Republican Party

Update: Kos just posted an example of the political deafness and blindness I just described below from a 2006 Peggy Noonan column.

Excerpt:

Conservatives are always writing about the strains and stresses within the Republican Party, and they are real. But the Democratic Party seems to be near imploding, and for that most humiliating of reasons: its meaninglessness. Republicans are at least arguing over their meaning.

The venom is bubbling on websites like Kos, where Tuesday afternoon, after the Alito vote, various leftists wrote in such comments as "F--- our democratic leaders," "Vichy Democrats" and "F--- Mary Landrieu, I hope she drowns." The old union lunch-pail Democrats are dead, the intellects of the Kennedy and Johnson era retired or gone, and this--I hope she drowns--seems, increasingly, to be the authentic voice of the Democratic base.

How will a sane, stable, serious Democrat get the nomination in 2008 when these are the activists to whom the appeal must be made?

Republicans have crazies. All parties do. But in the case of the Democrats--the leader of their party, after all, is the unhinged Howard Dean--the lunatics seem increasingly to be taking over the long-term health-care facility. Great parties die this way, or show that they are dying.

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As if 2006 and 2008 weren't humiliating enough for the Grand Old Party, they're trying their best to get to a whole new kind of embarrassment come 2010/2012.

Obviously blind and deaf to the current political environment and demographics, we see the Republicans taking steps backward to accommodate the political views of its ever-shrinking base. John Boehner sounds a lot like Herbert Hoover:

“If we’re really serious about creating jobs, what we ought to do is we ought to eliminate the capital-gains tax,” Boehner said on Fox. “Why not lower capital gains taxes for -- and corporate income taxes for corporations in America to help keep jobs here?”

And then we get word that South Carolina Republican chair, Katon Dawson, is running for chairman of the Republican National Committee. Yes, that whites-only club member Katon Dawson, who didn't decide until September, when he realized he wanted to run for RNC chair, that he'd get rid of his racist ties.

Katon Dawson, the South Carolina GOP chairman, announced his candidacy for RNC chair yesterday.

And guess what: Back in September, when Dawson was first quietly laying the groundwork for his RNC run, The State newspaper reported that he resigned his membership in the nearly 80-year-old Forest Lake Club. Members told the newspaper at the time that the club's deed has a whites-only restriction and has no black members.

[...]

What's more, The State said that Dawson resigned the club after it became known that the paper was getting ready to report his membership.

So here we are, almost four weeks after Election Day, and the GOP continues to ignore the warning signs.

1. Like similar reports, a report from the Center for American Progress released a few weeks ago finds that Millennials (18-29 year old voters in the 2008 election) overwhelmingly saw government as the chief problem-solver.

   

2. From the Generation We and 2008 report discussed in Mike's post last week, Millennials are more concerned that the wealthiest in society and corporations will get too many tax breaks than be taxed too much.
   

   Millennials showed less tax sensitivity than voters as a whole in terms of moves to increase economic performance and fairness. For example, respondents were given the choice “I'm more worried that we will fail to make the investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy. OR I'm more worried that we will go too far in increasing government spending and will end up raising taxes to pay for it”. Millennials chose the first over the second statement by 67-33, while voters overall were split down the middle 48-49. Similarly, the following choice was posed about corporate tax breaks: “I'm more worried that we will give more tax breaks to the rich and corporations. OR I'm more worried that we will go too far taxing the rich and corporations”. Millennials favored the first statement over the second by 74-26, compared to 61-34 among all voters.

   A related economic policy choice was the following: “When I voted, I was more concerned that Obama will raise taxes and increase government spending. OR When I voted, I was more concerned that McCain will continue the economic policies that have cost us jobs and caused higher prices”. By 57-33, Millennials were more concerned about McCain’s policies causing job loss and price hikes than about Obama’s policies causing tax hikes and spending increases. But among voters as a whole, this choice
   elicited a very close 49-45 split.

3. The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation report notes that Millennials are the most diverse generation in America's history, believing that race shouldn't limit relationships with other human beings, romantic or otherwise.
   

   According to March, 2006 Census data, about 62 percent of Millennial adults are non-Hispanic white, 18 percent are Hispanic, 14 percent are black and 5 percent are Asian. Reflecting this diversity and a generational proclivity toward seeing race as “no big deal,” Millennial attitudes on race are extremely progressive. According to the Pew Gen Next study, in 2003, almost all (89 percent) of white 18-25 year old Millennials said they agreed that “it’s all right for blacks and whites to date each other,” including 64 percent who “completely” agreed. Back in 1987-88, when the same question was posed to white 18-25 year old Gen Xers, just 56 percent agreed with this statement. Data from a 2005 Gallup poll underscore these findings; 95 percent of 18-29 year olds said they approve of blacks and whites dating and 60 percent of this age group said they had dated someone of a different race. In addition, 82 percent of white 18-25 year old Millennials in 2003 disagreed with the idea that they “don’t have much in common with people of other races.”

Young voters want the country to go in one direction, and the GOP, in these two examples, are apparently going to go the other way.

While this GOP stubbornness is certainly good news for the Democratic Party (provided we keep improving our youth outreach efforts), it's sad for the country. In order for youth to be healthily engaged in politics, both parties need to hold up their end of the bargain.

Some reading material when you have time to take a break from the craziness:

• Music for Democracy has launched its "Be the Change" project:
  

  Hip-hop stars Chingy, Q and MC Lyte have joined forces with two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Graham Nash in an innovative get-out-the-vote effort that aims to mobilize young voters for election 2008 by leveraging the power of social networks. On November 4, music fans who sign up for "Be the Change" will receive an automated call from the musician of their choice to remind them to go to the polls. A selected number of voters will receive calls from the musicians themselves.

• A recap of why Election 2008 deserves the "historic" label, especially given the generational tensions.
• A commentary on why youth will show up at the polls this year.
• Attention political junkies: Google has created an elections map complete with results since 1980 for each state.
  
• Andy Kroll writes a couple (#1 and #2) posts on pushback on the Hip Hop Republicans and what they're doing to change the culture and approach the contemporary GOP has taken over the last decade or two.
• Want to watch the election results with some fellow liberals? Living Liberally lets you know where you can go.
• 35,000 Colorado mail-in votes from newly-registered voters could be nullified, thanks to confusion over the need to include an ID.
• Obama's not the only politician popular among young voters.
• A public-private partnership to fix our ever-mounting problems. A Green New Deal. Sounds pretty good, huh? Read more.
• Anna Quindlen at Newsweek has her own commentary on the potential of Millennial voters on Election Day

One of today's Quick Hits was a piece by Ari Melber in The Nation examining Obama's tech-savvy campaign and its operation. I thought Melber did a great job of penetrating behind the scenes to clarify how the toys and gadgets help Obama put together a one-of-a-kind grassroots organization. But Melber also succeeded at looking into the future and explaining why Obama's technological operation is so crucial to presidential politics.

We know McCain's thinking on technology from an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle this summer:

GOP presidential candidate John McCain, fundraising in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the nation's technology capitals, acknowledged Monday that he isn't a "tech freak" or entirely comfortable with the Internet, BlackBerrys or e-mail. But he strongly disputed criticism that he is "out of the loop" as unfair.

As former head of the U.S. Senate Commerce committee, McCain said, he has been a driving force to oversee legislation that helped the Internet flourish - even as he is still learning to get comfortable with it himself.

"Am I a tech freak? No," he said in an interview Monday with The Chronicle. "And I don't like to text message because I'd rather call somebody on the telephone."

"I do understand the importance of the computer. I understand the importance of the blogs," he said.

McCain said he is well aware that technology "does drive the news. It is changing the shape of the news. ... It's changing the information age, and I've got to stay up with it."

He added, "But I am forcing myself ... let me put it this way, I am using the computer more and more every day."

Melber's closing reminds us why having a candidate who understands technology is so important to this nation:

If his strategy succeeds, all presidential politics could change. First-time voters--both this generation of the young, black or marginalized as well as future rookie cohorts--might become a constituency that candidates pursue. The long shot, if Obama wins big, is a larger electoral universe that forces Republicans to play catch-up. The party that spent decades stifling voter turnout, from illegal suppression to court-sanctioned ploys like ID requirements, could find electoral salvation depends on the ability to register its own new voters. Couple that grassroots pressure with an economic crisis stoking intense bipartisan populism, and a "new politics" might really be on the horizon.

The vision is obvious, and frankly, kind of Rovian: strike at the heart of your opponent's strengths and force them to run on something else. I love the fact that Melber pointed out the Republicans' strategy of squashing participation, because I think that it really gets to the heart of why technological development is such a Democratic issue. With technology boosting political participation and engagement all across America, we suddenly are toeing a new political landscape, one the Republicans have worked against for years. By refusing to adapt and be -- gasp! -- progressive, the GOP created an opening for someone to supply the enthusiasm, dedication, and the message to create a self-sustaining system that is immune to most "wedge" tactics, in which society is turned against itself for partisan advantage. Obama has put this vision forward, and it's paying dividends, registering unbelievable numbers of new voters this year and flooding the campaign coffers with cash. As a result, an Obama presidency might just be the tip of the iceberg for the GOP.

In yesterday's Quick Hits I posted a link to a story coming out of Montana this week, where the state Republican Party has challenged the registration of 6,000 Montanans in the Democratic strongholds of the state.

On Friday, the GOP apparently decided their initial suppression effort wasn't enough.

A state Republican Party official said Friday that the party plans to expand its challenge of registered Montana voters who have changed their addresses, beyond the 6,000 voters challenged in six counties this week.

"These counties are the beginning, not the end," said Jake Eaton, executive director for the party. "We're looking at this across the state."

While Eaton goes on to say that the Montana GOP merely targeted those counties with the most discrepancies (and that the fact that they're Democratic strongholds is a coincidence), we can't ignore the context in which this is happening. A Great Falls Tribune article does a good job of explaining:

According to news reports from across the country, courtroom battles over voter registration, absentee ballots and the integrity of state voter lists are happening in politically strategic states such as Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and New York.

In Ohio, the state GOP tried to overturn a new state law that allows same-day registration and voting. State and federal courts upheld the law last week.

In Michigan, the state GOP reportedly plans to challenge the registrations of people who lost their homes to foreclosure.

In Wisconsin, the Republican attorney general is suing the state agency that oversees elections, saying that federal law requires that the agency check the names of more than 240,000 voters against driver records. Election clerks there say it is impossible to perform those checks by Nov. 4.

The problem with the GOP's explanation is that we've seen too many like it over the past few decades to take it at face value. Every election year we get reports of calls and fliers that purposely confuse specific demographics by giving them incorrect information regarding when they can exercise their right to vote. We have local election chairs telling college students they can't vote in the county where their institution is located.

And there's a twist to this particular story out of Montana that demonstrates how un-American this crusade is. Kevin Furey, a 1st Lt. in the Army from Helena, was told that his right to vote was being challenged. Furey found out just before he was to leave for his second tour of duty in Iraq.

"It is ironic that at the same time I am about to return to Iraq to help build a democracy that my own right to vote is being challenged at home for partisan purposes. These challenges are a blatant and offensive attempt to suppress the rights of voters," Furey said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was on leave visiting his ailing grandmother.

It's quite apparent that as Election Day approaches and the future of the Republican Party gets bleaker, the voting rights of minorities, college students, the poor, and all other oppressed voters will be in jeopardy. Isn't it interesting how the first party to question patriotism is usually the first to want to undo the very fabric that holds our country together? While a sad turn of events, it's an opportunity for progressives and the Democratic Party to demonstrate their principles by pledging to fight for an inherently American right.

UPDATE: This post at CBS's Youth Vote '08 blog has more detailed information on how this development affects college students. Matt Segal further explains why this is, in fact, a partisan effort.

Matt Segal, CEO of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment, said he was told of the situation in Montana when he was at his Washington D.C. office earlier this week.

"This is clear voter caging," Segal said. "What we are seeing here is Republican Party taking advantage of a loophole. This is legal. But, I think as a society we need to be cognizant that few people barely stay in one place. Voter right could be challenged every time someone moves every election year. What is being done is legal but hardly nonpartisan."

As you saw in today's Quick Hits, CBS News has a great story up about McCain's lack of appeal to youth voters.

The article starts with observations of McCain's lack of comfort with technology, the thing that binds most Millennials together. But then it digs deeper into the dissonance that exists between McCain's stances on issues and the increasingly liberal views on the Millennial Generation.

Of course, when it comes to the youth vote in this election, any Republican nominee would begin the race at a significant disadvantage. Young people are clearly skewing to the left this election year, identifying more with the Democratic Party and embracing more liberal positions on so-called wedge issues by sizeable majorities. They've supported more lenient approaches to dealing with illegal immigrants, agreed that all citizens should have healthcare (even if the government has to provide it to those who can't afford it) and supported either same-sex marriage or civil unions for homosexual couples. Meanwhile, John McCain has wavered on immigration, his healthcare plan has been described as “total laissez-faire liberty” and he opposes both same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt.

I think that many Millennials would forgive John McCain for refining his positions on issues, as Millennials are pragmatic by nature and, in the end, want the best solution, not the purest ideology. But McCain's problem is that he has switched his positions on issues clumsily, such as immigration, Bush's tax cuts, and whether or not he's able to understand the U.S. economy. That would theoretically undermine his ability, in many Millennials' eyes, to offer any expertise at digging this country out of its rut.

So then McCain and the Republicans, understanding this, are forced into a decision. Do they hand the massive Millennial Generation over to the Democrats for good by discouraging their participation in this election, or do they start trying to build a relationship with young people with the remaining time left in order to strengthen it down the road? While they'd be wise to do the latter, it doesn't look good.

Between February 1 and July 31, Obama held thirty-two campaign events in college towns; McCain held three. The McCain campaign has yet to publicly announce an official youth outreach or youth vote campaign director. On the other hand, Obama has hired former Rock the Vote political director Hans Reimer. Not surprisingly, young Republicans have complained about the McCain campaign's poor efforts at the grassroots level and failure to make use of existing networks. "They definitely haven't reached out to the younger generation as strongly as I hoped they would," an organizer for the Young Republicans in South Carolina recently told a local newspaper. "It's a big mistake. You've got to create something that people want to be a part of. I'm just not getting that feeling this go-round." A young conservative political strategist named David All concurred, remarking to the Washington Post that "Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in."

One more thing I found to be interesting.

"Let me just start by saying that it would not be unheard of for a Republican candidate to win the youth vote," says Justin York, a grassroots youth organizer for McCain in Florida and an incoming junior at the University of Central Florida (UCF). York points out that Ronald Reagan, nearly McCain's age in 1984, won the majority of youth voters in his reelection bid and George H.W. Bush, at the age of 64, also captured the majority of youth voters four years later. And if York's organizing efforts in Florida pay off, perhaps McCain can repeat their successes.

Not so fast, Justin. The problem with York's first statement is that he's living in the 1980s. With today's youth, it would be unheard of for a Republican to win the youth vote. Ronald Reagan did enjoy success with Generation X. But Generation X is certainly different than the engaged, institutional, liberal Millennials. Justin also seems to be ignoring the 1990s. In 1992, the youth vote soared, but Bill Clinton was favored by the youth by a 44 percent to 34 percent (Bush) to 22 percent (Perot) margin. In 1996, Clinton again was favored, this time over Dole, by a 53 percent to 34 percent margin. Granted, many 1992 voters did not vote at all in 1996, but even so, the Republicans clearly did not enjoy any appreciation from that demographic.

McCain and the Republicans are treating (and hoping) the Millennials are like Generation X, a generation that, at worst for the Republicans, splits their vote somewhat evenly between the GOP and the Democrats, and is ambivalent about politics. But fortunately for the Democratic Party and our democracy, Millennials are different. They are engaged, they are liberal, and come November 4th, all signs point to them turning out and voting for Democrats in large numbers.

The Tucson Citizen publishes a piece partially misrepresenting activism among Millennials (another instance of someone believing the Internet to be mutually exclusive from interpersonal activism).

Wall Street Journal has an interesting story about Louisiana's efforts to undermine its own brain drain, starting with stringent ethics laws and a focus on developing and implementing innovative ideas.

The LA Times has a great essay by Neal Gabler examining Obama's credentials as a "rock star" versus a "movie star," pointing out that the challenge built into Obama's sudden ascent is getting people to not only dream, but embrace their dreams.

CBS has a piece describing the dilemma the McCain camp faces with youth voters: do they sacrifice future branding efforts with Millennials by discouraging turnout among the demographic this year? Or do they engage this demographic, though it's late, and attempt to build toward the future? The latter doesn't look promising:

Between February 1 and July 31, Obama held thirty-two campaign events in college towns; McCain held three. The McCain campaign has yet to publicly announce an official youth outreach or youth vote campaign director. On the other hand, Obama has hired former Rock the Vote political director Hans Reimer. Not surprisingly, young Republicans have complained about the McCain campaign's poor efforts at the grassroots level and failure to make use of existing networks. "They definitely haven't reached out to the younger generation as strongly as I hoped they would," an organizer for the Young Republicans in South Carolina recently told a local newspaper. "It's a big mistake. You've got to create something that people want to be a part of. I'm just not getting that feeling this go-round." A young conservative political strategist named David All concurred, remarking to the Washington Post that "Republicans are sort of talking down to Gen-Nexters, not bringing them in."

Finally, an Iowa television station has a story about the youngest Republican delegate at this year's convention -- seventeen year old Mike Knopf from Dubuque. He's a pretty smart kid:

"...We've got, don't get me wrong, all these old people and they do a great job and they have for 20,30,40 years but it you want to keep a party strong the key is you have to renew your people."