And neither are the democrats.
I’ve read two interesting articles, showing where the divide is in the GOP. I feel that for the progressives and liberals in the southern states to change voters views on some really regressive policies put forth by the southern arm of the GOP, we should really be aware of why the GOP is getting so divided.
For months, since the November elections, there has been a multitude of articles on this phenomena of the GOP divide, although I don’t think it really is a phenomena as much as it is an emerging natural cycle (based on the graphics included in the second article I look at below).
I’m going to start with the second, in today’s NYTimes. Charles Blow bemoans the fact that the GOP has taking a sharp right turn. Well, he doesn’t put it in those words, rather he urges the moderate GOP to put their best foot forward, right now. Of course, this is coming after the defection of Arlen Specter from the GOP. Now, I did not check Blow’s stats, to see if his premise is correct. I’m just pointing to his idea that the GOP cannot lose their moderate arm from it’s southern body.
The reason I found this particular op-ed interesting is because I just read, yesterday, another article on the southernization of the GOP, and how that southernization has masked the party’s decline in other parts of the country.
Founded in the decade before the Civil War as the Northern voice of union, the Republican Party today is more electorally dependent on the South than at any point in its past.
In the House and Senate, nearly half of all Republicans were elected from that region, defined as the 11 states of the Confederacy, plus Kentucky and Oklahoma. In each chamber, Southerners are a larger share of the Republican caucus than ever before. Similarly, beginning with the 1992 presidential election, the South has provided at least 59 percent of the Electoral College votes won by the GOP nominee, including by George W. Bush in his 2000 and 2004 victories. That percentage is nearly double the South’s share of all Electoral College votes and by far the most that GOP presidential nominees have relied on the region over any sustained period.
Republican strength in the South has both compensated for and masked the extent of the GOP’s decline elsewhere. By several key measures, the party is now weaker outside the South than at any time since the Depression; in some ways, it is weaker than ever before.
Today the GOP holds a smaller share of non-Southern seats in the House and Senate than at any other point in its history except the apex of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s popularity during the early days of the New Deal. What is perhaps even more dramatic is that Republicans in the past five presidential elections have won a smaller share of the Electoral College votes available outside of the South than in any other five-election sequence since the party’s formation in 1854. Likewise, since 1992, Republican presidential nominees have won a smaller share of the cumulative popular vote outside of the South than in any other five-election sequence since the party’s founding, including the five consecutive elections won by Roosevelt and Harry Truman (1932 to 1948).
The Republican domination of the South “looked great when we were holding on to our Northeastern and Midwestern seats and continuing to sweep the South,” said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster who specializes in Southern races. “The challenge arises when the rest of the country says, ‘I don’t believe the same things,’ or ‘I don’t admire the same candidates,’ as the South does.”
Since Bush’s re-election in 2004, the GOP has lost ground electorally in the South and the rest of the nation. But the erosion has been much more severe outside the South. That dynamic has threatened Republicans with a spiral of concentration and contraction. Because the party has lost so much ground elsewhere, the South represents an increasing share of what remains — both in Congress and in its electoral coalition. The party’s increasing identification with staunch Southern economic and social conservatism, however, may be accelerating its decline in more-moderate-to-liberal areas of the country, including the Northeast and the West Coast. “Many of the things they have done to become the dominant party in the South have caused them to be less successful in other places,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, a South Carolina native.
What might be some of those “things”? Racism comes to my mind. (note, I am not suggesting that racism isn’t alive in the northeast, it seems to be more openly virulent in the south — then again maybe it seems that way because I’m living in the middle of it) However, even Browstein shows how the dems could take advantage of the people-of-color vote (not just African-American’s but also Hispanics and Asians), which would eventually erode the GOP stranglehold over the south. After all, the southern arm of the GOP has pursued another virulent strategy in the illegal immigrant debate, going so far as creating a virtual border fence. But, to go deeper, email campaigns of misinformation does more to show how racist the GOP screed has become, particularly when loose terms as aliens, non-citizens or immigrants are used in a way to project the specific term of illegal alien (an example). It is exactly screeds like this that spurs the southern GOP in state legislatures to get wingnuts to introduce ridiculous legislation. (It’s ridiculous because proof of a visa is already required to attend a college or university)
Dems, liberals and progressives nationwide should note in the Ronald Brownstein piece that it is the southern arm of the GOP that is defining the party, and should take advantage of that. But, this does not give us any clues on how dems, liberals and progressives in southern states should/could combat the far-right stranglehold in those states.
Here in TN, the democratic party strategy has been to push forth conservative dems, or put dems that have supported regressive republicans in positions of authority (which failed) or as candidates. And quite honestly, that is not working. It may work in counties that are largely conservative that already have a dem in office. When the dem party pits a relatively conservative dem against an incumbent gop (even against someone this extreme) they will, unfortunately, lose, simply because why would a republican or righty independent vote for a conservative dem when they can vote for the gop? Sounds like a pretty simple explanation, don’t you think? But, for some reason, it seems to escape party officials.
The outcome of continually electing conservative dems clearly shows the dysfunction found in the state democratic party itself, when we look specifically at the state of Tennessee. In short, this strategy belies the mission of the national democratic party, overall.
Things like combating the racism injected into elections from the GOP is far different in the north than it is in the south, as seen in the 2006 (Harold Ford Jr v Bob Corker) and 2008 elections (Obama v McCain). Racism played a much bigger card in the south, the outcome was further solidifying the southern GOP in the 2006 senate campaign, and then continuing to use it in 2008 against Obama. While that racism may not have had the desired effect north of the Mason-Dixon line, it was far different below that same dividing line, which I felt escaped the national party. I mean, seriously folks, the 50-state strategy was dissed by this states party dems, so, it was not completely successful. That is evidenced when the (supposed) dem governor told the dem candidate to not bother campaigning in this state.
All of this leads us to question just how does the wide spectrum of southern dems, from conservative to progressive, come to a concensus on issues that stops hurting the very people they claim to want to protect (like telling women their wombs are more important than their lives or that reproductive health care should not be available), while at the same time combating the virulent extremist right stranglehold of the southern GOP?
