{"id":2460,"date":"2012-08-28T07:04:26","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T11:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/?p=2460"},"modified":"2012-08-28T07:04:26","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T11:04:26","slug":"2012-or-never-for-gops-white-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/2012\/08\/2012-or-never-for-gops-white-base\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 or Never for GOP\u2019s White Base"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney\u2019s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a\u00a0Ron Brownstein story<\/a>\u00a0outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt Romney probably needs to win at least 61 percent of the white vote \u2014 a figure exceeding what George H.W. Bush\u00a0commanded<\/a>\u00a0over Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Republican strategist told Brownstein, \u201cThis is the last time anyone will try to do this\u201d \u2014 \u201cthis\u201d being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I wrote\u00a0a long story<\/a>\u00a0last February arguing that the Republican Party had grown intensely conscious of both the inescapable gravity of the long-term relative decline of the white population, and the short-term window of opportunity opened for the party by the economic crisis. I think we\u2019re continuing to see the GOP operate under an integrated political and policy strategy constructed on this premise. This is their last, best chance to win an election in the party\u2019s current demographic and ideological form. Future generations of GOP politicians will have to appeal to nonwhite voters who hold\u00a0far more liberal views<\/a>\u00a0about the role of government than does the party\u2019s current base.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The \u201c2012 or never\u201d hypothesis helps explain why a series of Republican candidates, first in the House and most recently at the presidential candidate level, have taken the politically risky step of openly declaring themselves for Paul Ryan\u2019s radical blueprint.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

MORE:\u00a0<\/strong> 2012 or Never for GOP\u2019s White Base — Daily Intel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney\u2019s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a\u00a0Ron Brownstein story\u00a0outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,22],"tags":[1100,1392,26,51,295],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2460\/revisions\/2461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}