From the Economist
An interesting, no fascinating article over at the Economist. The key question: ‘Is the Republican Party in danger of shrinking to its southern base?’
The Republicans are now engaged in a fierce debate about the meaning of last month’s mid-term defeat. Was there anything more to their loss of both chambers of Congress than the six-year itch and an unpopular war? Do they need to press ahead with the conservative agenda or should they revise it? The debate is lively. But it is missing an important aspect: the Zell Miller dimension. Is the Republican Party in danger of shrinking to its southern base? And is it shrinking at exactly the same time that the Democrats are becoming a more national party?
The extent of the southernisation of the Republican Party is astonishing. The party was all but wiped out in its historic base, the north-east. There is now only one Republican in the 22-strong New England House delegation. New Hampshire kicked out its two Republican congressmen (and gave Democrats a majority in both state houses for the first time since 1874). Massachusetts ended 16 years of Republican occupation of the governor’s mansion. Rhode Island decapitated Lincoln Chafee despite his moderate record. New York installed Democrats in every statewide office for the first time since 1938.
The Republicans also suffered big losses in a region that voted solidly for Bush in 2004—the Mountain West. Three Republicans lost house seats. Conrad Burns lost his Senate seat in Montana (59% for Bush in 2004). Democrats now control five of the eight governorships in the region, compared with none in 2000.
[…]
The problem for the Republicans is that a regional stronghold can become a prison. The South has one of the most distinctive cultures in the United States—far more jingoistic than the rest of the country and far more religious. Fifty-eight per cent of deep southerners identify themselves as either evangelical or born-again compared with a third of non-southerners (the figure in Mississippi is 73%). But for every non-southerner who waxes lyrical about southern charm there are many more who associate the South with racial bigotry and cultural backwardness. The 2006 election—which saw social conservatives such as Rick Santorum and Kenneth Blackwell go down to humiliating defeat—suggests that non-southerners have grown particularly impatient with the South’s brand of in-your-face religiosity.
More:
The Republican Party’s problems are made worse by the fact that the Democrats have done a good deal to escape from their own Democratic prison. Beyond their gains in the Mountain West, they will be able to display some interesting new faces when the next Congress assembles in January: like Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, who boasts an A-grade from the National Rifle Association, Mike Weaver of Kentucky, who opposes abortion rights, Heath Shuler, of North Carolina, who boasts that he is “pro-business, pro-life and pro-gunâ€?, and Jim Webb of Virginia, who likes nothing better than denouncing the liberal elite.
As I see it the Democrats did not so much persuade people to vote for them, as the Republicans convinced people to vote against them. This is well worth pointing out, because if the Dems would have ‘conquered’ the described parts of America, it would be much more difficult for the Republicans to take some of it back. What the Republicans need is not a weaker opponent, they just need to renew their own party. Once they do, it is quite likely that they will appeal to a lot of people again.
The main point of the article stands: the Republican party seems to be in the very real danger of becoming the ‘party of the south’. It can only break with that trend by embracing more moderate views / policies /strategies, instead of trying to appeal to the ‘(social) conservative base’ time and time again.
2007 and 2008 will be two highly interesting ‘political’ years: will the Republican party change and will its ‘new’ leaders embrace moderation and unity instead of polarization?
For the sake of the U.S.A., the Republican party and for that of my conservative brethren in America, I hope so.
