Live by Wal-Mart. Die by Wal-Mart. That could be the fate of the [tag]Republican Party[\/tag] this November if millions of government-loving voters suddenly abandon the [tag]GOP[\/tag] and return to their natural home in the [tag]Democratic Party[\/tag].<\/p>\n
The worst-case scenario for conservatives, however — that’s red-blooded, small-government conservatives, in case you were wondering — would be if the Republican Party bent over backward to convince these voters to stick around.<\/p>\n
What’s Wal-Mart got to do with anything? Not a whole lot, except as a symbol of a particular type of voter: largely Southern, rural, lower-middle-class, female, socially conservative — not big fans of tax cuts, but huge<\/i> fans of government programs.<\/p>\n
In other words, a libertarian conservative’s worst nightmare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As Sager sees it, these Wal-Mart voters don’t really fit in the GOP anyway. He makes a compelling case that they’re on their way out and Republicans shouldn’t even try to stop them.
\n<\/p>\n
Ever since the Gingrich revolution went off course and the GOP took a beating for instigating the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, the Republican Party has been trying to prove to jittery low-to-moderate income voters that it’s not all that<\/i> anti-government. Instead, it’s hoped to hold these voters’ loyalty by pressing their cultural hot buttons — gay marriage, flag burning, gay flag burning, married gays burning flags — and, after 9\/11, making the (entirely reasonable) case that the Democrats are not to be trusted on national security.<\/p>\n
But this year, voters are fed up with the war in Iraq, and other than that they’re focused on the economy, immigration, health care and gas prices. None of this cuts in favor of the GOP with the Wal-Mart set. Wal-Mart voters are giving Democrats a 6-point edge as to who’s better equipped to handle foreign policy, an 18 percent edge on health care and a 25 percent edge on gas prices (the parties are dead-even among Wal-Mart voters on the economy and immigration). What’s more, moral values hardly rate as an issue this year, for any voting bloc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What do these Wal-Mart-style voters want? According to a Pew Forum study, they support a higher minimum wage and guaranteed access to health care. And they’re not persuaded by an anti-government pitch. Hmm.<\/p>\n
Sager suggests the [tag]Republicans[\/tag] find a new way to woo these voters to stay in the tent, but he doesn’t make any specific recommendations. I can’t say I blame him — if “married gays burning flags” is off the table and Wal-Mart voters are anxious to vote on pocketbook issues, it’s hard to imagine what the GOP has to offer anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You’ve no doubt heard about the trendy demographic sub-groups that political scientists get excited about. We’ve seen NASCAR Dads, soccer moms, office-park dads, security moms, wired workers, freelance evangelicals, and others. [tag]Ryan Sager[\/tag], who is a conservative Republican, wrote a fascinating item this week about a sub-group I hadn’t heard much about: “[tag]Wal-Mart[\/tag] [tag]Voters[\/tag].” I’ve […]<\/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-7813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7813","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=7813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}