The Wall Street Journal
Republican Forecast: Cloudy
Party's Woes Go Beyond Bush as It Bleeds Support Among Key Groups
By JACKIE CALMES
September 5, 2007; Page A8
WASHINGTON -- For Republicans hoping the 2008 campaign will bring a fresh start after the troubled tenure of President Bush, there are sobering signs: Evidence indicates that the party's problems with the American electorate are much bigger than the president and won't go away when he leaves office. Recent voter surveys, including private polling done by a leading Republican strategist, suggest a broader erosion of Republicans' appeal. In particular, three groups crucial to Mr. Bush's goal of a "permanent Republican majority" are drifting away: younger voters, Hispanics and independents.
The reasons include the Iraq war, conservatives' emphasis on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research, and a party-led backlash against illegal immigrants that has left many Hispanic and Asian-American citizens feeling unwelcome. The upshot is that Republicans face structural problems that stem from generational, demographic and societal changes and aren't easily overcome without changing fundamental party positions.
Longtime Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio this year conducted an exhaustive survey of his party's voters to update one he did in 1997. He found that the party is significantly older and more conservative than it was a decade ago. That, he says, suggests a Republican Party increasingly at risk of being seen "as very old-fashioned, very old and not in touch with the realities of today's society." Those problems contributed to Republicans' loss of control of Congress last year. Overall, though, Republicans' defections to date haven't necessarily been the Democratic Party's gains. Many renegade Republicans instead are declaring independence of either party and becoming swing voters.
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The forces now at work already have hurt Republicans in Mr. Reagan's California -- home to many Hispanics, social liberals, the young and those always trying to be young. Now Democrats are making inroads in other once reliably Republican states -- among them Florida, Virginia, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Montana and even Mr. Bush's Texas.
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