{"id":2353,"date":"2004-08-17T12:54:40","date_gmt":"2004-08-17T17:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2353.html"},"modified":"2004-08-17T12:54:40","modified_gmt":"2004-08-17T17:54:40","slug":"bushs-unsuccessful-drive-to-expand-his-modest-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-unsuccessful-drive-to-expand-his-modest-base\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush&#8217;s unsuccessful drive to expand his modest base"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are two equal-size parts to political outreach &#8212; seeking support and actually getting it. So far, Bush&#8217;s gang has done a little work on the first part, but is still failing when it comes to the second.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Lizza had <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnr.com\/blog\/campaignjournal?pid=1932\">an item<\/a> in The New Republic yesterday on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/national\/20040816-114755-1798r.htm\">Bush&#8217;s inability<\/a> to make inroads within the Jewish community. Among other things, Jewish voters prefer Kerry over Bush by an enormous margin (75-22) and deeply dislike Bush (20 favorable, 73 unfavorable).<\/p>\n<p>It prompted Lizza to note:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;d say with the exception of their efforts to woo Jews, blacks, Hispanics, and Catholics, Karl Rove&#8217;s and George W. Bush&#8217;s strategy to bring traditionally Democratic groups into the Republican fold is going swimmingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is absolutely true. If anything, Lizza is probably understating the case.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nIn addition to the constituencies mentioned above, Bush has also launched half-hearted outreach efforts to <a href=\"http:\/\/seattlepi.nwsource.com\/local\/186171_bushtribes13.html\">American Indians<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A3368-2004Jul21.html\">Hispanics<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/0,,SB109269710525092964,00.html\">Indian Americans<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/msnbc.msn.com\/id\/4980895\/\">women<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/globe\/editorial_opinion\/oped\/articles\/2004\/07\/28\/an_awakening_for_us_muslims\/\">Muslims<\/a>, all of whom seem to oppose Bush&#8217;s agenda and plan to back Kerry in November.<\/p>\n<p>Better yet, the one ethnic minority that Bush could really count on for support was the Cuban-American community, who is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.miami.com\/mld\/miamiherald\/8864742.htm?1c\">shifting slowly but surely<\/a> towards Kerry.<\/p>\n<p>So who is Bush left with? I know there are a few wealthy, white, Protestant men in the U.S, but I question whether it&#8217;s enough to get a guy elected president.<\/p>\n<p>Or as <a href=\"http:\/\/digbysblog.blogspot.com\/2004_08_15_digbysblog_archive.html#109271106208316113\">Digby put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So, after three years in office and a one time 90% approval rating, Bush has wrapped up the fundamentalist and CEO vote. Quite an achievement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two equal-size parts to political outreach &#8212; seeking support and actually getting it. So far, Bush&#8217;s gang has done a little work on the first part, but is still failing when it comes to the second. Ryan Lizza had an item in The New Republic yesterday on Bush&#8217;s inability to make inroads within [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}