The Emerging Democratic Majority by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira
40 More Years: How Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation by James Carville
The next items are from from Is the U.S. on the cusp of a Sixth, or Seventh, political party system? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board
The Death of Conservatism by Sam Tanenhaus. From his interview in sold-for-$1 Newsweek:
Res ipsa loquitur.
One of the greatest profusions of written diarrhea.
Romney, Palin or Gingrich?
Maybe Michael Steele will ride in on a silver horse and provide the party with an electable candidate for 2012?
The stimulus did work, and the Republicans still are marginalized. Midterms don’t mean shit.
What do you think of the quote?
Whatever you say, Baghdad Bob.
Your capacity for self-delusion is astonishing if you can say that with a straight face.
I know history. Midterms have never meant shit. Clinton lost both houses in his first midterm and cleaned the Republicans’ clock for reelection. Obama is still doing better than either Reagan or Clinton did at this same point in their Presidencies. Don’t believe the hype that there’s any kind of a sea change. There never is. The tea baggers couldn’t even beat Harry Reid. Not much of a revolution.
Midterms do mean that the Republicans can play very hard at obstructionism for the next two years, though - and they most assuredly will. Combine that with the absurdly high expectations a portion of the electorate has of Obama (remember the folks at rallies complaining the economy wasn’t fixed yet?) and you’ve got a recipe for unpleasantness in 2012. The GOP can make it even harder for Obama to get things done, then turn around and denounce him as a do-nothing President.
I’m not saying it’ll work - I mean, to a lesser extent, that’s the same schtick they tried with Clinton. But it’s a credible threat, and I think it’s foolish to dismiss the midterm results as meaningless.
I would argue that they had more ability to obstruct when they were in the minority in both houses. Now they actually have to initiate legislation. They have to go first now. They can’t obstruct themselves…well, I guess they can, but that still only helps the Democrats.
So it’s a different day, but the same old shit they’ve been doing for the past two years?
That should play well with Americans who voted against govt. paralysis.
I still think they’ll be a minority party, and I agree with David Frum on that. They are a party of conservative whites over 50, and there really is no future for them unless they expand beyond that. Millennials will be 30-40% of the electorate soon, so will non-whites. The GOP keeps alienating both groups with their rhetoric and policies. In 15 years half the fox news & talk radio audience will be dead of old age and about 50-60% of the electorate will be millennials and non-whites. I think 2010 was more of an aberration due to the fact that dem turnout is lower in midterms, the dems are the incumbents, the economy is so poor and there was a difference in voter turnout.
Among registered voters, the dems led in the run up to 2010 by several points. Among likely voter the GOP led by several points. Come 2012 the enthusiasm gap will be closed and the dems will likely have a several point majority.
A big part of why they won so heavily in this election was the economy being so poor. Independents have voted against the incumbent party 3 times in a row now. This isn’t a sign that the public want tea party solutions to the nations problems as much as a sign that people are frustrated with both parties.
A lot of the self-identified independents now are conservatives who don’t want to call themselves Republicans. Tea baggers like to call themselves independent, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually swing voters. They vote straight party line Republican.
To borrow a line from Lawrence of Arabia, “Nothing is written.”
Granted, might turn out that the youth vote and other groups that carried Obama and the Democrats into office in 2008 will return in 2012 but it’s just as likely that this same block of voters might be so disillusioned and demoralized by the ineffectualness and incompetence of the Democrats that they’ll drop out of the political process altogether. I think that’s one reason why Republicans did so well this year. In terms of power, the Democrats after the 2008 election were at their best position in over 30 years. And yet, they still managed to be continually thwarted by the Republicans who, as a party, were at their lowest strength as party since the days just after Watergate. It is true they did pass some things like health care and financial institution reform but the plans were considerably watered down and of questionable effectiveness.
Makes you wonder where the centrist voters are.
They now constitute the left wing.
It is no big movement. As Clinton said" it is the economy stupid". people are scared shitless at the future. They are desperate. If the economy recovered, Obama would win in a walk. But it won’t. So 2012 will be a battle. Foreclosures are everywhere. Millions are running out of unemployment. There are layoffs all over the place. Do you think they can afford the luxury of worrying about left/right wing politics. They look around and it is ugly.
The banks are foreclosing while their execs are making mega millions. The populace does not like that much.