The emerging Republican majority
Fred Barnes:
Some Republicans are running against what they call the "generational theft acts." This forces Democrats to defend their spending in a different way than in the past. It also exposes them on their concern for "the children."
Underlying the concern for spending is the concern of many for higher taxes that will flow from this kind of spending. That is why some of the first Tea Party rallies were in mid April of 2009.
When the Democrats started pushing their rationed health care bill they responded to concerns raised by voters with insults. They then began to pile ever greater insults on as more and more people objected to their control freak government ideas.
The Tea Parties came first, starting in February 2009 when President Obama had been in office less than a month. Then came independents, a solid majority of whom had voted for Democrats in 2006 and 2008. By April 2009, they’d begun to favor Republicans.There is much more.
Add Tea Partiers and independents to the base of Republican voters (including soft Republicans) and you have an electoral majority. And by mid-summer last year, a center-right coalition was in place. It has broadened and solidified since then, which is why we are on the verge of a Republican landslide in the midterm elections on November 2. “It’s like 1994, only more intense,” says Republican strategist John Morgan.
The fear once widespread among Republicans that they faced 20 years in the political wilderness—40 years, Democratic strategist James Carville insisted—has vanished. Instead of decades as a minority party, Republicans (and conservatives) are escaping the boondocks after two years.
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The 2009-2010 cycle has produced the kind of facts on the ground that Republicans could only dream about. Thanks go to Obama and congressional Democrats. The political environment created by their unpopular policies has produced what Republicans couldn’t on their own—a united party.
It’s suddenly a big tent party that includes everyone from Tea Party libertarians to gay moderates. They’re in agreement on the economic issues (spending, taxes, deficit, debt, role of government) and health care. Those are the overriding issues in the election. Other issues pale in comparison.
Social issues aren’t unimportant—quite the contrary. But they didn’t need to be pushed front and center in the campaign and haven’t been. The best way to achieve a pro-life Congress is simply to elect Republicans. They tend to be strongly antiabortion.
Democrats like to think the economy is their only major problem and when it perks up, their fortunes will as well. They’re misguided. The Republican coalition emerged in embryonic form in the spring of 2009 while Obama was still personally popular, the stimulus hadn’t yet fallen into disrepute, and Americans blamed George W. Bush for the bad economy. The catalyst was what Republicans now refer to as if it were one word, “out-of-control-spending.”
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Some Republicans are running against what they call the "generational theft acts." This forces Democrats to defend their spending in a different way than in the past. It also exposes them on their concern for "the children."
Underlying the concern for spending is the concern of many for higher taxes that will flow from this kind of spending. That is why some of the first Tea Party rallies were in mid April of 2009.
When the Democrats started pushing their rationed health care bill they responded to concerns raised by voters with insults. They then began to pile ever greater insults on as more and more people objected to their control freak government ideas.
MuddyPolitics.com – It’s Go Time for the GOP
ReplyDelete– Rhetoric is great for riling the base, inciting the masses and winning elections, but as the GOP is so quick to point out in reference to President Obama, when the campaign curtain draws closed and actual governance is required, talk is cheap. Whether the destination is the grave or the legislative battlefield, it’s ‘go time’ for the GOP.