Bush Supporters' Aftermath Thread III

In race after race MW polled in 2006, we found intense partisan loyalty on both sides, among Democratic voters and Republican voters. What changed since 2000 and especially since 2002, is the increasing willingness of Independent voters to support Democratic candidates. In national exit polls, Democrats lost Independents in five of the last six House elections from 1994-2004 (winning them only in 2004) after having won Independents in five of six House elections from 1982-1992 (losing only in 1984). This time, the margin was enormous--Democrats won Independents by 59%-41% nationwide.

[T]he most recent election illuminated some structural changes that are likely to persist and affect the results in 2008 and beyond.

• Mirroring 1994, in which Republicans captured numerous seats from Democratic incumbents in Republican-leaning (or dominated) congressional districts, Democrats this year virtually wiped out Northeast Republicans from Democratic-leaning districts and made substantial inroads in the Midwest as well. As was the case with the Republican sweep in 1994, this movement toward political consistency in 2006 will prove hard to reverse.
  
• Continuing a trend that began in the mid-1990s, young voters once again disproportionately identified themselves as liberals and gave a supermajority to Democrats. Unless basic findings of political science have been repealed, these formative experiences of early adulthood are likely to influence electoral behavior throughout the life of this cohort.
  
• The House Republicans did for the national party what Pete Wilson did for California Republicans in the mid-1990s--namely, send a signal to Hispanics that they are not welcome, to which Hispanics responded with a 14-point shift toward Democrats. The California Republican party has never recovered from the Wilson debacle. Unless the White House swiftly abandons House Republicans and makes common cause with Democrats on immigration legislation, the national Republican Party may labor under a long, and increasingly significant, disadvantage among Hispanic voters.
  
• The Electoral College map shifted toward Democrats. New Hampshire had a Democratic landslide and is now a solidly Blue State. Virginia has become a Purple State, while Colorado and Arizona are headed in that direction. And if newly elected Ohio Governor Ted Strickland focuses on building an effective party organization, he could nullify Republicans' historic edge in voter mobilization by 2008.

Reichert also said wins such as his, amid strong victories for Democrats across the country, showed that the GOP should heed the voices of centrist Republicans.

"It's time for Republicans to recognize that they haven't been listening very good, and we need to listen," Reichert told the AP. "I think it's an opportunity for us who come from these districts that have a diverse constituency to have a louder voice."

On Election Day, the great immigration wedge fizzled. This was supposed to be the "gay marriage" of 2006. It was supposed to follow guns and abortion [..]

Because Democrats supported immigration reform, their margin among Hispanics jumped from eleven to thirty-nine points. In part because they messaged reform to appeal to taxpayers, their deficit among whites dwindled from fifteen to four points. In nearly all races where immigration became a major issue, Democrats thumped Republicans. In Arizona, ground-zero in the immigration debate, two house seats flipped from R to D. Some of the most virulent foes of immigration reform were sent packing.

With all due respect to Lou Dobbs and to Republican anti-immigrant leaders Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and J.D. Hayworth (R-K-Street), most people aren't outraged about illegal immigrants. They are conflicted about them and about the issue.

They believe that illegal immigrants are mostly good, hard-working people seeking to build a better life. They also believe they are law-breakers. They believe that if they play by the rules, assimilate, and work hard that they should have a right to become citizens. They also believe that sending them back to their home countries would be a good goal for America.

In the past, Democrats had seized upon immigration to solidify their support among a growing Hispanic population. They had used the debate to define Republicans as intolerant, mean-spirited, even bigoted. They had characterized illegal immigrants as pure innocents and victims of discrimination and abuse. But this was a trap. [..]

Democrats played a different tune this year on immigration. They supported the same policies that they had in the past but defined their goals in ways to appeal to non-Hispanic voters. They called for toughness on the border, fairness to taxpayers, and practicality in terms of dealing with the existing problem and restoring the rule of law. They excoriated President Bush for failing to enforce existing laws. And they defined the path to citizenship, not as the compassionate solution for illegal immigrants, but as the best solution for taxpayers.

It worked.

But on November 7, 73 percent of Hispanic voters cast ballots for Democratic congressional candidates, and only 26 percent voted Republican -- far below the 40 percent Hispanic support Bush received in the 2004 presidential election, according to a CNN exit poll.

Hispanics generally blamed the Republicans for Congress' failure to help legalize millions of illegal migrants living in the country, said Roberto de Posada, head of the Latino Coalition research group.

"The impact was not just what they said but how they said it," said de Posada, who said Hispanic voters read this as a message they were unwelcome among Republicans.

I have admittedly been much less present here lately than normally, so I may have missed all kinds of things. But it seems to me that there was surprisingly little debate and analysis among A2K's conservatives about the background to their side's election defeat last month.

Quote:

Negotiate with Iran?
How many Americans do they need to kill before we get the point?

McT, Discouraging isn't it? Americans are blind to the death and mayhem of Iraqis, but count each American soldier killed and/or maimed. Talk about discrimination and bigotry of the highest order, this speaks ill of "most" Americans. It's a freak'n disgrace!

cicerone imposter wrote:

McT, Discouraging isn't it? Americans are blind to the death and mayhem of Iraqis, but count each American soldier killed and/or maimed. Talk about discrimination and bigotry of the highest order, this speaks ill of "most" Americans. It's a freak'n disgrace!

Aren't you an American? You should be ashamed of yourself for not keeping an accurate count.

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression "paranoid style" I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

Nimh

Two excellent posts! And they flew on past like a Boeing at 30,000 feet.

I just shook my head at the piece Tico pasted the other day. And then again at fox's response to you above.

It's a sadness to witness ideological certainty provide such an effective barrier against perception, learning and changes of mind. I suppose we've always understood that as a phenomenon of, and evidence of, extremism. It's not difficult to see, just under the surface, their sense of embattled minority self-righteousness.

Quote:

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression "paranoid style" I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

But I am greatfully encouraged by the self-correction in US politics we are witnessing now and the strength of that correction, which your posts point to.

The only positive I see in any of this is that political power is moving away from the extremism which you guys reflect and towards something less angry, hateful and divisive.

But I think you and tico something quite different. There's no happiness or satisfaction in that for me, I find it disheartening.

No argument from me that Tico is more logical than I am. So glad you were able to get here in time to parrot the big boys though, Cyclop. We all have to feel important somehow.

Big enough to recognize a rude little boy when I see one.

Foxfyre wrote:

Big enough to recognize a rude little boy when I see one.

You only call me rude because I feel it is neccessary to point out how poor your logic is, continually.

That isn't rude.. hell, I'm doing you a favor by pointing it out (maybe you won't make the same mistakes again, neh?), Fox, if you could just get past your ego for a second to realize it... though I think we both know that would never happen.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Big enough to recognize a rude little boy when I see one.

You only call me rude because I feel it is neccessary to point out how poor your logic is, continually.

That isn't rude.. hell, I'm doing you a favor by pointing it out (maybe you won't make the same mistakes again, neh?), Fox, if you could just get past your ego for a second to realize it... though I think we both know that would never happen.

Cycloptichorn

At least I don't have to butt into conversations and insult somebody or be anybody's little today just to feel important. I think I prefer just being my old illogical self.