While a sizeable majority of voters say Republicans have lost in 2006 and 2008 because they have been "too conservative," a sizeable plurality of Republicans say, it is because they have "not been conservative enough."
Over three-quarters of Republicans say Palin was good choice, while a majority of the electorate says the opposite.
Two-thirds of Republicans say McCain has not been aggressive enough, but a majority of voters think they have been too aggressive.
Looking to the future, a large majority of Republicans say the party needs to "move more to the right and back to conservative principles," while an even larger majority of all voters say, it should move to the "center to win over moderate and independent voters."
Finally, almost 60 percent of Republicans say "if Barack Obama is elected, he will lead the country down the wrong path and Republicans should oppose his plans," while 70 percent of all voters say they "should give him the benefit of the doubt and help him achieve his plans.
« The Back End Of The Obama Transition In Six Bullet Points | Main | Virginia's Schoolchildern Vote -- The Churchill Road Example » The Coming Republican Minority31 Oct 2008 05:36 pm
A survey (by Democratic pollsters, to be sure) on what Republicans think about their party and its future.
Comments (26)
This isn't the future of the Republican party, it's the future of an evangelical theocracy that's taken root in the Republican party. Republicans have been cast loose in the wind and don't self identify as Republican anymore, much as liberal Democrats over the last 30 years. 
Its called political realignment Mr Ambinder, the crosscutting issues of the past few years have sliced through the electorate, and while the Dems have weatherd it rather easily (one party always does better), the Republicans seem to be polarizing and infighting. We could be looking at the Whigs all over again.
I, for one, welcome our coming Republican underlords.
Maybe if the republicians were more like Jerry Ford, r Lugar I would vote for them. I was no fan of Ronald Reagan and his poliices but at least he wasn't the rightwing NUT we see today in the Republcian party.
It may well be time to start asking if Republicanism is some sort of new mental illness. When people are as far away from reality as these Bush-slurping wackaloons are it seems very possible that they're sick and not just misguided. Republicans would bitch at first if this designation were made official, but I'll bet the cheapskates would still cash their SSI checks.
Robert writes: "I was no fan of Ronald Reagan and his poliices but at least he wasn't the rightwing NUT we see today in the Republcian party." He ushered in the Age Of Stupid with his simplistic good vs. evil rhetoric and his "folksy" racist crap about "welfare queens with Cadillacs" and his inability to understand what a budget deficit is. Dumbya wouldn't have been possible without Reagan. But in retrospect Saint Ronnie doesn't look as bad as he did at the time, because after the past 8 years not much could. I suppose Caligula made people long for the more stable and competent Nero.
Disappointing, indeed. Were Obama to win next Tuesday, I was hoping it would be constructive to engage Republicans and encourage them to rebuild along the empirical approach that first made me an Obama supporter two years ago. But I've always suspected that the Republicans might take 8 or even 12 years in the wilderness to understand that the country has moved on and to come back a different party much as the Tories have surged back to prominence in Britain. This data supports my gut suspicion. (knocks on wood that Obama wins on Tuesday)
These polls are premised on the idea that this election is about policy, which I think is a woefully inadequate way to frame the election. The three biggest reasons why Obama is beating McCain are 1) Bush's unpopularity/Iraq, 2) the economic collapse, and 3) McCain is a terrible campaigner. Bush will not be President soon (thankfully). McCain and his brilliant strategists will be not be running again, and the financial crisis was a bi-partisan failure. Phrasing the question in terms of policy (more conservative/less conservative) is falsely framing the issue. The Democrats aren't winning because of any brilliant policy initiatives (and even the ones they have like tax cuts etc. are basically stolen from Republicans), they are winning because they are not the Republicans. Four years ago every story was about how the Democrats need to fundamentally re-evaluate everything or else they would be in permanent minority status. Times change. Stuff happens. We'll see how the next 2-4-8 years go.
No, fu01, the polls aren't about policy, they are about perception. Republicans are perceived to be far-right racist loons who are mean, old, grumpy, and white. Republicans think they should be meaner, older, grumpier, and whiter. They don't need to change their policy so much as their image, but with Limbaugh and Hannity driving the narrative within the Party, the Republican Party's image will not improve. Look at Obama. Yes, he is liberal, but his appeal is that he is perceived to be a uniter, inclusive, young, different, energetic, smart, engaging. The Republicans simply have too many angry old white men who control their party - another reason why Sarah Palin has a shot at being a national player. She puts a pretty face to the Republican face. I mean, it's either that or Mitch McConnell and Fred Thompson, y'knowwhatimean?
Mathis writes: "The Republicans simply have too many angry old white men who control their party - another reason why Sarah Palin has a shot at being a national player. She puts a pretty face to the Republican face." And then she opens her mouth and she sounds angrier, older, and whiter than any of them. Plus her voice has a truly grotesque styrofoam-on-a-cheese-grater tone. If she's the future of the GOP then they're the Whigs.
Couldn't agree more, MoeLarryAndJesus. She's the future of the GOP, and my what a bleak future it is.
The problem with the GOP is that they're corrupt, in the broad meaning of that word. The Dems are also corrupt, but they hide it better and the MSM hides it better for them. As for the second item, there are two Palins: the real one, and the one invented by the MSM. Some of the opposition is because those polled are confused over which is which. As for the last item, here are nineteen reasons why anyone should oppose Obama, with "anyone" defined as "anyone who isn't either a far-left authoritarian or someone who's getting a taste (if you know what I mean)".
"Republicans are perceived to be far-right racist loons who are mean, old, grumpy, and white." If this were true, outside of whatever echo-chamber you inhabit, then I would expect to see a much larger lead for Obama in the polls. As it is, in a year in which everything has gone wrong for the Republican party (in fact for three years), they trail by mid-single digits in most polls. The Democrats have a charismatic, attractive candidate, who, as Biden (see blowhard in the dictionary) noted, is quite articulate. The Republican candidate can't even point out that raising taxes on companies harms the economy. And yet, the Republicans were even ahead prior to the financial meltdown. The U.S. is still a divided country politically with a two party system. Don't mistake a peak, the product of unusually favorable circumstances, to a sudden 180 towards democratic policies. If you think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will lead the Democratic party to continued gains after this year, you have a very different assessment than the polls evaluating their performance.
fus01, I think you might be deliberately forgetting the Republican primary. The only reason why McCain was chosen was because of his status as an independent maverick. It's what sustains his campaign still. That and running against a black man with an Arabic name. McCain was doing well until people took a long look at his running mate. Moving to the base of his party has hurt McCain, not helped him. If the Republican Party continues to cater to its base instead of striving to attract moderate voters, the Democrats will have an easy claim on that elusive political "center".
"I think you might be deliberately forgetting the Republican primary. The only reason why McCain was chosen was because of his status as an independent maverick." Right, McCain ran as a maverick from the "republicans and George Bush," which was the first cause I mentioned for the Democrat success. Notice, though, that Bush won re-election fairly handily four years ago. What changed in the meantime? Did Americans suddenly engage in an uncharacteristic analysis of policy detail, or did the debacle in Iraq basically make Bush politically radioactive? You are free to think this is about policy; that people were really upset about tax policy or the deficit, but you might ask yourself why this unprecedented concern about policy from the electorate coincided with the situation in Iraq turning into a full-blown disaster.
"McCain was doing well until people took a long look at his running mate. Moving to the base of his party has hurt McCain, not helped him." You have an interesting definition of 'well'. McCain was consistently down 4-8 points from mid-June to mid-August prior to the conventions. At this point, he is down....4-8 points. Palin gave him his first sustained lead (a week or so)...until she was unable to answer simple questions in interviews - that's not a policy failure, that's a competence failure.
She's the future of the GOP, and my what a bleak future it is. I like to make fun of Republicans as much or more than the next person, but I don't think she's the future of the Republican party. Look at how many prominent Republicans have denounced her. Let's not get carried away here.
In many respects I think the idea of modern day conservatism is a myth romantically portrayed by Republicans. For all the talk about Reagan's big tax cut in '81 it isn't often mentioned he raised taxes in '82 and '83, the latter increase raised payroll taxes which helped sure up social security and medicare. And despite the rhetoric about fiscal conservatism the Republicans have never showed the austerity to both cut taxes and balance budgets. Republicans need a more sustainable model. May I suggest they look at Eisenhower for some inspiration. A president that balanced budgets, built massive new infrastructure and protected U.S. interests in the Middle East.
Although I'm kind of conservative I'd also prefer Eisenhower to Reagan as a model. I would be very annoyed if they lost the anti-abortion element though. (Then again abortion was not legal during Eisenhower so who knows if he was actually "liberal" on it)
I'd hoped they'd spend their 8 years in the wilderness purging the wingnuts--the elements of the party that scare off moderates, women, young people, people of color, etc. This sounds like "Republican" will instead come to mean "know-nothing," while all those people who think Palin's assertive ignorance a poor choice are purged. I suppose a new Conservative Party could be forged of libertarians, fiscal conservatives, small government types, and social moderates, once the Republican party is done driving them out.
While I would agree that reports of the death of the Republican party are greatly exaggerated, I don't see how the party has a realistic chance of winning a presidential election in the foreseeable future barring a major screw-up (real or perceived) by the Democrats. The past two years have seen major elements of the Republican party willfully shit away 20 years worth of minority outreach so that there's a realistic likelihood that McCain will do the worst with Hispanic voters of a major party candidate since people began tracking that information. If Hispanics begin consistently splitting 65-35 for Democrats instead of 55-45, the Southwest is going to rapidly move out of reach of Republican candidates. (Indeed, based on the available polling I've seen, if McCain was winning Hispanics at the same rate as Bush in 2004 then Nevada would most likely be going Republican and Colorado would probably be a toss-up.)
If Sarah Palin's the future of the Republican Party, I don't see how it can work. Rebuilding a party through a forced breeding program takes generations. You need to recruit, too. And in an economic slow down, new recruits might prefer smaller families, now families that require school busses to get to the strip malls in Wasilla.
It's hard to see the Republicans disentangling themselves from the theocratic-populist far right. All but a handful in their congressional caucuses are creatures of or beholden to this crowd, as are the few state-level up-and-comers (Jindal, Palin, Pawlenty). The theocrat-populists have solidified their control of the party machinery in most Republican-leaning states, making it more difficult for less wingnutty candidates to emerge. The only prominent contenders who might speak to or represent moderates, managerial types and libertarians are Charlie Crist in Florida and a conceivably re-reinvented Mitt Romney. The more likely 2012 scenario: Huckabee as the "moderate" alternative to Palin. Obama will not live up to the GOP's "socialist" meme. That's not his inclination, and even if it were, it would be moderated by the centrist congressional Democrats who won in 2006 and will win this year. All of the party's future stars -- Warner, Webb, McCaskill, Shaheen, Napolitano, Sebeleus, Salazar, Kaine, Schweitzer -- are centrists from red and purple states. "Sam's Club" scenario notwithstanding, I can't see the GOP reclaiming the center anytime soon. Thus, it's in for a long spell -- 10 years or more -- in the minority.
Events, events, events. The above commentators seem to think that Bush was rejected because he was a 'far right theocratic-populist'. That's ridiculous - he won convincingly in 2004. The complete and utter failure in Iraq is what destroyed his presidency, along with some second order effects (which he might otherwise have recovered from) like Katrina/Harriet Miers/immigration. Elections aren't primarily about issues, and, to the extent they are, we certainly don't have good evidence that the Republicans lost because of them. Bush/Iraq and the economy are why Obama is winning (and not even by that much - right now he is beating McCain by less than Clinton beat Dole). As Yglesias always points out, elections are about the fundamentals. And in a two-party system, when things go bad, people move to the other party.
Why bother with politics?
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I can't wait for the onset of the Limbaugh Party. It'll be a party with a strong chance to win in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Idaho and Utah. Everywhere else will be Democrat simply by default.
These right-wing nutjobs couldn't even get Romney elected in the primary; now they're going to take over the party. Good luck, guys. Be sure to keep concentrating on increasingly unpopular social issues! That'll work!
Posted by Mathis | October 31, 2008 5:45 PM