There has been some
early speculation that the Republican Party will collapse within a few election cycles. But I think it is a little early to say that the Republicans will go the way of the Whigs. Nostalgia alone will hold even the most outdated organization together, so the GOP has a life expectancy as least as long as that of its staunchest members. But nostalgia only serves to retain members, not recruit new ones. Will the GOP exist on as a shadow of its former self? Here are some points to ponder:
- The president's approval ratings.
- The newest generation of voters does not remember the glory days of Ronald Reagan.
- There are huge ideological divides within the GOP. Progressives and conservatives within the party differ on socialized medicine.
Before everyone else gets exciting about this, keep in mind that we still don't know what is going to fill the power vacuum.
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11 comments:
Your party is a place for the moderate or "progressive" members to go. Because the Libertarian party in Allen County does not have a "money person" the road will be difficult.
The Libertarians need to keep grinding out the facts on their blogs and they will slowly draw more and more people.
This is ludicrous. The Democrats have not received 50% of the popular vote in a presidential election since Jimmy Carter in 1976 and it is the Republicans that are going to fold?
I was a tad worried about the Republican party until the latest round of offers by the dems. 5k per kid, universal healthcare for anybody breathing, dingalls 50 cent per gallon gas tax, do away with mortgage deduction on big houses, $50 per ton tax on carbon emissions from coal, petroleum and natural gas..
Just to name a few....
You'll see the republicans come back to their senses and their base as the dems get farther and farther away from real america...
Example: Most Americans probably don't want to live like San Franciscans do.
I figure the Republicans will spend a season or two in the wilderness, but that's about it. Their problem, as I see it, are incompatible ideals and scandal-ridden elected officials. You can probably work with one of those problems but not both.
You have social conservatives butting heads with the money conservatives. You have the pro-authority conservatives butting heads with the small government conservatives. And, you have the fiscal conservatives and isolationists butting heads with the New American Century empire builders.
Couple this with a rash of financial and moral scandals and you have a disillusioned, disorganized base. I figure the current crop will be defanged, the Democrats will have control for a few years, and then the hubris of power and incompatibilities will come crashing down on them. Rinse. Repeat.
At the risk of sounding very old, I remember hearing about the impending end of the Republican party following Watergate.
These things run in cycles.
Karen is some what right. If a third party had come along that really represented the middle of the pack it would have been born.
However, money talks and for the most part it is spent within the Democratic and Rebpublican parties.
Corruption can kill one person's career, but it is not enough to cause permanent harm to an entire party.
I think money is going to play a lesser role than it did in the past. Campaigns rely on radio and newspaper ads, trying to generate enough noise to noticed. Call me naive, but I think the Internet is changing that. Voters can now research candidates more easily, and make their decisions based on the candidates' stances on the issues, rather than based on the number of billboards they see in vacant lots throughout the city.
Robert,
I agree the Internet may get there and some people do use it as a research tool. But that is a small percentage.
Right now I think a canidate can drive people to their site if all of their ads contain their site. However, it has to be short and easy to rembmer like. "FWENDERS.COM" or so.
Older people as a rule do not use the Internet, yet they vote more than the age groups that do use the Internet. But older folks eventually succumb to natural causes, then they become ineligble to vote outside of Chicago.
Every new technology fails to reach most voters at first. TVs and radios were too expensive for most household when they were first invented. Newspapers first arrived on the scene when most people were illiterate. Blogging is still new, but in time it will be an integral part of any serious campaign.
I think the Republican Party is on the verge of moving into minority status for a long time. If I had to make a bet today, I would say that they will get demolished in 2008 and will likely remain in the minority for at least a decade...
The nice thing about the Democrats, is when they get into power, they also step on their....well, you know. Look at what happened when they had the Presidency, the House, and the Senate (1992), that led to a Republican controlled Congress for a decade. Who do they nominate for President? A liberal senator from the Northeast, a strategy that has repeatedly failed for the last 40 years. So, yes, the Republicans may move into minority status, but thankfully we can count on the Democrats to hand it right back.
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