Generational politics for 2016
It's no secret that part of Obama's advantage in 2008 was the fact that McCain looked like somebody's grandpa, whereas Obama looked like a member of a more modern generation. But now, the party demographics have changed, and there are far more young faces on the right than the left.
For 2016, the Republicans are talking about running Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and others with generational appeal. Meanwhile, the Democrats only seem to have Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, both if whom are figures of our parents' generation, not ours. But what better choices do you have? Elizabeth Warren? I would love for you guys to choose her and make 2016 a direct fight between socialism and liberty.
It seems like more and more, the radical party of the young and the bold is becoming the party of aging hippies trying to win the Cold War for the Soviets about 30 years too late. Where are the Democrat's future leaders?
For 2016, the Republicans are talking about running Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, and others with generational appeal. Meanwhile, the Democrats only seem to have Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, both if whom are figures of our parents' generation, not ours. But what better choices do you have? Elizabeth Warren? I would love for you guys to choose her and make 2016 a direct fight between socialism and liberty.
It seems like more and more, the radical party of the young and the bold is becoming the party of aging hippies trying to win the Cold War for the Soviets about 30 years too late. Where are the Democrat's future leaders?
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Are you suggesting that Obama got chosen as president not once, but twice, just because he was younger than the opposition?
His policies, or those of his party, had nothing to do with it, just his age?
Do you think Americans are totally dumb and interested only in physical appearance as criteria for the biggest job in the world?
His policies, or those of his party, had nothing to do with it, just his age?
Do you think Americans are totally dumb and interested only in physical appearance as criteria for the biggest job in the world?
Do you think Americans are totally dumb and interested only in physical appearance as criteria for the biggest job in the world?
Not only, but mostly. I mean, think about how much time the media spent talking about Obama's race.
Not only, but mostly. I mean, think about how much time the media spent talking about Obama's race.
yes, the media is definitely stupid and somewhat evil. Popularism for the sake of advertising sales sucks.
"Young people" are the most unreliable, unmotivated voting bloc out there. They're fickle, fair-weather folks who as likely to come through on voting day as they are do stick around for a teenage pregnancy.
But not only young people discriminate based on age.
So?
So age discrimination happens in favor of young candidates no matter how many young people are voting.
Okay. But the "young" people in the Repubican party now are all well under the ages required to run for office. So it doesn't matter if there's a bunch of 20-somethings in the GOP.
You do know most young people don't vote, right?
Interesting thoughts, but social issues are going to be a sticking point if the republicans keep clinging to them, as traditional republicans tend to favor positions that favor white straight male christian gun loving americans, a group that is no longer a significant majority. Still a majority but not enough to win with alone. On top of that, thanks to the internet, it's easier for people to research the financial policies of the republicans and take note that they tend to favor tax cuts to the rich and taxing the needy. While the rich may fund the politicians, they don't make up the majority of voters.
So to sum up, the republicans need to do some major retooling...or really step up on their propaganda if they want to win. They're making the mistake of appealing to financial liberty, which tends to favor the rich. But the younger generation votes they're looking for tend to be young 20-somethings that don't have a whole lot of money to worry about and would prefer social liberty.
So to sum up, the republicans need to do some major retooling...or really step up on their propaganda if they want to win. They're making the mistake of appealing to financial liberty, which tends to favor the rich. But the younger generation votes they're looking for tend to be young 20-somethings that don't have a whole lot of money to worry about and would prefer social liberty.
In case you hadn't noticed, most of the Republicans thinking about running in 2016 aren't at all "traditional Republicans."
Well, I don't tend to follow Republicans except when they're fighting against stuff I'm for (i.e. equal-rights, gun-control, and excessive military spending) so please forgive my ignorance of the more civilized republicans. But they're going to have to do a very good job of proving that then. Stereotypes are a very hard thing to shake off.
Your problem is you're letting the radical views of a very small minority of the party (who are currently under siege from their own) color your views of everyone else in the party. Why don't you view the entire Democratic Party as represented by the "put those niggers in chains" Blue-Dog Democrats?
Why? Because I have never even heard of them, probably because you just made them up. And considering this "small minority" tends to be the most prominent members, such as several of the presidential nominees that ran in your party last year.
They are not made up, though, I would suspect there is very few of them left, probably none in the national spotlight. Until recently, the South was a Democratic stronghold. Most (all?) of the states in that part of the country were run by die hard Democrats during reconstruction and the civil rights era. Only about 20 years ago did the Democratic party start to lose its standing in that region.
By Jeff Greenfield
I’ve tried, really I have.
But I just can’t.
Every time I start to write about why Clinton, Biden, Rubio, Christie, Ryan, Cuomo, O’Malley, Paul, Walker, Warren will or won’t run or will win or lose, reminders of the past begin to play in my mind. And I’m reminded of how often and how quickly rock-solid political certainties have crumbled.
Suppose, for example, you were looking at the political landscape in 1989, just after the Republicans won the White House for the third consecutive time. You would note that the GOP won every Southern state, all eight states in the interior West, four of the six New England states, and New Jersey, Illinois and California—each of them for the sixth consecutive presidential election. You’d observe that since 1964, the Republicans had won five of six presidential elections, losing only the post-Watergate contest of 1976. You’d echo the dominant piece of political wisdom: that the Republican Party had an “electoral lock” on the White House.
If someone had suggested back then that New Jersey, Illinois and California would each record Democratic landslides or near-landslides for the next six presidential elections, you’d have shaken your head at such obvious political ignorance.
Or suppose it was the morning after the 2004 election, when George W. Bush won the pivotal state of Ohio in part because social conservatives turned out to approve a ban on gay marriage—as did voters in all 13 states where the issue was on the ballot. Would you have dared assume that eight years later, voters in four states either sanctioned gay marriage or refused to prohibit it? Or that when President Barack Obama belatedly endorsed the idea, he was accused of changing his mind for political advantage?
Of course not. You’d have been asked, “What have you been smoking?” (That’s the same question you’d have been asked a few elections back if you’d predicted that voters would approve the use of recreational marijuana, which voters in two states did in November.)
Not so long ago, every election cycle would feature a hundred voices intoning, “No one has ever won the White House without first winning the New Hampshire primary.” Now a footnote is required: “except the last three presidents.”
Until last year, it was a political rule of near-scientific certainty: “No Republican has won the nomination without winning the South Carolina primary.” Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney laid that one to rest.
Until the 2000 election, religiosity told us almost nothing about political preferences. Since that election, it’s been one of the more reliable indicators: Regular churchgoers lean heavily Republican; less observant or secular voters lean heavily Democratic.
So just how confident can a prognosticator be in assuming that the demographics of the 2012 election are reliable guides to the future? If congressional Republicans really embrace immigration reform and if a Hispanic winds up on the GOP national ticket in 2016, can Democrats continue to rely on winning the Latino vote by a near 3-to-1 margin, as they did last November? For its part, can the Republican Party embrace a version of immigration reform that alienates a significant part of its base without risking defections, possibly in the form of a third party?
These questions pale in the face of those “unknown unknowns” that so often upend core political assumptions. After the LBJ-Goldwater campaign of 1964, last rites were being administered to the Republican Party. Within a year, the escalation of the Vietnam War, along with racial and generational conflict at home, had pulled the Democratic Party apart.
After the Republican capture of the Senate in 2002, and George W. Bush’s re-election as president two years later, Karl Rove argued that his party had been “rebranded” and was well on its way to becoming a more or less permanent majority, much as William McKinley had led Republicans to dominance a century earlier. Iraq, Katrina and a global financial meltdown took care of that prophecy.
So, much as I’d love to join my colleagues in confidently charting the future, history tells me this is a fool’s errand.
I’ve tried, really I have.
But I just can’t.
Every time I start to write about why Clinton, Biden, Rubio, Christie, Ryan, Cuomo, O’Malley, Paul, Walker, Warren will or won’t run or will win or lose, reminders of the past begin to play in my mind. And I’m reminded of how often and how quickly rock-solid political certainties have crumbled.
Suppose, for example, you were looking at the political landscape in 1989, just after the Republicans won the White House for the third consecutive time. You would note that the GOP won every Southern state, all eight states in the interior West, four of the six New England states, and New Jersey, Illinois and California—each of them for the sixth consecutive presidential election. You’d observe that since 1964, the Republicans had won five of six presidential elections, losing only the post-Watergate contest of 1976. You’d echo the dominant piece of political wisdom: that the Republican Party had an “electoral lock” on the White House.
If someone had suggested back then that New Jersey, Illinois and California would each record Democratic landslides or near-landslides for the next six presidential elections, you’d have shaken your head at such obvious political ignorance.
Or suppose it was the morning after the 2004 election, when George W. Bush won the pivotal state of Ohio in part because social conservatives turned out to approve a ban on gay marriage—as did voters in all 13 states where the issue was on the ballot. Would you have dared assume that eight years later, voters in four states either sanctioned gay marriage or refused to prohibit it? Or that when President Barack Obama belatedly endorsed the idea, he was accused of changing his mind for political advantage?
Of course not. You’d have been asked, “What have you been smoking?” (That’s the same question you’d have been asked a few elections back if you’d predicted that voters would approve the use of recreational marijuana, which voters in two states did in November.)
Not so long ago, every election cycle would feature a hundred voices intoning, “No one has ever won the White House without first winning the New Hampshire primary.” Now a footnote is required: “except the last three presidents.”
Until last year, it was a political rule of near-scientific certainty: “No Republican has won the nomination without winning the South Carolina primary.” Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney laid that one to rest.
Until the 2000 election, religiosity told us almost nothing about political preferences. Since that election, it’s been one of the more reliable indicators: Regular churchgoers lean heavily Republican; less observant or secular voters lean heavily Democratic.
So just how confident can a prognosticator be in assuming that the demographics of the 2012 election are reliable guides to the future? If congressional Republicans really embrace immigration reform and if a Hispanic winds up on the GOP national ticket in 2016, can Democrats continue to rely on winning the Latino vote by a near 3-to-1 margin, as they did last November? For its part, can the Republican Party embrace a version of immigration reform that alienates a significant part of its base without risking defections, possibly in the form of a third party?
These questions pale in the face of those “unknown unknowns” that so often upend core political assumptions. After the LBJ-Goldwater campaign of 1964, last rites were being administered to the Republican Party. Within a year, the escalation of the Vietnam War, along with racial and generational conflict at home, had pulled the Democratic Party apart.
After the Republican capture of the Senate in 2002, and George W. Bush’s re-election as president two years later, Karl Rove argued that his party had been “rebranded” and was well on its way to becoming a more or less permanent majority, much as William McKinley had led Republicans to dominance a century earlier. Iraq, Katrina and a global financial meltdown took care of that prophecy.
So, much as I’d love to join my colleagues in confidently charting the future, history tells me this is a fool’s errand.
Australia. You promised. I feel... used.
Still finishing my graduate degree. Ask in 3 years.
Pfft. Once you're done with grad school your brain will be freed up to think correctly about everything else and you won't want to move.
Interesting that the minarchist is now equating the Republicans to "liberty".
Some Republicans truly believe in liberty.
Only when it profits them.
Can you stop being a bigot even for a minute?
Yes. A bigot is someone who who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance. I don't hate conservatives. I'm just really really disappointed with them, and their parents.