The Incredible Shrinking GOP

[malaise]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/29/the_incredible_shrinking_gop.php

<snip>
For all the attention given to those few conservative Democrats who got elected, in fact the new Democratic caucus will look pretty much exactly like the old one—albeit a bit larger: mostly strong progressives, with a substantial group of moderates and even a few outright conservatives who represent Republican-leaning districts. The party that really changed was the GOP.

ut the most important result of the shift that took place is symbolic. The election shrank the Republican Party, both geographically and ideologically. Their identity will continue to be defined by their most socially conservative, Southern members, who will oppose popular initiatives like increasing the minimum wage and fight unending battles on hot-button social issues in which they inevitably alienate large swaths of voters who call themselves “moderate” but think like progressives.

It is the Terri Schiavo Republicans that voters in the interior West, the Southwest—and indeed, everywhere but the Deep South—are turning away from. Their kind of politics hurts the GOP among nearly every voting bloc that will be key to success in upcoming elections. If the Democrats can succeed in furthering the GOP’s ideological and geographic isolation, they can send them into a vicious spiral of defeat, where they have to keep feeding their socially conservative, Southern base in order to avoid total annihilation, but their efforts to do so end up harming them in every other region of the country. That’s what it will take to make this victory last past the next election.
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Go Dems!

[Kolesar]

1. That reads like Sydney Blumenthal's "Generation Dem" on Salon.com

http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/11/30/2006_election_trends/

[malaise]

2. Nice read

Great stats. Bookmarking. Thanks

[Kolesar]

9. The peers of today's soldiering generation are going to be skeptical peaceniks forever

What it must feel like to know your young friends have been deceived into sacrificing their lives and limbs for a lie.

[Sapere aude]

3. All the repubs have left are freepers.

[SoCalDem]

7. The "dirty thirty" will soon be the "twitchy twenty":

It's a good thing :)

[annabanana]

8. I LIKE it!

"teeny teens"
"sad singles"

[depakid]

4. defined by their most socially conservative, Southern members

Which is exactly the strategy we need to use. Marginalize all Republicans everywhere by equating them with these types. Believe me, they're very unpopular in other regions of the country,

[symbolman]

5. This is what is starting to convince me that Impeachment is

Possible..

Seriously, you've got the moderate REpigs that don't want to be painted by the Southern Freak Repig party, and BUSH, AND they want to get re-elected..

Hence if the Dems stick together, and the media realizes they've got a HUGE story in an Impeachment (after all, in the end it's JUST Entertainment to a LOT of people), then You just might have those 67 votes you need to KICK BUSH TO THE CURB.

Of course a few investigations, and then we add Cheney to the Impeachment party for War Profitteering, or whatever else is on the laundry list of heinous crimes and BANG, the CREATURES are no Longer Squatting in our White House..

PLUS the same groups get to CHOOSE successors since they've got to run them through Congress, while Speaker Pelosi is acting President.

Dreamworld? I don't think so, and I've given this a LOT of thought :)

[malaise]

6. The people will demand it before long

Cafferty can't find one pro-Bush or pro-violation of the constitution Email to read on air. The emperor is naked and vulnerable and so are antiques like Newt. People aer waking up. It took a while but it is over. Dems who hold up the process will also feel the wrath of the public one of these days.