Republican President Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy has played its course. From 1968 onward, the Solid Democratic South has become Solid Republican. A region dominated by older, white males has become the standard and the brand of the Republican Party. This metric worked wonders in 1980, 1984, and 1988. There was a slight disruption in 2000, one in which the captious infighting over ballots and recounts in Florida permitted the Sunshine state to go to Bush, who then relied on his incumbency to remain in the White House in 2004. By 2008, the diversity of this country has tilted the electorate toward favoring a role of government which will recognize the inclusion of the "Many to become the One". The Republican Party has the record on civil rights, individual liberty, and economic prosperity.
From 1968 on, Nixon targeted Southern constituencies in order to scoop up the South along with the rest of the Sun Belt. Population demographics have continued this trend from North to South.
Now the GOP needs a better strategy, one which pays less attention to region are more attention to color, creed, and culture. Color only as it relates to the principles and values of a community deserve the respect of targeting the message and encapsulating the values for future Republican voters.
New immigrant communities will tend toward the Democracy, just as they did in New York in the Gilded Age of the Political machines. Perhaps Republicans need to adopt this strategy and provide the resources for new arrivals to this country to find the support they need, but just short of welfarism, which is warfare against the long-term prosperity of those seeking a better life.
Italians of the Mauve era have become reliable Republicans of the Millennial generation. Nothing can stop the hard-working and industrious communities of today from becoming enclaves who enjoy prosperity instead of poverty today, either.
The country reflects the demographics of "old, white, male" less and less. The older, socially conservative generation is dying out, with young conservatives emphasizing the need for fiscal restraint and diminished indebtedness for the future generations. Whether a man wants to live with a man or a woman must return to the privacy of individual choices. In reality, marriage as a private matter is a more consistently conservative argument, to begin with. Churches will retain the authority to join in holy matrimony according to the dictates of their religious conscience or the congregational communions' decision.
Instead of a "Southern Strategy" focusing on white, evangelical voters, the Republicans need a "West-Coast" and "North East" strategy so that states like New York, California, and Illinois become competitive again. Howard Dean may have made himself a laughing-stock in 2004 after his dismal third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, but his "Fifty State" strategy deserves more scrutiny instead of ridicule. If the Democrats could do it, taking socially conservative Pennsylvania away from Santorum and leaning the state toward Bob Casey, then what's stopping Republicans from mucking with the Democratic dominance of Washington, Oregon, or even Massachusetts and Maine?
The GOP needs to change its strategy to reflect urban and coastal regions more effectively without alienating the rural factions of the country. Nixon and his Republican acolytes (including Ben "Beuller! Bueller!" Stein) cobbled together a civil rights coalition with Southern voters integrated. The Republican Party can find new links, forge new alliance, and expanding a party dedicated to the expansion of all colors, creeds, and cultures.
No comments:
Post a Comment