From the Pew Research Center Survey Reports The 2004 Political Landscape Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=196 The GOP has made significant gains in party affiliation over the past four years, but this remains a country that is almost evenly divided politically _ yet further apart than ever in its political values.... As part of this project, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press also has produced a detailed analysis of recent trends in party affiliation, based on about 80,000 interviews conducted over the past three years. This analysis shows that the GOP, which lagged well behind the Democrats in party affiliation for most of the past century, achieved significant nationwide gains after Sept. 11 and has drawn even with the Democrats. As it now stands, more voters identify with the GOP both in so-called "Red" states _ those that consistently have voted Republican in recent presidential elections _ but also in a number of swing states like Michigan and Florida. At the same time, Democrats have lost ground in swing states and have not picked up adherents in "Blue" states _ those that have gone Democratic in recent elections... (Boldface mine) Republican gains have come across the board, both geographically and demographically. The GOP has made significant increases in party allegiance in 13 of 50 states since 2000, and six of these 13 have been crucial swing states in recent elections such as Florida and Michigan. The Democrats have even lost some ground in states that have gone consistently to the Democratic candidate in recent presidential elections, such as California and Washington. Demographically, there have been increases in Republican party affiliation in nearly every major voting bloc, except among African Americans. Republicans have made some of their greatest gains among Hispanics in the West and Texas, white Catholics and white evangelical Protestants. The changes among religious groups have been dramatic, particularly when current party affiliation is compared to 1987-1988, the first two years of the Pew values surveys. Republicans now hold nearly a two-to-one advantage over Democrats among white evangelical Protestants (44%-23%) and the GOP has drawn even among white Catholics. Moreover, many of the Republican gains among these groups have occurred since the 2000 election. Yet the net effect of all these changes is merely to reinforce the sense of a nation whose political alignment is nearly symmetrical. In interviews with nearly 9,000 registered voters conducted since the Iraq war began, Democrats hold a ten-point advantage in the Blue states; Republicans are ahead by five points in the Red states (37%-32%). And the two parties are dead even in the swing states (33%-33%). Bottom line?? Dead even, but Republicans are gaining.
There are really only two significant things about this post: (1) Reflection, once again, upon the affiliations and associations that make up the interlocking elite theory WakeUpBomb dislikes so much, i.e., examine the relationship between the Bush administration and Rebecca W. Rimel and the rest of the Pew Trust Board... (2) That, in almost each case, state-by-state, there are 35-50 percent of people who do not affiliate with either party, a huge body of difference-makers and alternative visionaries who I enjoy focusing upon, as opposed to the members of the right-of-center and far right parties, as the Jackasses and Elephants are currently constructed...
Well, Becca and W. may be taking high tea together on a regular basis (or not) but that doesn't change the facts behind these trends And chances are quite good that a substantial chunk of the non-affiliated folks you find so appealing, if presented with the sorts of ideas YOU espouse, would find you completely off your rocker.
Without going too far into why's behind these numbers or inferring that there is some right-wing conspiracy going on, I think the Democratic party is struggling to find some good leaders right now. They don't have a face (like they did during the Clinton years) representing their party. Maybe these numbers will change when a clear front-runner emerges in the Presidential primaries, but the Democratic Party is really struggling to find their leader. I thought possibly the most interesting thing that this study noted was that the country more polarized politically than ever. I don't think this is a good thing, especially when politics is about compromise and negotiation, and the further apart these two parties drift, the less common ground they will be able to find. We need a third party to occupy this middle ground.
About 15 years ago, right-wing pundits were full of themselves after two Reagan terms and seeing Bush crush Dukakis and talked of an electoral lock developing. Then Bill Clinton happened....... And the house looked like a perpetual sanctuary for the Democrats, but then Newt Gingrich happened.... Both parties are on thin ice, which isn't a bad thing. Give them too much rope and we get drivers licenses for illegal aliens.
Speaking of polarization... Did anyone else see a nationwide poll (I'm pretty sure it was on Yahoo News) at the beginning of the week indicating that 44% of respondents said they already intended to vote against Bush next year? It was a bit startling to see so high a number - which makes it sound a bit dubious - and I haven't heard anymore about it here, either. But I'm pretty sure I wasn't just seeing things.
??? Do you really think this is what happened? Yeah, Newt was a factor, but he's gone, right? The important change was when the Bush I DOJ realized that by coming up with the most aggressive enforcement of the VRA, they could force legislatures to minimize the minority vote in non maj-min districts. It's the same thing the Reeps in Texas are doing.
Yes, I was going to add something about curtailing the Demos flagrant gerrymandering which distorted a pretty even voting split, but that would have been too verbose. And Newt was the guy who turned around their defeatist attitude, exemplified by Bob Michel.
I think you are right and that nothing is for certain, and that either party can win big or get crushed, more or less as the prevailing winds blow. But to me, the startling thing about the Pew study is the LONG term trend. Not necessarily what happened in this election, or that election, but rather the fact that slowly, inexorably, and pretty much irreversibly, the Democratic party has been losing ground. And they have lost ground in an accelerated fashion over the past two years particularly, even as the Bush administration has run into some tough slogging, as Rumsfeld might say. Also, when you think about it, until Reagan came along, the Democrats pretty much dominated the national electorate. (Eisenhower would have won no matter which party he picked, and Nixon only won because of Vietnam, and because McGovern was such an anomaly). Given a backward historical look, it's probably treacherous to say, "This time it is going to be different." But you know what? I think this upcoming presidential election has significant long-term implications. The contrasts between parties, as reflected in the highly polarized electorate, is stark. It may be a bit overreaching to conclude that the '04 election is a referendum on the vision for this country, but it certainly feels like that, at least to this one observer.
If I thought that dubya had a vision for this country, I might agree, but I don't so I won't The distinctions between the parties....hmmm. Didn't GHW Bush appoint Souter to the Supreme Court? Do you really think that dubya will try to sneak in a Scalia clone if he gets a chance? More likely than Gephart, perhaps, but still a longshot.
--Preemption? --Faith-based initatives? --Tax cuts? --the elevation of the entrepreneur? --lean military? --increase in executive power? --patriot act Among other things?? You may not like what he espouses, and you may think it doesn't merit the word "vision" (a highly charged word, that), but there's no question that Bush et. al. come down on one side of the road, and the other guys are coming down on the other side of the road. More or less.
It may have long-term implications, but more likely for reasons Zell Miller refuses to address. The Solid South of the pre-Civil Rights Era is becoming the Solid South again -- for Republicans. Since the Solid South was always premised on racial politics, the long-term implications are ominous. It's certainly not a referendum on the vision for the country, because Democrats almost always win handily in polls about individual issues. It probably is a referendum on regional politics.
Divided we stand. www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-poll6nov06,1,26539.story?coll=la-home-todays-times Well, the liberals can keep spewing out their hatred for Bush while arrogantly dismissing the views of anyone who dares disagree with them on any given issue. But if the democratic leadership keeps attempting to pander to these hate-driven crowd, they will end up losing the regular folk. They will probably lose all the above mentioned states and they will fail to defeat Bush. The democratic party is in decline, and if it wants to change course it needs to move back to the center, as they did succesfully during the Bill Clinton years.
I'm actually surprised the numbers suggest such an even split. During the three years of this survey, we've had an extremely popular president in the White House with a frightening "war on terror" as a rallying cry. Not exactly a vacuum in which to conduct electorate poltical philosophy trends. That said, I think the larger history of this century is of America moving to the right politically over the last 50 years.
I would have said that since the 1950s we moved to the left. On alot of social issues the center has moved leftward - abortion, capital punishment, legalizing drugs, homosexuality, affirmative action.....Imagine a TV show in the 50's showing Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russel kissing.... On which issues has the center moved to the right? Maybe since the 1970's some issues have gone marginally rightward, but not many and not by much.
Depends on your definitions of "left" and "right." If left-wing means culturally progressive, moving away from traditional values, then you're probably right. Most societies probably move in that direction over time. But if left-wing means more socialist, and right means smaller government, then I'm not so sure.
hmmm....good point, but I'll bet it's pretty easy to make the case that we're more regulated than we were 50 years ago. And I'd be astonished if the government's slice of the economy isn't alot larger. How do we measure degrees of socialism here? The top tax rate and union membership are probably lower. But alas, communists aren't hounded out of Hollywood anymore.
I don't know if the above is a true streotype. In any case, since about 1955 the rate of rate of growth of the government has been pretty steady, only dropping slightly in the Clinton era due to a leveling of the money sent to the Pentagon. http://masonc.home.netcom.com/big_govt.html
Actually, you're right. I was thinking more of the last 30 years, since the early 70s, and specifically thinking about the trend in national politics: 5 of last 7 presidents being Rep., and the shift in the Congress. The move of the South is a huge part of that, clearly, and it explains why the 70s are a good time to mark the shift: it's a reaction to the liberalization of the 60s. That's specifically what caused Southern racists to ditch the Democratic party. As for the issues, I would argue that some of the issues you list don't really tell us as much about political philosohpy as they do about personal notion of morality. Indeed, the Right's positions on both drugs and gays contradict directly the overall idea that individuals should be left alone by the government. Politically though, I think the blame-game and scapegoating that works so well for conservatives is simply better suited to the era we now live in: the age of the image. I think its no accident that Classical liberalism came about with the birth of the printing press and the creation of a literate public, which led to the Enlightenment. I think its also no accident that our current era of mass visual media has seen the birth of facism, dogmatism, fundamentalism, and other right-wing ideologies. Obviously, we're not there yet in America, but I can see us going that way.