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Conservatives outnumber liberals, 2-1
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Conservative Karl Rove, left, outweighs liberal James Carville, 2-1, during
debate in New York City recently (AP Photo/Marion Curtis, StarPix)
Ever since the election, the Democrats, like surfers during an endless summer, have ridden the crest of a titanic, euphoric wave, basking in the glory of their triumph last November, gloating on the meteoric rise of their party while hapless Republicans have been pounded into the sand by towering breakers crashing along the shore. Indeed, almost every day yet another tsunamic catastrophe rips the Republicans ignominiously from their once solid and proud moorings. The latest shocker - the improbable and tawdry tale of missing South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his secret Argentine paramour has hit the jackpot for sensationalistic media coverage.
So bad has it become for the GOP that in some polls there are fewer self-identified Republicans than there were supporters of George Bush during the worst of his days, and he had plenty of them.
Cable news networks have unleashed legions of Democratic strategists offering patronizing insight and advice to the struggling and shrinking Republican Party. They smile imperiously, smoothly, smugly, winking and nodding to each other, as if sharing some delightful secret portending even further humiliations to their once worthy foes.
It wasn't so long ago when Republican strategist Karl Rove preened before the cameras, promising a permanent Republican majority, glowing in the light of high praise from media pundits and party luminaries. In those days it was the spineless Democrats who withdrew into sheltering cocoons away from their shame and misery.
How things have changed, and in such a short time. How is it possible that the American people have come to a screeching conservative halt and reversed engines in the span of just a few years? Weren't we sailing to the right ever since Reagan persuaded us that government wasn't the solution, that it was the problem? That the best government could do was to get out of the way? How could we go liberal overnight? Was George Bush that bad? Well, he was, actually. But still, how could we lurch so dramatically from right to left?
The answer, I'm afraid, and it pains me to say so, is that there has been little change in the ideological foundation of this country, in the people. The striking shift toward the Democrats represents little more than the ebb and flow of party politics as one side runs the country into the ground and gives up its hold on power to the other, which in a few years manages to foul things up equally impressively and gets itself kicked out by another mob of angry voters. It's just a cycle, from Republican rule to Democratic rule and back again.
How do we know this? The latest poll by Gallup shows a remarkable consistency over the years in how Americans describe themselves, from conservative to moderate to liberal. The graph at the beginning of the article, showing trend lines from 1992 through 2009, is especially compelling. Conservatives have outnumbered liberals by approximately 2-1 during all those years. In particular, conservatives held a 19 point margin in the year 2000, when Bush was elected. What is the margin now? The same! Nineteen points. There has been no ideological shift at all. Not even after a cataclysmic financial meltdown, the worst recession since the Great Depression, and two endless, draining wars of choice. Only party preferences have changed, as they always do. Furthermore, the combined yearly sample sizes are huge, as Gallup points out, amounting to as many as 40,000 respondents, so there is no arguing about the accuracy of the figures.
The conclusion is inescapable. The people of the United States are basically conservative, "center-right," as Republicans are fond of telling us, in spite of recent elections.
What does it mean? It means the window of opportunity will be shut down hard if the Democrats fail to deliver what they have promised. It means there will be no substantive change, no progress, in the vital areas of energy, global warming, health care, foreign policy, gay civil rights, income and wealth inequality and a host of other critical issues. Already one sees the seeds of destruction being sown, as congressional Democrats wither under pressure from their tougher, minority opponents, as Obama's soaring rhetoric plummets and splatters wasted across the landscape.
Obama has a tendency to compromise too much, to begin his negotiations on the fifty-yard line instead of the goal line, and then to give up even more yardage with frustrating ease. This is not the time for nuance and long term strategy. The fans will walk out of the stadium before the first quarter ends and the game will be over.
The American people are conservative. They don't like change. You get only one chance every generation. FDR took it. So did LBJ until his obsession with Vietnam defeated him. Bill Clinton punted after the health care debacle, and played the position of Republican lite for the rest of his term. Now President Obama appears to be faltering, when the battle has hardly begun.
When you are outnumbered 2-1, you have to play fast, hard and tough. The Democrats just don't get it. They're looking at the wrong set of numbers.
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