DEMS IN TROUBLE?
George Will believes the Democrats are in trouble because of changing demographics, their own tinkering with the campaign finance laws, and an antipathy to the rich upon whom they ironically depend. The writing is not typical Will and is thus choppy and rather difficult to excerpt. His points are basically:
Will is certainly right on the issue of the soft money ban, at least in the near term. I suspect the Democrats will adapt–or figure a way around the law–in the long term. And that’s presuming the Supreme Court won’t strike it down. I also agree with the corollary argument about the Democrats and their relationship with the rich.
I’m more skeptical about the short-term pressure for Social Security privatization, which seems unlikely right now since the stock market bubble has burst. And I think the “out” party is always reactionary; the same charge was leveled against the GOP in the 1970s and 1990s.
You are right, it is hard to excerpt, but here is a “killer point.”
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Republicans have a large advantage in raising “hard” dollars, which are for specific candidates and are covered by annual limits. Democrats, deprived of soft money, will be forced to rely on paid issue advocacy by their “groups” — environmentalists, gun control advocates, the pro-abortion lobby. Dependence on the groups will cost the party control of its message and pull the party to the left, away from swing voters.
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BINGO!
Paul: Yep. I think that point is pretty well known at this point, at least by those who follow CFR closely. I’m curious how it’ll shake out in the long term. The history of impediments to fundraising has always been that people find ways around the rules.
Didn’t Will write a column last fall speculating that Republicans are in long term trouble because of changing demographics, supposed preference of young professionals for regulatory capitalism, etc.?
Mike: Heh. I’m too lazy to Google for it right now or search his archives, but it sounds vaguely familiar. All the “the Democrats/Republicans are doomed” articles are overreactions applying static reasoning. If things are going bad for a party, they will quickly adapt.
I don’t know why I spent as much time as I did Googling around to add some documentation to an offhand comment on a blog post, but here goes:
George Will wrote a column last fall about a book titled “The Emerging Democratic Majority,” by John Judis & Ruy Texeira. I can’t find the column online but it apparently ran in the Sept. 16 2002 edition of Newsweek. So Will’s not being inconsistent (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
I wonder what the typical shelf life of books like that is. This one seems to still be in print according to Amazon, but Will’s analysis seems more plausible to me — at least for the next election cycle, maybe…
Mike:
Thanks for the research! Yes, I remember the Texeira book and it gets mentioned from time to time. As I recall, the basic thesis of this book is that immigration and different procreation levels among minority groups will lead to an increase in the number of Democrats in the population.
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