{"id":10293,"date":"2007-03-23T09:45:52","date_gmt":"2007-03-23T13:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10293.html"},"modified":"2007-03-23T09:45:52","modified_gmt":"2007-03-23T13:45:52","slug":"so-much-for-the-permanent-republican-majority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/so-much-for-the-permanent-republican-majority\/","title":{"rendered":"So much for the ‘permanent Republican majority’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, a Senate Republican aide said<\/a> of the White House, “We just hope they leave without doing any more damage.”<\/p>\n

If the aide was referring to damage to the Republican Party, it’s too late<\/a>.
\n\"partyid\"<\/p>\n

Public allegiance to the Republican Party has plunged during George W. Bush’s presidency, as attitudes have edged away from some of the conservative values that fueled GOP political victories, a major survey has found.<\/p>\n

The survey, by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, found a “dramatic shift” in political party identification since 2002, when Republicans and Democrats were at rough parity. Now, 50% of those surveyed identified with or leaned toward Democrats, whereas 35% aligned with Republicans.<\/p>\n

What’s more, the survey found, public attitudes are drifting toward Democrats’ values: Support for government aid to the disadvantaged has grown since the mid-1990s, skepticism about the use of military force has increased and support for traditional family values has decreased.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One should always be cautious about throwing around words like “realignment,” but the Pew Center’s poll suggests the Republicans’ problems go beyond just Bush and a tragic and unpopular war. <\/p>\n

“Iraq has played a large part; the pushback on the Republican Party has to do with Bush, but there are other things going on here that Republicans will have to contend with,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center. “There is a difference in the landscape.”
\n
\nBruce Bartlett, a conservative analyst and author of the 2006 book “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” said, “There are cycles in history where one party or one movement ascends for a while and then it sows the seeds of its own self-destruction…. It’s clear we have come to an end of a Republican conservative era.”<\/p>\n

Going over the details in the report<\/a>, that’s probably not hyperbolic.<\/p>\n

Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More specifically: <\/p>\n

* Asked whether the government should care for those who can’t care for themselves, 69% of Americans said yes — up 12 points since the GOP take-over in 1994<\/p>\n

* Asked whether the government should help the needy, even if it means greater debt, 54% said yes — up 13 points since 1994.<\/p>\n

* Asked whether they embraced old-fashioned values about family and marriage, 76% said yes — down 8 points since 1994.<\/p>\n

* Asked whether school boards should have the right to fire gay teachers, 28% said yes — down 11 points since 1994.<\/p>\n

“This is the beginning of a Democratic opportunity,” said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “The question is whether we blow it or not.”<\/p>\n

Please don’t.<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/i>: If you’re interested, the whole, 112-page Pew report is online here<\/a> (pdf).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, a Senate Republican aide said of the White House, “We just hope they leave without doing any more damage.” If the aide was referring to damage to the Republican Party, it’s too late. Public allegiance to the Republican Party has plunged during George W. Bush’s presidency, as attitudes have edged away from some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}