GOP Loses Support Across The Demographic Spectrum
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Polls, RepublicansGallup shows that between 2001 and 2009 the biggest losses are among those who have a college education, but the losses in many important demographic groups like Gen Yers, Midwesteners and moderates are also significant because that’s where the GOP has to be strong or else they’ll lose a generation of voters.
What to say about this except it’s pretty obvious how devastating Bush has been to the GOP. And they’d do well to realize this and begin to starting reforming their party now or else risk suffering a Mondale-like loss ala 1984 come 2012.
This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 and is filed under Polls, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 18th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
[...] Talk likens it to a “growing cancer“; Justin Gardner of Donklephant focuses on the fact the “educated” seem to be leaving the G.O.P. in droves; My fellow Alabamian blogger Doctor Steven Taylor of PoliBlog(TM) muses over the fact the leaders [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 7:17 am
[...] Donklephant — What to say about this except it’s pretty obvious how devastating Bush has been to the GOP. And they’d do well to realize this and begin to starting reforming their party now or else risk suffering a Mondale-like loss ala 1984 come 2012. [...]
May 19th, 2009 at 7:55 am
“You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is.”
http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/cornponetwain.htm
May 19th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I voted mostly GOP last year, but that was mainly in hopes of keeping one party from controlling both the White House and Congress, and having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Obviously all those ships have now sailed, and neither the GOP nor any of their early contenders for 2012 have much appeal to me on their own merits. I guess I’m not the only one.
Actually, it occurs to me that the Republicans, and conservatism more generally, have a built-in disadvantage. If you boil conservatism down to its bare essence, all it really means is to preserve as much of tradition and the status quo as possible, for as long as possible – or, as many conservatives themselves often like to put it, to stand in front of history and yell “Stop!” If that’s all you’re interested in doing, is it any wonder you wouldn’t have many promising new ideas? Indeed, by introducing new ideas you would, by definition, cease to be conservative. (That wouldn’t make you liberal, mind you, but rather something neither here nor there.) That is conservatism’s big, inherent, immutable Achilles’ heel. Of course, it also means that if you’re unable to flag down history, you end up as road pizza. That sounds like a good, concise description of the current state of the GOP to me.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
and if that’s all they stood for, then it wouldn’t be so bad.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:59 am
I think that far too much of this is being attributed to Bush. Bush is gone.
IMO, to whatever extent more folks are disaffected with the GOP, it has to do with the economic collapse and the light in which this collapse casts certain aspects of conservative views on government, regulation, and so on.