Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

Republicans need to be careful how they handle the immigration issue, and avoid becoming too demagogic. Hispanics are a rapidly growing segment of the population, they have shown that they are up for grabs as a voting demographic, and a lot of the recent national GOP rhetoric on illegal immigration is over the top and off putting. That said GWB and McCain were both in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, so party leadership has been to the left of the rank and file on the issue.

The idea that Republicans need to take an election off and have a day or reckoning inside their party like the Democrats did in 1964 has got to be one of the most horrifically phrased statements in the history of the internets. LBJ won 486 electoral votes and 61% of the popular vote. He lost 6 states, 5 of which were in the deep South. The Solid South was falling apart for the Dems even before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond won a handful of the states in 1948, Eisenhower won Tennessee twice and came within a few points in South Carolina in 1952, some electors from Mississippi and Alabama ditched Kennedy in 1960. The New Deal coalition was unsustainable.

I figured moz must have meant either the Dems in '84 or the Republicans in '64... though I'm not sure either really counts as "taking an election off."

The story of how Goldwater won the Republican nomination in '64 is a fascinating one--both of you (moz, jerz) might enjoy Pearlstein's "Before the Storm," a great history of that cycle. In some respects, Barry just wasn't a very good candidate, but absent the JFK assassination and plus more professionalism on the Republican side, it might have been a much closer race. As for the Dems in '84, Mondale too wasn't a great candidate and, of course, Reagan was. But through '83, I think "Generic Democrat" had a lead on Reagan in polls. Certainly there was no intent to "take an election off."

What's more arguable is that both the successful Goldwater insurgency in '64 and the narrowly unsuccessful Gary Hart insurgency in '84 showed parties in moments of transition. Goldwater was the prophet of movement conservatism, and Hart was the first New Democrat who earned a national following. What the Republicans seem to have today is a collection of ever more debased descendents of Goldwater.

Maybe there's a Mitch Daniels out there who might spark a counter-movement by acknowledging the reality of what Stockman and Bartlett are talking about. That would be okay by me.

jerseyhoya wrote:Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

Republicans need to be careful how they handle the immigration issue, and avoid becoming too demagogic. Hispanics are a rapidly growing segment of the population, they have shown that they are up for grabs as a voting demographic, and a lot of the recent national GOP rhetoric on illegal immigration is over the top and off putting. That said GWB and McCain were both in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, so party leadership has been to the left of the rank and file on the issue.

The idea that Republicans need to take an election off and have a day or reckoning inside their party like the Democrats did in 1964 has got to be one of the most horrifically phrased statements in the history of the internets. LBJ won 486 electoral votes and 61% of the popular vote. He lost 6 states, 5 of which were in the deep South. The Solid South was falling apart for the Dems even before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond won a handful of the states in 1948, Eisenhower won Tennessee twice and came within a few points in South Carolina in 1952, some electors from Mississippi and Alabama ditched Kennedy in 1960. The New Deal coalition was unsustainable.

The solid South was not the "New Deal" coalition: it went back as far as 1880, as I tried to show, and had a hell of a lot to do with the Republican party being associated with Lincoln, and thus the "North."

In 1880, 1884, and 1892, all Southern states voted Democrat, including Kentucky, a "border" state.

Kentucky went Republican in 1896, all others voted Democrat.

All Southern states voted Democrat in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1916.

Tennessee broke ranks in 1920, and Kentucky in 1924; otherwise, the South was solidly Democratic.

1928 saw Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia vote Republican - in the case of the latter two, for the first time since 1880.

All Southern states voted Democratic in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. In 1948, there was a split in the Democratic party, but the splitting party still called itself "States Rights Democrats," and the states that voted for it went right back to voting Democratic in 1952 and 1956.

Finally, in 1952, because the Republicans ran a very popular war general who was about as moderate as a Republican is going to get (William F. Buckley was calling out Eisenhower for being too liberal), the Republicans carries Tennessee and Virginia. All the other Southern states went blue. In 1956, Kentucky joined Tennessee and Virginia.

Yes, by 1960, things were starting to fray around the edges, but by that point the Democrats were running a rich Catholic from Massachusetts - remember, the Klan was no fan of Catholics either, and they still had a lot of sway in Southern politics in 1960 - who supported Civil Rights legislation.

But again, the heart of the South - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina - hadn't voted for a Republican candidate since 1880 when they did so in 1964. It wasn't the "New Deal" coalition: it was the post-Reconstruction anger at Republicans for being the party of the Union coalition.

After Kennedy was assassinated, and Johnson's total victory was assured, the Civil Rights legislation had its moment. Among other things it accomplished was the banishment, for once and for all, of white supremacists from the Democratic party. The states with real civil rights issues started going red, reliably.

None of this is really disputable.

Nor is it disputable that there is, at the very least, a wide perception among outside observers - even putatively conservative outside observers, like The Economist - that the Republican party has problems with race politics because of this legacy. The party's base is shrinking, and their own social politics are preventing them from adding to their base in growth demographics.

These are the facts of the matter. The Republicans ignore them at their own peril.

I see where the confusion is. I suggested the Republicans should take an "election off," implying that I thought somehow the Democrats had done that. The Democrats, sad to say, were sort of handed a gift by the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination: Jesus Christ could not have beaten Lyndon Johnson in 1964. The Republicans ran Goldwater - who even they thought was a crackpot - because they knew they had no shot at winning. His project was to bring ideological purity to the Republican party (i.e., move it to the right), not unlike what the Tea Party is supposedly doing.

Anyway, because the Democrats had the '64 election sewn up the moment Kennedy was killed, they could go ahead and push through legislation that went directly at the heart of what had been their base, and thus "purge" that way.

I don't know if Republicans will be presented with a similar opportunity any time soon (certainly, I am sure we all hope that there are no more assassinations). Nevertheless, their traditional base is shrinking, and there is a persistent and not unfounded suspicion among middle-class-to-well-to-do voters - even white voters - that Republicans openly welcome those with the most bigoted notions of race and what it is to be a "real American" among their numbers.

This is going to be a problem for them, increasingly so as the years go on, is what I am suggesting. They need something - something big and convincing - to work against that perception, to show moderates and non-whites that they are not the party where bigots feel comfortable.

They may have to break up their own Southern stronghold to do it, at least temporarily, and that may wind up costing them an election. The Dems broke up their own Southern stronghold back in 1964, and, in essence, they were taking that election "off," because they didn't need to do anything in order to win big.

The Republicans may not get an opportunity like that, but I think the purge I am talking about will have to happen sooner or later, regardless.

One should be really careful drawing too many parallels to history. In all but the most superficial ways, both parties are facing some unprecedented issues.

One thing that is happening, though slowly, is the decline of identity politics, especially in the South. Joe Cao taking Jefferson's seat in New Orleans, Bobby Jindal's victory and Nikki Haley's likely victory (all non-white Republicans) could be import bellwethers. I think the corruption charges against Rangel and Waters are also indicators that we're in the last days of a certain kind of ethnic politics, a political style that's more prevalent in the NE than in the South. It cuts both ways--In AR-2 Joyce Elliot has an uphill fight against Tim Griffin, but she's got a chance. Though race will be a factor in that election, it's not a huge factor. If she loses, it won't be because she's black, it will be because she's too liberal for Arkansas.

So, in short, I don't think ethnic identity politics is a long-term problem for Republicans, unless, as JH points out, they go all nativist over immigration. The real issue, however, is the still increasing influence of fundamentalism in conservative ranks. Ethnic politics was always amenable to comprise and dividing the spoils. Fundies, by nature, simply aren't amenable to compromise. They'd sooner lose indefinitely than moderate their principles. And, it appears to me that this mentality has come to dominate Republican politics.

jerseyhoya wrote:Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

I should hasten to add that the point of such a gesture would not be to win the black vote, any more than passing Civil Rights Legislation won the black vote for Democrats in 1964. In that case, the black vote was already firmly Democratic, and had been since the first term of Roosevelt.

The point of a symbolic gesture, like doing what only a Republican could do in Mississippi and pushing for a change of the state flag, would be to send a message, particularly to young voters, Hispanic voters, and East and West Coast voters, that the Republican Party isn't just the "party of intolerance," that they get, for example, why including a Confederate flag inside a state flag is deeply offensive to a non-white subgroup of the population, and that they care enough about what is right to do something about it, and that they are not making within their own ranks a safe-haven for the bigoted, etc.

The Democrats couldn't plausibly be the party of the "Great Society" and progressivism while also tolerating anti-civil-rights southern white bigots in their ranks.

The Republicans are coming to a moment, I believe, where they won't EVER be able to win a national election if they are perceived to be in bed with that sort of person, because non-whites and white moderates will simply outnumber the type of person who is unfazed by those associations.

If the Republicans ever want to sniff victory in the Northeast or on the West Coast ever again, I think they are eventually going to need to make SOME sort of move that makes this point with the voters. I selected the flag of Mississippi because it would be a nationwide story, something only a Republican-led effort could accomplish, and yet it would be relatively cost-effective on a national stage in terms of votes, since only one state's worth of people would be directly affected (you can argue that there would be a backlash across the region as well). It doesn't have to be that flag, but that sort of thing, to show they are minority-friendly, etc.

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

Republicans need to be careful how they handle the immigration issue, and avoid becoming too demagogic. Hispanics are a rapidly growing segment of the population, they have shown that they are up for grabs as a voting demographic, and a lot of the recent national GOP rhetoric on illegal immigration is over the top and off putting. That said GWB and McCain were both in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, so party leadership has been to the left of the rank and file on the issue.

The idea that Republicans need to take an election off and have a day or reckoning inside their party like the Democrats did in 1964 has got to be one of the most horrifically phrased statements in the history of the internets. LBJ won 486 electoral votes and 61% of the popular vote. He lost 6 states, 5 of which were in the deep South. The Solid South was falling apart for the Dems even before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thurmond won a handful of the states in 1948, Eisenhower won Tennessee twice and came within a few points in South Carolina in 1952, some electors from Mississippi and Alabama ditched Kennedy in 1960. The New Deal coalition was unsustainable.

The solid South was not the "New Deal" coalition: it went back as far as 1880, as I tried to show, and had a hell of a lot to do with the Republican party being associated with Lincoln, and thus the "North."

In 1880, 1884, and 1892, all Southern states voted Democrat, including Kentucky, a "border" state.

Kentucky went Republican in 1896, all others voted Democrat.

All Southern states voted Democrat in 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1916.

Tennessee broke ranks in 1920, and Kentucky in 1924; otherwise, the South was solidly Democratic.

1928 saw Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia vote Republican - in the case of the latter two, for the first time since 1880.

All Southern states voted Democratic in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. In 1948, there was a split in the Democratic party, but the splitting party still called itself "States Rights Democrats," and the states that voted for it went right back to voting Democratic in 1952 and 1956.

Finally, in 1952, because the Republicans ran a very popular war general who was about as moderate as a Republican is going to get (William F. Buckley was calling out Eisenhower for being too liberal), the Republicans carries Tennessee and Virginia. All the other Southern states went blue. In 1956, Kentucky joined Tennessee and Virginia.

Yes, by 1960, things were starting to fray around the edges, but by that point the Democrats were running a rich Catholic from Massachusetts - remember, the Klan was no fan of Catholics either, and they still had a lot of sway in Southern politics in 1960 - who supported Civil Rights legislation.

But again, the heart of the South - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina - hadn't voted for a Republican candidate since 1880 when they did so in 1964. It wasn't the "New Deal" coalition: it was the post-Reconstruction anger at Republicans for being the party of the Union coalition.

After Kennedy was assassinated, and Johnson's total victory was assured, the Civil Rights legislation had its moment. Among other things it accomplished was the banishment, for once and for all, of white supremacists from the Democratic party. The states with real civil rights issues started going red, reliably.

None of this is really disputable.

Nor is it disputable that there is, at the very least, a wide perception among outside observers - even putatively conservative outside observers, like The Economist - that the Republican party has problems with race politics because of this legacy. The party's base is shrinking, and their own social politics are preventing them from adding to their base in growth demographics.

These are the facts of the matter. The Republicans ignore them at their own peril.

The Solid South was a part of the New Deal coalition. The New Deal did not create the Solid South. The New Deal coalition cobbled together blacks in the north with labor unions, farmers, ethnic whites, and racist Southern Democrats. It held together under FDR, but after he died, various segments of the coalition broke off under the strain of trying to hold together such disparate groups. It was unsustainable to expect blacks and liberal whites in the north and racist southerners to coexist in the same party.

Meanwhile this has no bearing on anything the GOP is currently facing. It's not like we need to pick between racist southerners or black people or else one of them will stop voting for us. Black people don't vote for Republicans. It sucks because it makes it harder to win elections, but I wouldn't change anything in the platform for the sake of reaching out to blacks, and I'm considerably more than 100% sure that Haley Barbour taking the Confederate Flag off the Mississippi state flag is not going to help the GOP with black voters nationally or in Mississippi in any meaningful way. Or white, brown, yellow or purple voters either.

TV brings up a decent point with the overt religiosity of the modern GOP turning off voters. I'm not sure I buy into his fundamentalists=no compromise thesis completely, but I think the Southern Baptist Yay Jesus element of the national party hurts the GOP in suburbs way more than any perceived problem with racial politics.

The only racial politics I care about the GOP handling better is Hispanic outreach, and I'm not really sure how that's going to happen.

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

I should hasten to add that the point of such a gesture would not be to win the black vote, any more than passing Civil Rights Legislation won the black vote for Democrats in 1964. In that case, the black vote was already firmly Democratic, and had been since the first term of Roosevelt.

The point of a symbolic gesture, like doing what only a Republican could do in Mississippi and pushing for a change of the state flag, would be to send a message, particularly to young voters, Hispanic voters, and East and West Coast voters, that the Republican Party isn't just the "party of intolerance," that they get, for example, why including a Confederate flag inside a state flag is deeply offensive to a non-white subgroup of the population, and that they care enough about what is right to do something about it, and that they are not making within their own ranks a safe-haven for the bigoted, etc.

The Democrats couldn't plausibly be the party of the "Great Society" and progressivism while also tolerating anti-civil-rights southern white bigots in their ranks.

The Republicans are coming to a moment, I believe, where they won't EVER be able to win a national election if they are perceived to be in bed with that sort of person, because non-whites and white moderates will simply outnumber the type of person who is unfazed by those associations.

If the Republicans ever want to sniff victory in the Northeast or on the West Coast ever again, I think they are eventually going to need to make SOME sort of move that makes this point with the voters. I selected the flag of Mississippi because it would be a nationwide story, something only a Republican-led effort could accomplish, and yet it would be relatively cost-effective on a national stage in terms of votes, since only one state's worth of people would be directly affected (you can argue that there would be a backlash across the region as well). It doesn't have to be that flag, but that sort of thing, to show they are minority-friendly, etc.

If you think a sizable portion of white voters don't vote Republican because the GOP is not "minority friendly" and would otherwise vote GOP, I think you're on drugs.

TenuredVulture wrote:One should be really careful drawing too many parallels to history. In all but the most superficial ways, both parties are facing some unprecedented issues.

One thing that is happening, though slowly, is the decline of identity politics, especially in the South. Joe Cao taking Jefferson's seat in New Orleans, Bobby Jindal's victory and Nikki Haley's likely victory (all non-white Republicans) could be import bellwethers. I think the corruption charges against Rangel and Waters are also indicators that we're in the last days of a certain kind of ethnic politics, a political style that's more prevalent in the NE than in the South. It cuts both ways--In AR-2 Joyce Elliot has an uphill fight against Tim Griffin, but she's got a chance. Though race will be a factor in that election, it's not a huge factor. If she loses, it won't be because she's black, it will be because she's too liberal for Arkansas.

Also Tim Scott is going to become the first black GOP congressman from the deep south since a long time ago.

jerseyhoya wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Black people don't vote for Republicans and changing a state flag in Mississippi isn't going to change that.

I should hasten to add that the point of such a gesture would not be to win the black vote, any more than passing Civil Rights Legislation won the black vote for Democrats in 1964. In that case, the black vote was already firmly Democratic, and had been since the first term of Roosevelt.

The point of a symbolic gesture, like doing what only a Republican could do in Mississippi and pushing for a change of the state flag, would be to send a message, particularly to young voters, Hispanic voters, and East and West Coast voters, that the Republican Party isn't just the "party of intolerance," that they get, for example, why including a Confederate flag inside a state flag is deeply offensive to a non-white subgroup of the population, and that they care enough about what is right to do something about it, and that they are not making within their own ranks a safe-haven for the bigoted, etc.

The Democrats couldn't plausibly be the party of the "Great Society" and progressivism while also tolerating anti-civil-rights southern white bigots in their ranks.

The Republicans are coming to a moment, I believe, where they won't EVER be able to win a national election if they are perceived to be in bed with that sort of person, because non-whites and white moderates will simply outnumber the type of person who is unfazed by those associations.

If the Republicans ever want to sniff victory in the Northeast or on the West Coast ever again, I think they are eventually going to need to make SOME sort of move that makes this point with the voters. I selected the flag of Mississippi because it would be a nationwide story, something only a Republican-led effort could accomplish, and yet it would be relatively cost-effective on a national stage in terms of votes, since only one state's worth of people would be directly affected (you can argue that there would be a backlash across the region as well). It doesn't have to be that flag, but that sort of thing, to show they are minority-friendly, etc.

If you think a sizable portion of white voters don't vote Republican because the GOP is not "minority friendly" and would otherwise vote GOP, I think you're on drugs.

I think that between young white voters, minority voters, and political moderates, there are a significant - read: election-losing - and growing number of people who won't vote for a party that is seen as too closely associated with racial bigots, homophobic bigots, and people who are hostile to women's rights. I think this concept of the Republican Party has already cost them any hope of victory in a national election in New England, New York, California, Washington, Oregon, and quite possibly Pennsylvania. That's almost the Presidency right there.

I think the Republican Party needs to do something to combat that perception, to avoid losing too much ground in growing demographics (people who were born in 1976 or later, Hispanics, etc.), and also to purge those people who really don't bring anything positive to the table for the party.

I don't know, if I were a Republican, I'd rather lose without a single vote from a racial bigot or a homophobe than win by tacitly cultivating their support. Those folks eviscerate the reputation of the party among an increasingly tolerant and, dare I say it, "liberal" populace when it comes to social issues, and worse, taint, by force of association, the party's better ideas.

I mean, eventually, I kind of keep expecting a full split of the Republican Party along Libertarian lines. The current Libertarian Party has too many anti-government-of-any-kind wackos to be main stream, but the basic notion of libertarianism - do what you want, so long as it doesn't bother me, and don't ask me for anything - is right about where an increasing number of Americans are. I'll take care of me and mine, and I don't care how you live your life, just keep my taxes low.

Eventually some party with that idea is going to start making significant gains. If I were the Republicans, I'd want it to be me.

moz wrote:I mean, eventually, I kind of keep expecting a full split of the Republican Party along Libertarian lines. The current Libertarian Party has too many anti-government-of-any-kind wackos to be main stream, but the basic notion of libertarianism - do what you want, so long as it doesn't bother me, and don't ask me for anything - is right about where an increasing number of Americans are. I'll take care of me and mine, and I don't care how you live your life, just keep my taxes low.

I don't think it's news that "the middle" of the electorate is now far more socially liberal and far less economically liberal than was the case forty or fifty years ago. But the Republicans have become, if anything, more socially conservative thanks to the Christianist wing of their coalition. The Democrats meanwhile certainly have moved "right" on economics, but probably not as fast as the center itself has been moving right--thus, in the eyes of Manichean partisans, Obama seem *more* socialist than, say, Carter even though his version of health care reform was more market-oriented, fiscally responsible etc even than Clinton's.

Until recently, I thought that it was possible to reverse the anti-government thrust of American politics over the last forty years or so, and I specifically believed that Obama, as a rational-seeming guy who distrusted grand schemes and bought into behavioral economics and all that, might be the guy who pulled it off. But I'm starting to think we're beyond that point--in which case a competent, relatively minimalist government that doesn't wreck the economy might be the best option.

Even that, though, presumes an essentially rational (dare I say Werthless-ish) dislike/distrust of government; we're not remotely there. We kind of hate government, but ferociously "refudiate" any hint that spending on Medicare, "defense" or most anything else of significance be reduced.

In a nutshell, this is why I'm so glum about politics these days.

We're all selfish. That's the problem.

TenuredVulture wrote:Here you go Moz.

Check out this quote from Senator Jeff Sessions in the article:

"I'm not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen," Sessions said.

Yeah... that's the problem in the United States. Relatively well-off people from South America buy plane tickets to come up here, give birth, and fly back. I am sure that happens 50 times a day every day.

Jesus Christ.

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Here you go Moz.

Check out this quote from Senator Jeff Sessions in the article:

"I'm not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen," Sessions said.

Yeah... that's the problem in the United States. Relatively well-off people from South America buy plane tickets to come up here, give birth, and fly back. I am sure that happens 50 times a day every day.

Jesus Christ.

To be fair, it seems like Sessions isn't a big fan of the 13th thru 15th Amendments anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sharron Angle:

...these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.

dajafi wrote:Ladies and gentlemen, Sharron Angle:

...these programs that you mentioned -- that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward -- are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.

I hope if and when I ever get my fifteen minutes of fame, I know when to shut up. Not likely, but I can dream anyway.

dajafi wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Here you go Moz.

Check out this quote from Senator Jeff Sessions in the article:

"I'm not sure exactly what the drafters of the (14th) amendment had in mind, but I doubt it was that somebody could fly in from Brazil and have a child and fly back home with that child, and that child is forever an American citizen," Sessions said.

Yeah... that's the problem in the United States. Relatively well-off people from South America buy plane tickets to come up here, give birth, and fly back. I am sure that happens 50 times a day every day.

Jesus Christ.

To be fair, it seems like Sessions isn't a big fan of the 13th thru 15th Amendments anyway.

is there a bucket big enough to hold the flopsweat sessions would shed if he were required publicly to attempt to spell 'constitution'?

Judge overturned Prop 8

jerseyhoya wrote:Judge overturned Prop 8

that's bound for the supreme court sooner or later