RSS Feed MenuGallup’s latest polling reveals the continuing collapse of the GOP base vote. The news is so very bad that there will be only one possible response from our party leadership and our radio talkers: Ignore it.
Overall: 36% of Americans now identify as Democrats and only 28% as Republicans. That 8% advantage for the Dems is the biggest since 1983, before the Reagan boom and triumph in the Cold War created a “Reagan generation” of young conservatives.
George Bush may get much of the blame. But Republicans in Congress are even less popular than Bush, with a 25% approval rating in December 2008.
State by state, the numbers look even worse. In only 7 states do more Americans identify as Republicans than as Democrats:
Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Nebraska, and Kansas, and Alabama.
The two parties are tied in Arizona and South Carolina.
In all the other 41 states, including every one of the large population states, Democrats outnumber Republicans. In 29 states, including every Northeastern state and every Midwestern state save Indiana, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 10 points or more.
Here’s what it looks like on the map:
These are the numbers that make yesterday’s flexing of muscle by Rush Limbaugh over Georgia congressman Phil Gingery not merely ridiculous but actively dangerous. When Republicans line up behind Rush Limbaugh in this way, they are dividing the country 80-20 against themselves. Our supreme priority now has to be to reinvent ourselves as a pragmatic, inclusive, modern party of free enterprise and limited government. We have to relearn how to talk to moderates, independent, younger voters, educated voters, women – it’s a long list.
Instead, our congressmen talk to and about Rush Limbaugh like Old Bolsheviks praising Comrade Stalin at their show trials. Rush is right! We see eye to eye with Rush! There is no truth outside Rush!
The relationship between these radio talkers and the larger Republican and conservative world has become parasitic and antagonistic. They flourish and profit to the extent they can polarize and radicalize. The GOP will recover only to the extent that it moderates and reaches out. They benefit from controversies that position them as the leaders and designated speakers for conservative America. But the more visible they become, the more our party is shoved to the margins and rendered unelectable. What is good for Rush is bad for the GOP, and what is good for the GOP is bad for Rush. At some time, some bold party leader will have to confront this dilemma: not by quarreling with Rush or by breaking with him, but by making it clear that our party is bigger than Rush, that it has room for more points of view, and that while Rush may speak for a party faction, he does not speak for the party as a whole.
America is not turning Democratic because Americans have suddenly become liberals. America is no more liberal than it is conservative. Most Americans are not ideological at all – and they gravitate to the less ideological party, to the party that seems businesslike, sensible, and responsible. (Or anyway: less profligate, less heedless, and less irresponsible.) For most of the past third of the century, that party was the GOP. No longer. Until we seem that way again, we will sojourn in the wilderness.
sinz54 // Jan 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm
BethuneDaja: No one is suggesting that the GOP should abandon the principles of free enterprise and fiscal responsibility. But the specific policies we advocate can’t just regurgitate what worked 28 years ago. What we saw last year was Republicans waving around Reaganomics (or 1980s style supply-side economics) as the panacea that would get us out of our current economic troubles. That was all we had to offer: Let’s do the exact same things Reagan did, because what the heck, they worked 28 years ago. I’m not an economist. I don’t know what the conservative solution to deleveraging should be. But I do know it ain’t supply-side economics.
buzzricksons // Jan 30, 2009 at 5:02 pm
The thing is, Reagan came to the presidency with experience running a large state well, running a union in a complicated industry (from a labor environment point of view), and having spent decades immersing himself in these issues and coming to his own understanding of policy. That’s in part due to his engagement as a public speaker for GE (or whoever it was), where he was out preparing his own speeches all the time. Not only was he a gifted speaker and speechmaker, he was a proven political executive of a large enterprise (CA) and could debate policy from a position of understanding many facets and nuances of the issues. Arguably, Clinton had many (but perhaps not all) of those talents to recommend him as well, although he floundered as president for his own reasons. I have not heard tell of anyone with those talents currently in the GOP stables. Therefore, I do not believe the party is going to coalesce around a standard-bearing candidate anytime soon. However, it’s early yet; ‘12 is still a ways off, you say? Reagan almost beat Ford in ‘76; who from the sad sacks of ‘08 are you looking towards with great hope and inspiration in ‘12?
Heritage1776 // Jan 30, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Everything you say here David is pretty much spot on. The only point of contention that I have is that you put Bill O’Reilly in the same sack as Rush, Hannity, and Coulter. He is simply not. As Jon Stewart told him, “I like you. You’re not ideological.” This is well known, despite constant efforts by the Left to paint him as “extreme” or even “fringe” just because he shouts on his show. He is decidely right-of-center, and holds certain views that iritate the Rush loyalists quite a bit. He’s even called Rush more “entertainment” than “political commentary.”
The broad paintbrush is dangerous in the hands of anybody, David. Please be mindful. And, of course, thank you for an otherwise excellently informative article.
Chekote // Jan 30, 2009 at 8:33 pm
A few observations. Most people who talk about Rush never listen to his show regularly. They get their information about him through the MSM or other leftie organizations. I have been listening to Rush pretty much every day since 1995. Mac lost because he mishandled the economic crisis. He first came out against the AIG bailout. Then when Bush went ahead with it. Mac reversed his position. (Really stupid thing to do since is not like Bush would have stopped the bailout because of Mac’s position. He then compounded the problem by suspending his campaign. He threatened to be a no show for the first debate and then sheepishly showed up. More, he had little to show for going to DC. And ended up voting for that pork laden TARP bill after running around for months threatening to “name names” and “make them famous”. And let’s not forget that Obama had $600 million to spend convincing the American people that he was a tax cutter. In the end, most voters said that Obama was more likely to cut their taxes than Mac. When the GOP loses to the Dems on taxes it is over.
coleman // Jan 30, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I think David’s analysis is a bull’s-eye: Limbaugh speaks for a segment of the GOP that is loud, but shrinking. A steady diet of rancor and resentment simply fails to inspire most independents and moderates.
In fact, Talk Radio is off-putting to most Americans, appealing mostly to a core group of nativists, homophobes, and pro-life evangelicals who enjoy the bombastic rhetoric.
Michael Steele has a tremendous opportunity to move the party in a new direction, but his credibility will hinge on his willingness to counter and confront Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter when they go too far. And to invite gays, Latinos, blacks, Muslims, Jews, and people who are pro choice to take another look at the GOP.
If Steele is passive or tries to placate Talk Radio, he will quickly be deemed impotent and irrelevant.
I agree with many of the pro-Limbaugh people that Rush is very smart, often right on economic issues, and at times more of an entertainer than a pundit.
But look, he’s also a thrice divorced egomaniac with a high school education, a man with a history of drug problems who has never run for public office, who the minute Bush’s helicopter lifted off, grabbed the mantle of party leadership.
David wrote something quite perceptive: “Most Americans are not ideological at all – and they gravitate to the less ideological party….”
Steele needs to make the party less ideological, or nothing will change.
InTheMiddle12 // Jan 31, 2009 at 7:32 am
I really wonder about all of this Reagan worship. It seems to me Reaganomics has not only failed, it ultimately ignited a greed (remember the 80’s?) that’s driven Americans further from conservative principles than any possible New Deal II. The history on Reagan is still not in, as it isn’t in on Clinton either. It’s too soon but early indicators are that the entire government is the problem and it must be killed philosophy was the worst idea the nation grew from since slavery. Where is all the discussion about the Wall Street GOPers begging for welfare now from the very system they hoped to kill? And let’s not even talk about the 100s of thousands dead from HIV / AIDS that Reagan never acknowledged existed causing some 5-8 year delay in drugs, research and services to the sick. I’m sorry. I can’t jump on the Reagan was the best band wagon until everything is analyzed honestly.
gerrysh // Jan 31, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Way to project your inadequacies on others, larryo.