance, which helped them build a majority by taking over in the South and rural parts of the North.
How ironic that now they are so married to the outdated policies they used to build their party and the voters that must have them (anti-gay initiatives, anti-environmentalism, racially tinged politics) that in only a generation they have offended much of the rest of the country to the point where they are almost extinct on the federal level in New England and New York (and watch as Sununu, Shays, Collins, Fossella's seat, Walsh's seat, Reynolds' seat and perhaps others all go bye bye, further speeding up this process).
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More remarkable still that the party is almost sure to lack the capacity to realign itself any time soon. The entire intellectual/media infrastructure that has grown up around the GOP - Rush, Fox, National Review, Weekly Standard - will continue to insist that elections can only be won by candidates embracing the same old gay hating, global-warming denying, war-mongering madness. Heck, they can barely stand McCain, and he’s a complete wingnut on 90% of the issues.
I wouldn’t call their politics “racially tinged.” I would call their politics race-centered. Look at the encomia for Jesse Helms as the godfather of conservatism. You didn’t hear many of the GOPs saying abashedly, “Except for that nasty racism….”
Racism is at the center of the their success.
Kind of ironic that a workgroup with the acronym WHIG might hasten the end of the GOP, no?
I remember the 1964 Republican presidential campaign in the South as the time the South became Republican. The strategy by Strom Thurmond was pure racism, and it was highly effective. In the years since, the GOP became increasingly regressive, repressive, and stupid. I think they have travelled a road that has no return. They deserve the derision that they will seem assured to receive in November.
With the mess they have made of the economy, there can be joy in their defeat. I can only hope that there are enough honest Democrats to have the fortitude to the tasks ahead.
If the Dems can turn the tide, even the racists may see some light.
The next task will be the media, and not just Fox and talk media. There is almost no reporting. If Bush were bashed by all the media the way he is by Keith Olbermann, he would have been impeached long ago. Thanks to the bloggers, KO, Bill Moyers, and Democracy Now (and McClatchey), there are a few voices that report truth.