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The Beltway Still Does Not Understand The Emerged Democratic Majority

By Big Tent Democrat

Tracie Powell of CQ:

Looks like the Supreme Court has delivered conservatives a not-so-new wedge issue. . . . Patrick J. Buchanan’s exhortation [!!!] to the Republican Party to present it as race-based bigotry against white males — for political gain. . . . “The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court presents [the GOP] an opportunity. For, even if the party loses the battle and Sotomayor sits on the court, it can win the war.” . . . Finally, some semblance of a GOP survival strategy emerges.

(Emphasis supplied.) Uh, what? That's the strategy? Continue alienating non-whites and women? Hell of a strategy. For those who missed the 2008 election, here were the demographic breakdowns:

WHITE MALES

McCain 57%
Obama 41%

WOMEN

McCain 43%
Obama 56%

LATINOS

McCain 31%
Obama 67%

And so on. The ONE group the GOP still dominates is white men. The problem for the GOP is white men are now only 36% of the electorate. In 1992, when Bill Clinton won the Presidency, white men accounted for 39% of the electorate. Whites overall were 80% of the electorate. Now they are 74%.

So the new GOP strategy is to chase after the white men they already get? And to alienate women and non-whites, especially Latinos, the fastest growing group of voters?

That's some strategy they got there. Reminds me of how Pete Wilson's Latino bashing turned GOP leaning California solid blue in the 1990s.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 01, 2009 (boomark / email).