Poking Holes in The Emerging Democratic Majority
Shifts in States May Give Bush Electoral Edge
Democrats know that white men in rural parts of states like Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin ? all of which went for Mr. Gore ? are increasingly voting Republican, largely because of issues like President Bill Clinton's personal behavior and recent court rulings on gay rights. As a Democratic strategist said, "Older white Americans moved away from us on impeachment and guns, and now same-sex marriage is a killer."Since the 2000 election ? or more precisely, the 2000 census ? 18 states have gained or lost electoral votes because of population shifts. Each state's electoral votes are equal to the number of its representatives in the House, which are allocated in proportion to population, plus two more votes for its senators.
Mark Gersh, the Washington director for the National Committee for an Effective Congress, which analyzes demographics and voting trends for the Democratic Party, said that the states gaining electoral votes were areas with substantial growth of Latinos or populations at the far fringes of the suburbs.
For example, in 2000, Mr. Bush won 81 percent of the Cuban vote in Florida, Mr. Gersh said. The Cuban population is not growing, but the voting-age populations are of other Latino groups ? like Dominicans and Puerto Ricans ? that are strongly Democratic. Florida's black voting-age population, also overwhelmingly Democratic, is expected to rise by 13 percent from 2000 to 2004.
At the same time, Mr. Gersh said, the voting-age population is growing in the expanding areas beyond the state's established suburbs ? by an estimated 400,000 people from 2000 to 2004. Those voters are overwhelmingly Republican. "A lot of demographic changes are taking place, but most are offsetting," he said.
Two things worth noting here ... the gender gap that Dems have touted for ages as being "something good" in fact represents the party's weakness among white men. Secondly, that term "offsetting" should be ringing in the ears of John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. To selectively look at the growth in certain categories of Dem-friendly voters and ignore that which goes on elsewhere is to basically repeat the mistake made by Texas Dems in 2002.
The lesson here should be one that John F. Kennedy could have made: A rising tide lifts all boats. Get the party back on course as the messenger of policy that works for all Americans and has some backbone when it comes to dealing with enemies abroad and the other issues can be sorted out from there. Then again, Clinton did that, promptly forgot a large portion of it upon inauguration, and now the far left has concluded that it's "their turn" to lead the party into the wilderness.