Variables Working Against a Republican Revival

Recent reports of the GOP’s death may be exaggerated. As one TMV reader put it:

… I think it’s too early to write the Republicans off. Zell Miller thought he was writing the obituary of the Democrats a few years ago, and boy, was he wrong.

But Republican pollster Frank Luntz is not so sure. He has predicted that today’s GOP leaders won’t have three election cycles — like their predecessors had in 1964 and 1974 — to achieve a comeback. In fact, Luntz seems to think today’s party has “only one election cycle left” to right its ship before it is relegated to the sidelines.

The interplay of at least four variables will determine if Luntz is on to something.

1. Rise of the Independents

In the days just before this year’s presidential election, Rasmussen estimated that more than one in four voters (26.7%) were not affiliated with either major party.

Figures cited in a recent commentary by the Hoover Institution’s Tod Lindberg suggest this percentage of unaffiliated voters is 29% — more than two points higher than Rasmussen’s estimate and three points higher than in 2006.

Continued expansion of unaffiliated or independent voters would spell grief for both parties, and the lion’s share of that grief would logically impact, in the near term, the party that is most out-of-favor today. Making matters worse: Certain GOP leaders seem determined to hasten this trend by purging dissidents from the party.

2. Stubbornness

As John Cole put it:

I suspect we will get several more months of infighting over tactics and appearances, and more purges of those who wish to engage in a debate over the party’s direction. It isn’t just that many of the folks leading the purge disagree with George Will and Peggy Noonan and Daniel Larison and Sullivan and Ron Paul about the direction of the future GOP — they want them destroyed for suggesting there needs to be a debate.

The problem with this attitude, per Matt Steinglass, is that it “depriv(es) the Party of an opportunity for rethinking its ideas.”

David Brooks seems to agree that stubbornness will lead to near-term pain for the GOP, but he hopes for a better outcome:

… the Republican Party will probably veer right in the years ahead, and suffer more defeats. Then, finally, some new Reformist donors and organizers will emerge. They will build new institutions, new structures and new ideas, and the cycle of conservative ascendance will begin again.

Brooks may be right about another, eventual “cycle of conservative ascendance.” I’m just not convinced that ascendance will be helmed by the shaky hands of the aging GOP.

3. Demographic Revolution

As widely reported, the U.S. is in the midst of a meaningful ethnic and generational shift — and these non-white, non-old voters are rather sour on the Republican brand.

Looking first at younger voters:

A very ominous sign for the Republican Party is how Democratic-leaning these new and lapsed voters are. Not only do they back Obama by a 69%-27 margin, they also prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by a 2-to-1 margin, 66%-31%. And their views of President Bush? His fav/unfav among these voters is 14%-73%. Ouch. While Karl Rove had ambitious hopes of turning Bush’s presidency into a permanent majority for the GOP, this poll suggests that Bush’s lasting legacy could actually be turning off a new generation of voters. After all, consider what young voters who came of voting age during the past seven years might associate the GOP with — the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the current economy, various political scandals (Jack Abramoff, Ted Stevens, etc.), and Bush.

Regarding the ethnic diversification of the electorate:

While just 43 percent of whites voted for Obama, the group now makes up just 74% of the electorate, down from 89% in 1980. And that trend is accelerating. Just since 2003, whites’ share of the electorate fell four percentage points, while blacks, Latinos and Asians increased by three points, to 23 percent, and gave [Obama] 95%, 66% and 61% support respectively.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is one GOP leader who seems all-too-aware of what these numbers portend:

… we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances … Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward.

4. Big-Tent Dems

As younger voters flex their power; as the country’s electorate diversifies; as more voters leave the ranks of the GOP for the no-man’s land of independent politics — or are summarily dismissed from the party in “purity purges” — the Democrats are ready and eager to welcome them.

Here’s outgoing DNC Chair Howard Dean, commenting on his party’s victory arc of the last two years:

Dean said that the Democratic Party was now a big-tent party. “We didn’t have just one message,” Dean said, speaking of those Democrats who ran for Congress and other positions. “You could be pro-life, pro-choice, a conservative and get supported and get resources.”

Rahm Emanuel played a key role in this “bigification” of the Democratic tent. And by tapping Emanuel as his chief of staff, the President elect has suggested he appreciates the enduring value of a big-tent strategy. As a result, there may be precious little left over for the Republicans to use in the reconstruction of their listing brand.

Prospective RNC chair Michael Steele suggests the party’s hope lies in a “uniting principle,” described thus:

Our faith in the power and ingenuity of the individual to build a nation through hard work, personal responsibility and self-discipline is our uniting principle.

I once suggested a similar re-focusing for the GOP platform — to which more than one Democrat responded that they also believe in Steele’s “uniting principle,” and asked why that principle should be unique to the Republican platform. The history of the Democratic party might belie such rhetoric, but a continued diversification of the party’s ranks could make it more believable. And if that happens, Frank Luntz may prove to be prescient, after all.