A Little Perspective

K-Drum:

Via Jonathan Singer, the Economist's Lexington notes a delicious irony. A few short years ago it was the Democratic Party that was supposedly in danger of shrinking into a merely regional party, but today it's the GOP that looks to be headed for that fate.

It seems to me that the real lesson of this delicious irony is that we should be guarded against pundits' habit of over-interpreting election results. After all, back in 1998 the conventional wisdom was that the GOP was in danger of shrinking to become a merely regional party. Then, in late 2004 and early 2005, the Democrats were in danger of shrinking to become a merely regional party. Now in late 2006, the GOP is once again in danger of shrinking to become a merely regional party. Realistically, I think this is all more-or-less hysteria and nobody is going to become merely regional -- things will just sort of swing back and forth, with the Democrats maintaining a semi-permanent reservoir of strength in the Urban Archipelago and the GOP having a similar bastion in the South.

Comments

Well, this sort of nonchalance will almost certainly prevent you from ever locking down an uberpundit job, but as an analytical matter, you are surely correct.

Posted by: dj moonbat on December 1, 2006 03:18 PM

In the long term, the pendulum will swing back and forth. In the long term, we are all dead.

In the short to medium term, though (the next 10 to 20 years), the GOP is in serious trouble, due to a variety of factors. The two major ones are: 1) Bush is a Republican, and his poisonous legacy will drag them down; 2) young people are overwhelmingly supporting the Democrats. Other demographic trends are also favorable for Democrats.

Of course, the GOP can adjust its message and become more liberal to try to come back, but that will take a long time to do.

Posted by: Jim W on December 1, 2006 03:30 PM

all pundits should have double-majored in

1) history (so they know)
2) math (so they know how to interpret and model what they know)

what say you m. yglesias? does not philosophy result in lack of knowledge and imprecise methods for interpretation of the nothing?

Posted by: chet snicker on December 1, 2006 03:32 PM

couple of things.
On the one hand the Democrats dominated for a most of the last century.
On the other this was a strange coalition from civil rights on - with a major realignment in 1994, and then a subsequent one in 2006 in the Northeast.
The major reasons for that regional split look to greatly favor Democrats.
...and 9/11 changed everything for a couple of years.
It is impossible to understand anything without considering its impact on politics from 2002 until at least 2006.
bottom line, we know nothing, but I think you are even going to far in assuming that a rough balance is normal.

Posted by: theCoach on December 1, 2006 03:53 PM

I remember an LA Times story from a couple or few years ago declaring that 9.11 and the 2002 elections amounted to the prospect of a permanent majority for the GOP as if - you know - there had ever been a permanent majority for anyone.

The country is closely divided, but there is a mushy middle (whose size is open to debate), and I'm not altogether convinced that the left and right ends of the spectrum are as hardened in any number of their positions (even if they're altogether that likely to vote for someone of the other party) as the MSM often makes them out to be.

Posted by: Linus on December 1, 2006 03:58 PM

Of course there has never been a permanent majority for either side. But, there have been long-lasting majorities. The Democrats controlled both houses of congress for most of the years between 1932 and 1994. 62 years is a long time. I wouldn't be surprised (although the chances are I won't live long enough to witness it) if they again control congress for a time span like that.

Posted by: Jim W on December 1, 2006 04:13 PM

Oh ye of little faith!
Right now, it's possible to permanently marginalize the Republican Party and build an enduring majority. As your friends Ross and Reihan noted in their piece for the Weekly Standard's "The Party of Sam's Club", the Republican Party is a party that doesn't serve the economic interests of even its own base. It has been winning merely by holding a fundraising advantage having a better-organized movement over the past few years. But let me submit this to you: Virtually all the GOP nominees for President are tied to a massively unpopular war. There are twice as many GOP senators up for reelection as Democrats. Our elites (rich guys like the Democracy Alliance) and our grassroots (blogs and unions like DailyKos and the SEIU) are becoming more effective and organized. The energy and the momentum are on our side. Lets say we nominate somebody popular at the top of our ticket, consolidate our majority in the Senate and hold on to the House. Then, controlling all three branches of government, we pass universal healthcare, once again becoming the benevolent protectors of the middle-class, making the GOP a party wholly consisting of Southerners, virgins, and social rejects. Hey, stranger things have happend...

Posted by: Matt on December 1, 2006 04:20 PM

I think a majority is the Dems' for the taking as long as they govern well. But whether they'll do that, and for how long, is completely up for grabs.

If Bush had governed competently, we'd still be facing a Republican majority today, little question about that. But they blew their opportunity.

Posted by: Steve on December 1, 2006 04:21 PM

The GOP has painted itself into a shrinking demographic corner that can only be reversed by a complete change of philosophy. Note lame attempts to lure Latinos, Jews, African Americans, whoever, to their party ("they're really conservative! they just don't know it"), efforts which have served only to piss off the 'base'.

Go out on a limb, Matt: The Southern Strategy will end up fitting in a phone booth somewhere outside of Waco, fumbling for change to dial his ex-girlfriend...

Posted by: DukeJ on December 1, 2006 04:35 PM

> Right now, it's possible to permanently
> marginalize the Republican Party and
> build an enduring majority.

I would say that in theory is actually true, but it would require two things: (1) All Democrats, including the current crop of long-serving DC insiders, to renounce K Street money (2) for the Dems to find, support, and follow a real leader.

I don't see either of those things happening. Every report I have heard is that the day after election day the DC insider Dems headed to K Street with wallets open. And IMHO Clintonian triangulation killed any hope of real Democratic leadership for a generation.

Cranky

Posted by: Cranky Observer on December 1, 2006 04:39 PM

It's not just renouncing K street, Cranky. It's passing legislation that actually marginalizes the impact that money (specifically corporate money) has on politics. That, and passing some union-friendly legislation. If we do that, then yeah, we're on pretty good footing for the next decade or two. (And really, looking farther ahead than that is ridiculous.)

Posted by: Sam L. on December 1, 2006 05:07 PM

As your friends Ross and Reihan noted in their piece for the Weekly Standard's "The Party of Sam's Club", the Republican Party is a party that doesn't serve the economic interests of even its own base.

I think this is true. At the same time, I think if the GOP goes down to further defeat in 2008, you'll see them take Ross and Reihan's advice and change things around. Political parties are in the business of winning, and insofar as they keep losing, they'll adapt to new circumstances and do better.

Posted by: Matthew Yglesias on December 1, 2006 05:19 PM

"making the GOP a party wholly consisting of Southerners, virgins, and social rejects"

Where's Al, to tell us that Southrons, virgins and social rejects make up a majority of the electorate? ;)

Posted by: rea on December 1, 2006 05:27 PM

Bah. Y'all are self-deluded. Young people vote Democrat because they're young. But many (most) of them turn more conservative as they get older. Especially the ones with conservative parents. And, which states are growing? Oh yes, the Red ones.

Secondly, labor unions and such outside of the public sector are good for only one thing - bankrupting the companies that endure them. You complain that our manufacturing base has shrunk to 3% of the workforce. If you want it to shrink farther, keep unionizing it. This is not a recipe for long term governance. Overpriced labor cannot compete forever against low foreign wages. And protectionism is _certainly_ not in the economic interests of Americans in general.

In the next year or so, the Democrats will become the "smug and arrogant" party, as the Republicans become the "insane" party (to use Jane Galt's terms). That smugness will eventually send people back to the right (or, more specifically, it will cause a lot of the left-leaners to stay home on election day because they're embarrassed). None of these guys can keep their dicks in their pants, their hands out of the cookie jars or their paws off of various freedoms, on either side of the aisle.

For all these reasons, the pendulum will continue to swing, all your hopes to the contrary notwithstanding.


Posted by: jb on December 1, 2006 05:40 PM

jb points to the distinction between life-cycle phenomena and cohort phenomena. As I understand it, though, the Dems are doing much better amoung current 18-25 year olds than they used to do in the same group. So that would point to a cohort phenomenon. Anyone with actual facts to back me up?

Posted by: Pithlord on December 1, 2006 05:53 PM

Political parties are in the business of winning, and insofar as they keep losing, they'll adapt to new circumstances and do better.

So true, Matt. And that is even more important (to me) than securing a long-term Democratic majority. No one party can win everything all the time, so moving the whole damn discourse to the left is precisely what we're after. Then, even when GOP wins, it's closer to being sensibly liberal than it would be otherwise. We need to build a solid enough majority that wingnut Republicans are seriously marginalized because the rest of them are triangulating on the Democratic position. Then we can go back to the halcyon days of vigorously disagreeing with people who are merely wrong rather than crazy-ass stupid.

Posted by: nolaboyd on December 1, 2006 05:54 PM

Oh, I'm just peeved at being called a social reject, rea.

In general, I think Matthew's right - the pendulum will swing back at some point. I mean, this cycle had two specific things that were bad for GOPers: an unpopular war and the stench of corruption. I don't think the Democrats can count on EITHER of those things being quite as salient in 2008.

Posted by: Al on December 1, 2006 05:57 PM

As I understand it, though, the Dems are doing much better amoung current 18-25 year olds than they used to do in the same group.

But this too swings. I think we've discussed the reasons for this before - IMO, a lot of it has to do with who is President during your early to mid-teens (when you first become somewhat politically aware). Kids who grew up under Reagan (like me) were more likely to become Republicans. Kids who grew up under Clinton were more likely to become Dems. And kids who are growing up under Bush...? They'll be 18-25 year olds around the 2012 cycle...

Posted by: Al on December 1, 2006 06:01 PM

I thought the theory regarded coming of age during a popular Presidency. So no one points to Carter as a President who gained the Dems a lot of new voters. But the underlying claim of the NYT story (IIRC) was that voters' party ID, as chosen when they were 20(?), was persistent. So if we picked up a lot of Dem voters in the youth cohort, they'll stay Dems.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on December 1, 2006 06:32 PM

The Democrats should position themselves as the party for the emphatic “Separation of Church and State.” The argument can be made that the reason religion thrives in this country, as opposed to European countries, for example, is that the state stays out of it. For the Democrats that position further regionalizes and limits the Republicans appeal to the religious fundamentalist south. This is the ultimate result of the Republican “southern strategy,” a party that appeals only to the south, and the Democrats should take advantage of it as a once in a generation opening.

Posted by: hankstone on December 1, 2006 06:32 PM

Well, Bush was popular for a little while, SCMT! But you could be right.

Posted by: Al on December 1, 2006 06:35 PM

Well, Bush was popular for a little while, SCMT!

I'm holding out for the St. Elsewhere explanation.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on December 1, 2006 06:37 PM

Except this time, the GOP really is in danger of becoming a rump regional party. The 23 member strong New England congressional delegation now has just 1 republican seat (a GOP stronghold many years ago). In Massachusetts, both Senators & the entire congressional delegation are Democrats, Democrats hold all statewide offices, 34 of 40 state senate seats, and something like a 120 seat advantage in the state house. New York, a long time blue state, now has the smallest GOP congressional delegation it's ever had. The Northeast is becoming as partisan Democrat as the South was in the first half of the last century. Ohio the patron state of "Mr. Republican" Robert Taft & the taft family & historically the swing state that determines the presidency; just elected maybe one of the ten most liberal congressmen to the Senate.

Elsewhere, all across the Mountain west, states that haven't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964 are popping up Democratic governors left and right and making leaping gazelle strides in the legislatures. Colorado will be reliably blue state within 10 years. New Mexico may already be.

Of course, the GOP will reinvent itself into a kinder, gentler conservatism. But on their current course they're headed for long term disaster.

Posted by: DRR on December 1, 2006 06:51 PM

The real question should be, since demographics almost mandate the Democratic party dominance for the forseeable future, is what will be the US like as a one party state. If the District of Ccolumbia is any example it will not be an Utopia. If you look at the very blue counties where the Repubicans are currently totally irrelevent, it will not be very pleasant for the middle class.


Posted by: superdestroyer on December 1, 2006 08:19 PM

The Northeast is becoming as partisan Democrat as the South was in the first half of the last century. Ohio the patron state of "Mr. Republican" Robert Taft & the taft family & historically the swing state that determines the presidency; just elected maybe one of the ten most liberal congressmen to the Senate.

True, but Ohio and the Northeast are growing very slowly, if at all, which means the potency of their blueness will, with time, continue to be diluted by a decrease in House seats, electoral votes, and, over the long term, economic influence. Twenty years ago New York was quite a bit larger than Texas. Now Texas is larger by four million people, and the gap is growing rapidly. Even California is growing a lot more slowly than it used to. Blue states often demonstrate a great deal of economic vigor, but they also tend to be peopled by folks who absolutely loathe allowing new house construction. Population shift is a good reason not to bet all your chips on the Coming Marginalization Of The Republican Party. The thing to keep your eyes on is purple-ization within the red states, and also (in the short term) the question of whether Democratic party economic populism will scare Western/Mountain libertarians and the exurban bourgeoisie. If Democrats were smart (and if their House caucus were headed by someone with more orthodox views on the economy) they'd combine their concern for ordinary folks with a commitment to the free market. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Just ask the Swedes.

Posted by: Jasper on December 1, 2006 08:22 PM

Realistically, I think this is all more-or-less hysteria and nobody is going to become merely regional -- things will just sort of swing back and forth, with the Democrats maintaining a semi-permanent reservoir of strength in the Urban Archipelago and the GOP having a similar bastion in the South.

I don't think either party is merely regional, but I do think BOTH parties are primarily regional in outlook. Which implies that both parties are vulnerable outside their regions. That's where the fighting will be done.

This points up that both parties tank when they overstep their bounds in attempting to impose a home region-friendly agenda, against the wishes of people outside the home region.

As such, both parties could be marginalized into regional parties if a third party splits the difference the right way. Hard to do, but not impossible.

m, beware

Posted by: max on December 1, 2006 08:31 PM

True, but Ohio and the Northeast are growing very slowly, if at all, which means the potency of their blueness will, with time, continue to be diluted by a decrease in House seats, electoral votes, and, over the long term, economic influence.

I see this argument a lot, but it cuts both ways. Red State growth is coming from somewhere, and it's emigration from Blue States. Those people don't give up their values when they give up their zip code, and so Virginia moves away from "the South" and towards the MidAtlantic, by virtue of NoVa. Many people claim the same is happening with North Carolina by virtue of RTP. And those immigrants aren't going to have long-standing emotional ties to the South as such, and they'll come to us, preferring, in the end, the values they were raised with: ours. It's gerrymandering on state scale and by virtue of internal migration.

And as life gets more complicated, people will want more robust solutions, and that really is our massive advantage: we've been governing polyglot, multiculti, complicated polities for a lot longer than the Southern Republicans.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on December 1, 2006 09:02 PM

Re; Young people vote Democrat because they're young. But many (most) of them turn more conservative as they get older.

This may be treu on economic issues, and may be true of foreign policy since once you're too old to be drafted you are free to become more bellicose. But on values issues this is absolutely not true. When has any generation ever turned away from a liberty it supported in its youth? Abolition, civil rights, women's suffrage, civil rights, sexual freedoms-- there's never been any turning back and once the older generation died off, the reforms became permanent

Posted by: jonf on December 1, 2006 10:07 PM

I see this argument a lot, but it cuts both ways. Red State growth is coming from somewhere, and it's emigration from Blue States.

Yes, and hence my advice "to keep your eyes on...(the) purple-ization within the red states." I agree this is a key issue. I think, though, that, this process is uneven, and involves time lags. If not, then progressives really wouldn't have to do anything at all but bide their time and wait for the inevitable transformation of the republic into the United States of Massachusettsia. Moreover, the idea that blue state emigrants take their values with them, while surely valid, does not obviate the possibility they likewise are influenced by the conservatism of their new neighbors. Nor indeed, can one rule out the possibility that in the aggregate, blue staters who emmigrate to redder places tend to be, on the whole, more conservative politically than the blue staters they leave behind. I'd be surprised, in fact, were this not the case.

Posted by: Jasper on December 1, 2006 10:08 PM

Homeostasis

For a system to stay in equilibrium, there have to be prevailing negative feedback mechanisms that kick in to slow down and then reverse any lunges away from the center. The two parties have held an equlibrium for over a century because they have tended to interpret electoral defeat as a rejection of ideology and programs that the electorate must find too extreme. In a classic negative feedback mechanism, the losing party would respond by moving its ideology and policy proposals back towards the center, and be rewarded by a return of electoral success.

Were this negative feedback mechanism still in place, I would agree that we have just seen a minor and temporary readjustment, and that the Republicans will surely respond to defeat by moderating their ideology and policies. But the whole Rove approach, the 51% strategy and its flight from the center in order to cultivate the extreme base, is a conscious and direct repudiation of the conventional wisdom of always seeking the center, that has been such an important stabilizing force in American politics. While both parties have perhaps gotten too extreme in their positions from time to time in history, I think that the usual reason is a misapprehension of where the true center of public opinion was at the moment. They were seeking the center, just mistook where to find it. I am not aware of any case, except Rove now and both the Republicans and the fire-eaters in the election of 1860, where major parites in this country consciously sought the extremes. We all know how badly things went in 1860 after that election.

Now, the hopeful prediction is that Rove's centrifugal approach has been discredited among the Republicans, who will revert to a conventional centripetal approach that will quickly restore the equlibrium. What troubles me is that this lurch to the extremes wasn't an "honest mistake" so to speak, a mere error in discerning where the center is. The Republicans consciously fled the center, and sought to radicalize their base, and demonize compromise and moderation. You wouldn't expect them to find it easy to repudiate an extremism that they can't rationalize as a mistaken perception of where a desirable centrer lies, but which they rather glorified as a virtuous end in itself. We are indeed witnessing, at least in the predominant pronouncements of their leaders right now, a positive feedback response to electoral failure, whereby it is interpreted as a signal of insufficient radicalism -- too much moderation and compromise, not too little.

Yes, it is certainly possible that following this positive feedback mechanism of their centrifugal ideology will just result in deeper future electoral failure, until they finally have no choice but repudiate radicalism, and again seek the center. But the less appetizing possibility is that the prospect of deepening electoral failure will lead us exactly where centifugal politics got us in 1860, with the losing side tipping over the board of electoral politics to take the struggle beyond mere words. Not only are our latter day radical Republicans ideologically committed to a trajectory that takes them towards further electoral failure as it takes them away from compromise and moderation, but many of them have broken laws along the way, and are backed into a corner in which their continued existence outside of jail, perhaps their very lives, depend on never having to answer to the Law. This is not a good situation in which to have handed the Executive, who belongs to the party spiralling downwards, an indefinite, blanket suspension of habeas corpus...

Posted by: Glen Tomkins on December 1, 2006 11:50 PM

From 1968-2008, the GOP will have controlled the White House 70% of the time, the Dems the House of Representatives 70% of the time, and the Senate has been closer to 50-50%. If that's not a period of divided government I don't know what is. The question then becomes: what could happen to force the parties out of this relative parity? Likely something a lot bigger than Watergate, a bad war, or Clinton being impeached. Those are all things which politicians can reasonably distance themselves from, especially an election cycle or two down the road.

Before 1968 American political history is basically the story of long Democratic dominance, then long Republican dominance, then the New Deal period for the Dems. In all those previous periods of one-party dominance, the big factor was that the majority party had big blocs of solid support, whose alliegance was founded upon strong material interests or retrosepctive debts of gratitude. Immigrants living in cities around 1900 and high income people today understood and understand that their economic interests were and are clearly in the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively. On the other side of the coin, some serious bad history with the Republican party was a big part of Southern alliegance to the Democrats and modern African-American alliegance to the same.

The decreased ability of parties to distribute material benefits directly and exclusively to their supporters (spoils) means that parties have to offer material benefits through broad social policies. But then the opposition can simply accept these social policies and fight different battles. If the GOP openly and explicitly opposed Social Security and Medicaid as they once did, they would still be a minority party. But since there is nothing stopping the GOP from simply accepting these policies and moving on to other battles, Democrats cannot expect strong dominance based on its policy innovation in these areas. If national health care ever gets adopted and becomes very popular, voters will still be able to 'free ride' by accepting the benefits of program while not supporting the party that fought for it--because the GOP can easily change course and agree not to roll back the reform (in this sense the loser in political fights gets to pick the next battleground). The GOP can accept Social Security, just as the Dems can get tougher on national security--this is what all these predictions of long-term dominance based on current issue dominance miss entirely.

Establishing the permanent dominance of one party is not going to happen by stringing together an electoral winning streak by putting up good candidates, capitalizing on your opponent's mistakes, getting all worked up about current youth voting, etc. It will come when voting blocs comprising a solid majority of the population see that their most basic interests lie only with one party. Raising the minumum wage and other nickel and dime policies may help us win individual elections, but are not going to effect a major realignment.

Posted by: Jeremiah J. on December 2, 2006 12:07 AM

I quite agree. The election system is because it creates, by its very nature, close races.

Here's one reason:

The reward for electoral victory is power, but power corrupts, which leads the voters to throw the bums out. Rinse and repeat.

Posted by: Steve Sailer on December 2, 2006 03:32 AM

Jeremiah,

I think you are forgetting that the Democrats almost all of the blacks, Hispanics, and jewish votes. The Republicans do not have the same advantage with any demographic group.

The Democrats won over 30 congressional elections without having to face an opponent. The failure of the Republicans will mean that that number will increase. The number of states where the Republican can possibly win a Senate seat is shrinking.

The alternative to the moderation theory should be the a tipping point theory. A point will be reached very soon when people will realize that the Republicans have no chance to regain power. When that happpens the money will stop flowing and the Democrats will be receiving the vast majortiy of donations.

The real sign of one party control will be when the Democrats in states like California and Colorado start trying to limit or just elimnate initiative and referendum.

Posted by: superdestroyer on December 2, 2006 04:36 AM

ah so, I get it, you're a centrist ;-).

Posted by: supersaurus on December 2, 2006 06:34 AM

No, Matt, I'm pretty sure that we should assume that no one will adjust their behavior in reaction to recent trends, and we should extrapolate linearly from yesterday.

That's the right way to do punditry, isn't it?

Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg on December 2, 2006 09:33 AM

As bad as W is, I don't think his legacy will rival the Great Depression. Republican Savagery will be in the system longer than W's gangster infantilism and can do more long term damage to the Republican Party and the country. After all, Republican Savagery was the enabling esprit that put W in control. And right now, what passes for thinking among Republican Savages is that it's W and not themselves that is at fault for 2006.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on December 2, 2006 10:29 AM

"Bah. Y'all are self-deluded. Young people vote Democrat because they're young. But many (most) of them turn more conservative as they get older. Especially the ones with conservative parents. And, which states are growing? Oh yes, the Red ones."

As I've gotten older and learned more, I've become more and more of a staunch Democrat.

Same with my parents.

Interestingly, we're pretty socially conservative in the old fashioned way. That is, lead by example. But we don't see much need for the Government to be mandating morality.

I think the "conservatism" that the Republicans have grasped hold on to has more to do with 1960s love child hippyness than anything else. you listen to these guys screach on about abortion, and the term "bleeding heart" comes quickly to mind.

Posted by: The Other Steve on December 2, 2006 02:17 PM

Re: What troubles me is that this lurch to the extremes wasn't an "honest mistake" so to speak, a mere error in discerning where the center is.

But to some extent it was. The GOP did in fact find the center in one region of the country (the South) and they mistook this regional center for the center of the whole country. The GOP strategy assumed that with the South in line, the party need do no more than appeal a bit more broadly elsewhere in order to eke out a narrow electoral victory. Hence the Compassionate Conservatism slogan in 2000, and various pseudo-liberalist impulses like the Medicare Drug Program and No Child Left Behind intended to reassure centrist voters that Bush was not a rightwing radical. Recall too that in the closing days of election 2004 after the GOP had made opposition to gay marriage a centerpiece, Bush rather strangely stated that he did not oppose civil unions for gays, another (purely rhetorical) feint to the center.

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Posted by: nfs pro street on September 16, 2007 05:41 PM

In the long term, the pendulum will swing back and forth. In the long term, we are all dead.

In the short to medium term, though (the next 10 to 20 years), the GOP is in serious trouble, due to a variety of factors. The two major ones are: 1) Bush is a Republican, and his poisonous legacy will drag them down; 2) young people are overwhelmingly supporting the Democrats. Other demographic trends are also favorable for Democrats.

Of course, the GOP can adjust its message and become more liberal to try to come back, but that will take a long time to do.

Posted by: youtube.oku.gen.tr on September 21, 2007 09:57 AM

couple of things.
On the one hand the Democrats dominated for a most of the last century.
On the other this was a strange coalition from civil rights on - with a major realignment in 1994, and then a subsequent one in 2006 in the Northeast.
The major reasons for that regional split look to greatly favor Democrats.
...and 9/11 changed everything for a couple of years.
It is impossible to understand anything without considering its impact on politics from 2002 until at least 2006.
bottom line, we know nothing, but I think you are even going to far in assuming that a rough balance is normal.

Posted by: 89 on September 21, 2007 09:58 AM

Oh ye of little faith!
Right now, it's possible to permanently marginalize the Republican Party and build an enduring majority. As your friends Ross and Reihan noted in their piece for the Weekly Standard's "The Party of Sam's Club", the Republican Party is a party that doesn't serve the economic interests of even its own base. It has been winning merely by holding a fundraising advantage having a better-organized movement over the past few years. But let me submit this to you: Virtually all the GOP nominees for President are tied to a massively unpopular war. There are twice as many GOP senators up for reelection as Democrats. Our elites (rich guys like the Democracy Alliance) and our grassroots (blogs and unions like DailyKos and the SEIU) are becoming more effective and organized. The energy and the momentum are on our side. Lets say we nominate somebody popular at the top of our ticket, consolidate our majority in the Senate and hold on to the House. Then, controlling all three branches of government, we pass universal healthcare, once again becoming the benevolent protectors of the middle-class, making the GOP a party wholly consisting of Southerners, virgins, and social rejects. Hey, stranger things have happend...

Posted by: 89.com on September 21, 2007 09:59 AM

But to some extent it was. The GOP did in fact find the center in one region of the country (the South) and they mistook this regional center for the center of the whole country. The GOP strategy assumed that with the South in line, the party need do no more than appeal a bit more broadly elsewhere in order to eke out a narrow electoral victory. Hence the Compassionate Conservatism slogan in 2000, and various pseudo-liberalist impulses like the Medicare Drug Program and No Child Left Behind intended to reassure centrist voters that Bush was not a rightwing radical. Recall too that in the closing days of election 2004 after the GOP had made opposition to gay marriage a centerpiece, Bush rather strangely stated that he did not oppose civil unions for gays, another (purely rhetorical) feint to the center.

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But to some extent it was. The GOP did in fact find the center in one region of the country (the South) and they mistook this regional center for the center of the whole country. The GOP strategy assumed that with the South in line, the party need do no more than appeal a bit more broadly elsewhere in order to eke out a narrow electoral victory. Hence the Compassionate Conservatism slogan in 2000, and various pseudo-liberalist impulses like the Medicare Drug Program and No Child Left Behind intended to reassure centrist voters that Bush was not a rightwing radical. Recall too that in the closing days of election 2004 after the GOP had made opposition to gay marriage a centerpiece, Bush rather strangely stated that he did not oppose civil unions for gays, another (purely rhetorical) feint to the center.

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Posted by: youtube on November 16, 2007 02:14 PM

So true, Matt. And that is even more important (to me) than securing a long-term Democratic majority. No one party can win everything all the time, so moving the whole damn discourse to the left is precisely what we're after. Then, even when GOP wins, it's closer to being sensibly liberal than it would be otherwise. We need to build a solid enough majority that wingnut Republicans are seriously marginalized because the rest of them are triangulating on the Democratic position. Then we can go back to the halcyon days of vigorously disagreeing with people

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