Who wants to be a Republican? Hardly anyone these days
By David Neiwert Monday Apr 27, 2009 2:15pm
The Washington Post manged to bury this at the bottom of their story, but MSNBC happened to notice this little data nugget out of its latest national poll:
There is a warning sign for the GOP in the new poll: 21 percent of those surveyed said they identify as Republicans, the fewest to do so in a Post-ABC poll in more than 25 years. Last fall, Democrats outnumbered Republicans at the polls by the biggest margin in network exit polls going back to the 1982 midterms.
David Shuster and Richard Wolffe discussed it first, then Norah O'Donnell got the Republican perspective from Michelle Bernard.
Shuster and Wolffe note that the exodus has not benefited Democrats, but rather has swollen the ranks of Independents, which is fairly normal. However, Wolffe offers this appraisal:
Wolffe: So people are not self-identifying as Republicans. And for the party to rebuild, that means they've got speak to people beyond the base, the people who may have been at those teabag parties. They've got to reach the people who identify themselves now as Independents. They don't like partisan politics.
I think he's got this completely backwards. Wasn't Wolffe listening to the people at the tea parties? Doesn't he ever watch Glenn Beck? Those people are the new Independents. They're leaving the Republican Party because it isn't far enough to the right.
Bernard, in contrast, actually makes a good deal of sense:
Bernard: Here's the question: Is the Republican Party going to be a Big Tent party, or is it going to be reduced to a geographic area that is made up primarily of evangelical Christians? That's something that the party has to determine. If you want to win elections, the Republican Party as it is today is going to be a party that is very limited and cannot reach national elections until they can get the message of free markets and limited government out. They need to have a new message and find a way to appeal to African Americans, Hispanics, and young voters.
There's that portion of the party, though, that, you know, they don't care. There is a litmus test, and they are not going to change the coalition the way that it stands. And, you know, they've got to find a leader.
In reality, the seeming exodus of the Glenn Beck-style wingnut element from the GOP is a terrific opportunity for smart, sensible Republicans like Bernard. It means they might actually have a chance to really change the Republican Party back into something resembling a sane and serious political party and not an Asylum For the Criminally Insane.
You have to wish them luck. But I'm not holding my breath, either.
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I guess we have to refer to them as the 21%ers now.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7Vt-A7Yf_Ro/SdE2rxT...
referring to the republicans as 'rump republicans' because on the animal it is the percent of hind end! Very funny!
The independent issue is of concern because it appears to be a non cohesive block...No ideology in common!
On the down side, look at how few people refer to themselves as being "liberal". The right has been quite successful in tainting the liberal viewpoint (no pun intended).
they haven't tainted the "liberal view point" liberals have always been the majority, what they've managed is to turn the word into a perjorative
the founders were liberals, the majority of this country has always been "liberal" however they wouldn't call themselves the word
however if you asked them the principles they stood by you would only be able to call them liberal
what the media and neo cons call "far left" is actually center, it's the majority not a minority
"In reality, the seeming exodus of the Glenn Beck-style wingnut element from the GOP is a terrific opportunity for smart, sensible Republicans like Bernard. It means they might actually have a chance to really change the Republican Party back into something resembling a sane and serious political party and not an Asylum For the Criminally Insane."
Aren't they already called Democrats? And the reason why there is a conservative party and an extreme far right batshit insane party.
The GOP doesn't need a bigger tent, it needs a smaller clown car.
-G
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unhzflofDK0
if you want to find the root of republican disgrace there are two places;
rush
rove
those two are responsible for the fall of the republican party
amazing coincidence how much alike they look isn't it
The only ones I've ever run into tend to vote Republican. I ascribe that to the fact that they're ashamed of being Republican but they have a way out by saying they're Indepdendent. This "Independent" BS shields them from taking a stand on ANYTHING until they go to the voting booth. And for Democratic politicians to try to sway the "Independent" voter i.e., give up their Democratic ideals, makes me pretty much a crazy person. And not very much fun to be around.
who think that you have to pick one side or the other and stick with it like this is team sports loyalty with treacherous consequence. Sorry, but conservative isnt a party, rather its nothing more than those who want the status quo to remain because they think if it changes they stand to lose something.
At the time of the civil war, those were the southern Democrats, who were at odds with their northern counterparts, and the upstart Republicans were able to divide and conquer. For better or worse, at the time they were more liberal than conservative. Here in modern times a point down the road could come where the Democratic party went off the deep end and found themselves towing the conservative line.
The Republican party has lost its way and it has no ideas or solutions. I dont see that changing for some time, save for grievous incompetence mixed with horrendous catastrophe by their opposition, which runs pretty long odds.
Independents are the majority. We pick people, not parties, and btw, while I have voted for candidates in four parties, I voted for B.O, even in the primary.
You have got to be kidding me? This is the most inane question I've seen taken seriously in a while.
It's like asking Who Wants to be a Racist? Well duh, no one. But even back before the Civil War, most die hard Confederates didn't consider them racists. They were just upholding the natural order? And even today, the word racist is quickly becoming equated with conservative which definitively describes your average GOP'er so... put two & two together.
What I'm trying to say is...as the Republican Party looks less and less attractive as a label, of course no one wants to be IDENTIFIED as a Republican. But start asking them if they believe what they see on FOX and delving into their beliefs...and these folks haven't changed one iota over the last 8 years.
Between the Tea Parties and the FOX Network refusal to even AIR the President's latest press conference...I see this type of rhetoric becoming more common and more dangerous and more hateful - despite the fact the less people want to identify with it - they still silently and not-so-silently support it.
Aurora Colorado, 2nd largest city in the Aurora-Denver Metro Region (312,000 pop.) has been shifting slowly then rapidly from R U D to D U R during the last 8 years. 2 years ago while walking my precincts I was frequently told by Unafiliated people they used to be R's. Most of the U's were voting Progressive (me) because of what their former party was doing to the city, state and nation.
Last year many of the U's moved to Dem and many non-registered became Dems. Now my voter lists have many more U's and D's then two years ago.
Pam Bennett For Aurora
With fully 30% of the country self-identifying as Independent, why the heck don't the pollsters start asking that group whether they consider themselves;
a) to the right of the Republicans (if that's even possible)?
b) to the left of the Democrats?
c) between the two parties?
This would be good information to have, especially for someone who wanted to challenge a centrist Democrat in a primary election or to run as a third party candidate.
The American eagle, as it stands now, is a peculiar bird with two right wings - far right Democrats and extreme right Republicans. The aerodynamics is flawed, putting the whole country in a ever-tightening downward spiral.
I am just so tired of their racism, misogyny, homophobia, greed, xenophobia, religious chauvinism, anti-intellectualism, lack of moral compass, lack of human decency, day in and day out, eroding much of goodness one can find in America.
I think we all have to find ways to help our country out of the situation its in, and for most of us, I dare say it includes either ceasing to support Republicans, or never getting started supporting them.
I don't believe in saving their obsolete and corrupt party. We should start planning for a right wing Democratic, left wing Democratic Socialist or Green party combination for the future.
I don't think there's anything about the Rethug Party that warrants saving it. And the Conservadems are the closet thing that progressives have to a rational opposition at this point.
I don't buy your point that the crazies at the tea bag parties were all or even mostly independents. They sound exactly the same as John Boehner and the other Republicans, including Michael Steele except for one weekend in which he tried to stray into more moderate territory and immediately ran back to Rush.
If the head of the RNC is acting like Limbaugh, which is to say like Beck, which is to say like the teabaggers, then who's to say that Republicans are the less extreme? I think most of the insane extremists are the ones calling themselves Republicans when polled, I mean who else would, at this point?
I think the independents are more often the people you read all the time on comments sections these days saying "I used to be a Republican but I finally got fed up with Bush and voted for Obama".
Can anyone say Republi-whig
It's gratifying to see Reagan's Southern Strategy die a slow death. Also, his trickle down economics. I feel a sense of sadness though that Strom Thurman and Jesse Helms didn't live long enough to see an African-American elected President. Oh, I guess in Jesse's case it would be a Henry (his N-word code).
More blood on Beck, Rush, Bill O and FOX's hands for inciting the domestic terrorists. Not that they care.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/josh...
I love how these polls always lump Independents into one big group and fail to ask what their real political views are. I have a feeling this is deliberate obfuscation on the part of the pollsters. It leaves the door open to misidentifying this "group" as "centrist" i.e. Conservative leaning. The reality is that at least a very large portion of people who self-identify as Independent are to the left of the Democratic party.
There is also a large contingent that are hard right, not "centrists" at all who would be attracted to a moderate GOP. They will announce loudly that they are Independents, but vote lockstep with the Republican party. These are your teabaggers. Many of these were avid Bush supporters and apologists until his poll ratings went into the tank. For them, Identifying as Independent is only a slight of hand employed to give themselves an air of independence and the appearance of intellectual superiority by being able to claim they are above partisan politics. Yet when you talk to these people, they mouth the same right wing talking points they get from Fox News and that "Independent" Bill O'Reilly.
You've all encountered this kind of right wing troll on the internet as they try to accuse you of simply being partisan and roll out their false equivalence arguments.
The reality is, there are few, if any, moderate centrist Independents. This lie is mostly trotted out to make the Democrats appear extreme.
Bernard, in contrast, actually makes a good deal of sense
Well there goes his career down the shitter. Can't succeed in today's Republican Party and make sense.
You have to wish them luck.
Ummmm, No! They may not have always been quite so brain dead and batshit crazy in the past, but they have always been borderline evil and thoroughly bad for America and most Americans.
"Bernard: Here's the question: Is the Republican Party going to be a Big Tent party..."
Brought to you by Viagra.
I'm sure those who self-identified themselves as republican went down after Watergate too.
It's bullshit that social conservatives and fiscal conservatives do not get along. They get along just fine, the problem is that conservatism was put to the test both socially and fiscally for the past 8 years and it turned out to be a total disaster because IT DOESN'T WORK. I still believe that there's a lot of goodness left in America and those who thought they were conservatives had to deal with such moral degradation associated with conservatism that they had to think deep and hard where they stand. Conservatims has always been associated with treating others like subhumans, undeserving of any compassion whatsoever. Is that what most people really want?
would be "if you consider yourself a liberal and progressive, would you vote for a viable third party that actually is both?". Then you would see how the Dems and Reps numbers would be fairly even percentage-wise.
Liberals and progressives helped the Dems get elected. If there was a real liberal progressive party, Dems would be in the same position as the Reps. As it sits, you have a choice, dumb or dumber. Pretty sad. Not much better in Canada though. Our oligarchy has figured that one out already and created the parties themselves. And they STILL wonder why the voting numbers are so low. Duh.
If that question was imposed then it would be fair to ask "if you consider yourself a conservative, would you vote for a viable third party that actually is both?". There are alternative parties to both liberals and conservatives, I think you missed the point. However, there is a third and for that matter, a fourth party, and neither got shit for vote.
Bernard makes a few good points, but still whiffs on a major one:
"the Republican Party as it is today is going to be a party that is very limited and cannot reach national elections until they can get the message of free markets and limited government out..."
Didn't we just go down this road? The only thing he left out was tax cuts!
"You have to wish them luck. But I'm not holding my breath, either."
No you don't. I want the bible thumping knuckle dragging retards to OWN the Republican Party and drive it right into the trashbin of history. Then I want the Democratic Party to become "the right wing" so the USA can actually develop a REAL LEFT WING that will lead the country away from the brink of self-inflicted oblivion.
I vote this for comment of the week.
George W. Bush: The Gift That Keeps On Giving.
I don't know, when I think of Harry Reid, Diane Feinstein, Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Harold Ford, etc., etc., etc., I have to ask myself who wants to be a Democrat?
At this point choosing between the two parties is like choosing between Ebola ans Swine Flu -- no one in his or her right mind would want either one, though one is clearly worse than the other.
When I think of Harry Reid, I'm not only ashamed to be associated with the Democratic Party, I'm ashamed to be an American, a human being, a man, a biped...you name it.
You were born a human and that's nothing to be ashamed of. However, calling yourself something other than human (Republican, Democrat, American, blah blah blah) is a lie and shame-ful. Dump the crap that comes with labels and embrace being a human. I guarantee that you'll love yourself for it.
I have always viewed the Dems as being the lesser of two evils. I think People are simply tired of the corruption and the criminals that infest our government in general. The Democratic Party can be just as bad as the Republican Party. If the Dems achieve super-majority status (Arlan Specter just announced he's jumping ship and joining the Democratic Party) they too will become drunk with power as did the Republicans. Then People will turn to the Republicans to 'save the country' from whatever socioeconomic disasters that are in store for the future. It's a vicious circle. It's time to change the way Washington does business. It's time to bring 'The Great Experiment' into the 21st century, but framed in such a way that preserves our Constitution and would make the Founding Fathers proud.
Couldn't help but notice: the number identifying themselves as Republican fell 8%, the number identifying themselves as Independent went UP 8%, and the number identifying themselves as Democrats stayed the same. So clearly, the same 8% simply started calling themselves "independent".
They may be too ashamed to call themselves Republican, but I can assure you, those 8% still are. I know how Republicans think. If they don't vote in lockstep and agree 100% with every single thing their Party does, they think they're "Independent".
Am I reading this correctly? The % of people identifying as Republican is at the lowest it's been since the Fall of 1983.
If you put it like that, why should they worry? Reagan won in a landslide in the Fall of 1984.
They didn't say that it's been the lowest since the poll began in 1982. That would certainly be impressive.
If your a uneducated, full of hatred, blind fool and wish harm to this country than you belong in the GOP party.
The Enron Scandal...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_de...
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