Long Road for the GOP in this Center-Left Nation
NDN got some fun attention over at Townhall today, where Don Lambro gnawed on Simon's argument (originally posted here, and featured in The Hill yesterday) that the GOP is looking at a long road back to anything resembling power. Townhall, for the uninitiated, is one of the leading right-wing news sites-- something like a conservative answer to the Huffington Post.
Lambro accused Simon of "irrational exuberance," brushing off geographic, demographic, and hard electoral realities, and falls back on the old saw that "we still live in a center-right nation." To Lambro, I say, quit falling back on your saw, and fall on your sword, instead!
The simple fact is that, compared to Republicans, Democrats are playing on a field that is much larger-- and growing.
The GOP is seriously limited by geography-- they are increasingly competitive only in the South and upper Rockies. In the next Congress, three-fifths of Senate Republicans will come from those two areas. Obama proved that Democrats can win without winning the Deep South, while picking up three states in the new progressive south-- Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina. The GOP will need to find a new part of the country to win, and it's not looking good for them anywhere.
Even more ominously, Democrats represent a large, diverse, and growing demographic coalition, while the Republican coalition is homogenous and shrinking. In particular, Hispanics and Millenials both voted for Obama by a 2:1 margin this year. Neither of these demographic groups carried any electoral significance 25 years ago (we Millenials weren't even born!), and are positioned to become serious political forces in the 21st century.
Lambro also marshals historical references to shore up his argument, but his analogies are bogus. While some have compared 2008 to 1964, it seems far more appropriate, given the current state of the economy, to compare this election to 1932. And if I may, I'll call Lambro's attention to the congressional election of 1934, when the Democrats picked up nine seats in the House and ten in the Senate. In 1936, Dems sealed the deal as they maintained their majorities in congress, and Roosevelt won all but two states. En garde!
And as for Lambro's favorite old saw, I'll pass that question to Hoover Institution fellow Tod Lindberg. Says Lindberg, the idea that we live in a center-right nation is dead. Welcome to a center-left America.
Of course, events could change these patterns and shift these trends, but the way things are going, Simon's "coroner's report" was anything but irrational exuberance.
Thanks to Mike Hais and Morley Winograd for their help in putting this together!
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