Much attention has been paid to the national Republican party and whether it can pull itself back from the edge of the cliff that its anti-science and extreme social conservatism and nativism have brought it to. This can be done. Political parties can show remarkable flexibility when their survival is threatened and many of the leaders in the national party have been warning that it has to shift course.
The catch is at the state and local level, where the country seems to be drifting towards one-party government with Republican dominance. After the last election, 25 states will have Republican control of both the legislature and the governorships, compared to just 15 states under Democratic control. In a large number of those states, the dominant party has over 60% of the legislature.
This is largely because Democratic support is concentrated in urban areas, and so compact contiguous districts can be drawn around such areas that give the Democrats huge majorities, while a much larger number of rural districts go Republican but by smaller majorities. Republican dominance is more a manifestation of the rural-urban divide, and gerrymandering just adds to the lop-sidedness.
Republicans state control was often achieved with the help of the most extreme members of their party, especially its Tea Party wing, and cemented with their sweeping wins in the 2010 elections. The 2014 election may also see a comeback for conservative Republicans, since they tend to do better in election years where there is no presidential race and the tide is usually against the party of the incumbent president. This will give its conservative base renewed vigor and is going to make it much harder for the national party to argue that it needs to change course.
Take the case of Ohio. For all the talk of it being a tightly contested swing state, in the end Barack Obama carried Ohio fairly comfortably by about 4%in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. But both houses in the state legislature have strong Republican majorities and the governorship is in their hands too.
An example of how this state-level dominance is going to cause problems for the national party can be seen with the so-called fetal heartbeat bill that seeks to outlaw abortions once the first heartbeat has been heard in the fetus. This is such a restrictive anti-choice measure that it has even split the anti-choice movement with some opposing it because they doubt its constitutionality.
Tom Niehaus, the Republican leader of the Ohio senate who is leaving the body at the end of the current session due to term limits, said that he would not allow the bill to come up for a vote in the current session of the legislature, citing concerns about its constitutionality and saying that he wanted to focus his attention on jobs and the economy. Outraged proponents of the bill then tried to invoke a little-used parliamentary procedure to try and do an end-run around him and he in turn successfully invoked another parliamentary maneuver to thwart that attempt.
So the bill is going to die in this session but will almost certainly be brought up in the next. But the fact that the Republican senate leader, whose party has 23 of the 33 members in the body, had to go to such lengths to thwart the social conservative supporters of his own party, shows the kind of difficulties that the Republican party faces going forward. It social conservative base is highly vociferous and energetic in making their demands known.
Even if the party does have a makeover at the national level to make their policies more appealing to the rising demographic of young, female, and people of color, they will have this albatross of state legislatures and state party activists weighing them down. The latter will see no reason to change because they are convinced they are right and that they have a winning formula, at least in the short run. As far as they are concerned, their message is paying off and it is easy for them to pin the blame for national losses on national politicians whom they think are not conservative enough or truly reflecting their interests. Mitt Romney has already been characterized as not being a true conservative who was foisted on them.
These people are the ones who dominate the Republican primary process. So it is possible that Republicans will hold their own or even slightly improve their performance in the 2014 elections but their 2016 presidential primary contest will once again be a circus, with another bumper crop of Bachmanns, Cains, Santorums, Gingriches, Perrys or their equivalents doing pretty well and making the party again look nuts.
I think this is a good prediction, with the caveat that I wouldn’t be surprised if they underperformed in 2014 (relative to expectations, that is) due to Akin/Mourdock-type moments. To be clear, they will likely pick up a few Congressional seats no matter what… but I’m thinking 2014 will be a year of only modest Republican gains, especially if there’s as much foot-shooting as in the down-ticket elections this year.
I’m giving about a 50/50 chance that the whole party fractures sometime in the next 10-15 years, with a Tea Party-esque faction breaking off to an initial surge in populist support followed by a rapid spiral into irrelevancy, and a weakened GOP eventually regrouping with a more moderate (but still generally pro-life) position, strong (if unenthusiastic) support for gay rights, and a somewhat sneakier Fuck-The-Poor plan than the current middle finger of slashing benefits while maintaining record low nominal tax rates on top income earners (perhaps they’ll go back to instituting hefty nominal tax rates, but making sure there are plenty of loopholes…)
But even if that does happen — and I’m becoming increasing optimistic that it will — it won’t be by 2014 or even 2016. Let the circus continue!
The Republican party’s albatross…
…is the Republicans themselves.
Is it really true that the proportion of female voters has increased or is increasing? My (uninformed) expectation is that it would be pretty constant.
The number of women voters (in both absolute terms and in terms of their share of the vote in any election) has been steadily increasing since 1996.
1992 saw a spike in the voting of women and men. I am not sure why.
Interesting. Thanks for the link!
They are too far down the rabbit hole to reform.
They had their civil war long ago and the moderates lost big time. They do have their own party, aka the Democrats.
And who says what they are doing isn’t working? They control 30 state governorships and the US House. It isn’t working that well, but not the badly either.
Their base in rural, older white voters. Those old white voters are well on their way to being dead voters. And the USA is one of the most highly urbanized nations on the planet, 80% of us live in metro areas according to the last census.
Due to demographics, probably they will just keep slipping and slipping. But this is a slow process that can take decades to play out.
They like to promote right wing extremist and culture war issues like UN Agenda 21, Planned Parenthood, women, gays, young people, poor people, because:
1. They are easy. Picking on UN Agenda 21 doesn’t require any thought. It’s basically imaginary.
Solving issues like teenage pregnacy, high unemployment, poor public education, and a static economy are hard.
2. They are cheap. It costs nothing to beat up on women or gays. At least short term. Long term, you end up like Mississippi, high rates of teenage pregnancy and unwanted kids that they don’t bother to support very well with public welfare and education. A self perpetuating poor class.
In other words, once the baby is out of the womb, their work is done.
The Republicans were in much the same boat after the 1964 presidential election. They’d been taken over by the early 1960’s equivalent of the TeaParty, the John Birch Society and gotten clobbered. They were able to turn that around enough to nominate the moderate (yes, I mean that) Richard Nixon in 1978. So at a national level, I think they can be turned around. The difference, of course, is that in 2012 they actually nominated a relatively moderate presidential candidate so they may have another debacle coming.
For 1992, I’m guessing a bunch of people who usually don’t vote were drawn in by the Perot candidacy.
Yes, someone take it, please. This has been going on for far too long.
And then there’s the Cuyahoga County Democrats…
Doh! Nixon was of course in 1968, not 1978!