No obit needed for GOP

Kimberly Strassel:

Iowa Republicans went to the polls yesterday, and pity those who thought they were merely choosing a presidential nominee. Turns out they were taking a mallet to the modern frame of the Grand Old Party.

Or so goes the thinking of certain pundits and political gurus, who've taken the fractured state of today's Republican race as evidence the Reagan coalition is dead. The party is shrinking, its groups flying off in all directions, they say. "It's gone," says Ed Rollins, the former Reagan adviser and current Mike-Huckabee muse. "The breakup of what was the Reagan coalition--social conservatives, defense conservatives, anti-tax conservatives--it doesn't mean a whole lot to people anymore." It's time for something new, these people say. Though don't ask them what.

Or don't even bother, argue New Republic editor John B. Judis and think-tanker Ruy Teixeira, who claim it is simply too late for Republicans: The country is plodding toward a new era of Democratic rule. "Political, ideological, demographic and economic trends are all leading toward durable Democratic majorities in Congress, control of most statehouses and, very possibly, the end of the decades-old GOP hammerlock on the electoral college," they wrote recently.

True, the GOP is flailing. Congressional Republicans were tossed out for loss of principles. The nation is uncertain about President Bush's aggressive foreign policy and its mixed results in Iraq. Demographics hold big challenges. Tensions have flared among the party's wings. And, while the nomination race has churned up capable folk, none have so far demonstrated the force to calm the waters.

Yet the reports of the Reagan-coalition death are exceedingly premature.

Put aside last year's bum election, and you're left with two recent successful presidential victories. By next year, the GOP will have held the White House for 20 of the past 28 years; Republicans only recently capped 12 years of uninterrupted House rule. A coalition that strong, with that many successes, built on deeply felt ideals, doesn't just fizzle in a few years.

Last year's election certainly didn't offer proof. Democrats didn't win on the strength of their own ideology; they won by making the race a referendum on Republican corruption and competence. The spendthrift GOP was punished for abandoning its Reagan ideals of limited government. The 15 or so seats that provided Democrats their margin of victory in the House were won mostly by candidates who offered some appeal to traditional conservative voters. The district won in eastern Pennsylvania by pro-military veteran Admiral Joe Sestak, or in North Carolina by pro-life, anti-gun control Heath Shuler, are examples.

Demographics? Under the Judis-Teixeira theory, Democrats hold all the changing-landscape cards. They'll benefit from the rise of "post industrial metropolitan areas"--combos of city and suburb--full of professionals and minorities who are turned off by Republican cultural stances, are more open to big government, and unhappy with the war. They'll also scoop up a flood of Hispanic immigrants, who've found no welcome from the GOP.

Republicans have a Hispanic problem, although this isn't preordained....

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Watching the interview on Fox last night with Ed Rollins made me wonder how much unhappier he would have been if his guy lost. I don't recall seeing a more angry or bitter winner. He was upset that his thinking on the coming race had been revealed by a blogger who overheard his remarks to his wife over a meal in a restaurant. What is revealing from that episode is just how difficult it is going to be for Huckabee to sustain his victory in the coming contest.

Strassel makes a good point about the congressional race in 2006 and I think we are already see a movement back to the GOP in party identification. There is a realization that Democrats were really not serious about controlling spending. That is really what the Perot vote was about in 1992, and it was those voters who switched to the GOP to provide the margin for change in 1994. Those voters were upset in 2006 and narrowly went to Democrats. They now see that as a futile move and grossly misinterpreted as a vote to lose the war in Iraq. The President's tough stance on spending and the backing of the GOP on that issue is what has cause the change in party identification. Expect to see more of that in 2008.

The GOP Hispanic "problem" is overrated. Recent polling on the immigration issue shows that Democrat voters are closer to the GOP position than there own leadership expected. The Democrats are not going to be able to use immigration as a wedge issue against Republicans. Polling of legal immigrants, i.e. the ones who can vote, demonstrates a preference for the GOP too. Those who have played by the rules do not want those who did not to get away with ignoring the rule of law. Tougher laws on the state level along with tougher enforcement at the border is already resulting in a large number of self deportations. There is a bipartisan majority that now favors this approach and it appears to be working.