Letter from Washington: Republicans worry as youth desert the partyWhether selecting a financial investment or betting on an athletic team, fundamentals are more important than snapshot performances or big stars. That's true in politics, too.
American Republicans are in bad shape beyond next year's election for basic reasons, aside from the war in Iraq or the unpopularity of the incumbent; almost every important indicator is negative for them.
Among key constituencies, the most worrisome are young voters, the fastest-growing slice of the U.S. electorate and one where lifetime habits are ingrained early. These voters - 18- to 29-year-olds - are deserting the Republicans.
"If current trends continue, Republicans are in desperate shape with these critical young voters," said Frank Fahrenkopf, the party's national chairman during Ronald Reagan's presidency.
To be sure, some of the Republican woes are predictable. In the past half-century, four out of five times the party that held the White House for two consecutive terms failed to win a third. And parties don't win elections while waging unpopular wars.
The always important enthusiasm quotient - crowds, volunteers, polls, fund-raising - is all with the Democrats.
And like an old cartoon character, an omnipresent cloud seems to hang over the Republicans. As Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales fade away, Senator Larry Craig pleads guilty after being arrested as part of undercover sex sting and Senator David Vitter of Louisiana is linked to a Washington escort service.
Sex scandals have a short shelf life, though. And if the problem were simply an unpopular president and/or war, then an unconventional Republican standard-bearer - say, a Rudolph Giuliani or a John McCain - might overcome other obstacles, and the party could maintain its parity in U.S. politics.
The more basic considerations are cause for gloom. The fastest-growing major ethnic voters in America are Hispanics. Several years ago, there was Republican optimism that the party's promotion of a can-do entrepreneurial spirit and fealty to old-fashioned values were winners with these voters; in the last presidential election, George W. Bush got 40 percent of the Hispanic vote, a significant increase from earlier contests.
The ugly fight over immigration, with prominent Republicans leading the bashing, has set back these hopes, perhaps for years. In the midterm elections last November, the Republican Latino vote dropped to 30 percent.
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Let's get busy welcoming everyone who has finally begun to see the light and who are looking for a new home, the Democratic Party.
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