Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

A first thought or two

I’ll start looking a little more closely at numbers and exit polls tomorrow, but a few things stand out right away.

There seem to be two kinds of relatively affluent suburban voters. "Professionals," together with what was once called "the New Class" (people who talk for a living), are increasingly voting Democratic. Case in point: the Northern Virginia suburbs (going into Prince William and Loudon Coounties), which went for Obama. The more traditional relatively affluent suburbanites are in sales, marketing, and management--in business, in other words. They’re probably still relatively reliable Republican voters, but their proportion of the suburban electorate is declining. Case in point: the county immediately north of Indianapolis, which (as Michael Barone pointed out) gave McCain a substantially smaller margin than it gave Bush four years ago.

Is there a strategy for reestablishing the Republican advantage in the suburbs? Can such a strategy be reconciled with efforts to reach out to lower middle class exurban voters ("The Party of Sam’s Club"), let alone maintain a relationship with socially conservative evangelicals and Catholics?

Talking about tax cuts isn’t going to do it...at least not until the Democrats raise taxes in a way that’s genuinely painful to a wide swath of the electorate. But perhaps talking about the safety and security of the family, and upholding the authority of parents, could appeal (in slightly different ways) to all these constituencies.

With a little tweaking, Sarah Palin might actually be able to pull off a kind of crossover appeal. She’d have to emphasize more her connections with a family of teachers and less her moose hunting.

But enough for now....

Discussions - 5 Comments

Based on my fit of civic activism, doorbelling in the DC suburbs of the Old Dominion, I saw as many if not more Obama signs in affluent neighborhoods as McCain signs. Is this the economy, the culture war, being bushed by Bush?

Why is Prop. 8 probably going to pass (even though it looked like it might not) in California? It's because of the schools. People--even those who otherwise vote Democrat--don't want other people messing with their kids. We might let the government take over all sorts of things that we ought to govern in our own lives, but we still want to rule our own homes and raise our kids the way we see fit. So Joe is quite astute when he notes Sarah Palin's connection to a family of teachers . . . school choice and the kind of liberty it implies (about all things) is an issue that must bubble to the surface if the GOP is to find its way with the new electoral realities.

No. She can not. Sorry. She can only appeal to base--rather than have that cross over appeal. I am in the demographics that you describe (people who talk for a living, catholic, shopper at sam's club), and there is no way that Sarah Palin can cross over to appeal. No way that I can see. She was the reason that I turned from McCain.

She was the reason that I turned from McCain.

Which simply reveals your a "moderate", that is a liberal who is uncomfortable with your core

Palin and Huck were the only instinctive conservatives this election cycle. Any "cross over" appeal has to begin there, otherwise all you have is (yet another) liberal...

Palin's stealth dominionist balderdash will be the subject of ridicule for years, and will be a drag on conservatism for years to come. Thank you, John McCain, for furnishing us with an object of ridicule and SNL skits for as far as the eye can see.

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