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Could George W. Bush Be The Last Republican President?

By: Myra Adams (Diary)  |  May 4th, 2012 at 01:26 PM  | 

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Re-posted from PJ Media

Is it possible that George W. Bush could be the last Republican president ever, or at least for the foreseeable future?

Am I crazy to even formulate that question?

Maybe not and here are 10 reasons why.

1. Rapidly changing demographic trends that favor the Democrat party.

2. An education system controlled by liberals that churns out young liberals.

3. A population with an ever increasing dependence on government in the form of entitlements and subsidies.

4. A mainstream media that is overwhelmingly comprised of journalists who subtly and not so subtly spin the news in support of Democrats and liberal causes.

5. The influence of Hollywood which makes it cool to be a liberal Democrat.

6. The growing power concentrated in local, state, and federal government worker unions whose members actively campaign against Republicans on the taxpayer dime.  (See WI Governor Walker’s upcoming recall election for an active example of this.)

7. A culture where non-traditional social and sexual behavior has become mainstream.

8. A hatred for Republicans in general and a tendency to blame the party for “the mess we’ve inherited.”

9. A Republican party that is growing increasing white, old, southern and male, while alienating majorities of younger voters, Hispanics, African Americans, gays, teachers, young professionals, atheists, unmarried women and even suburban married women.

10. The internet and the growing social media phenomenon that strongly tilts in favor of Democrats.

Together, all of the above reasons are reflected in the latest Obama vs. Romney Real Clear Politics Electoral College map.

Currently with 270 electoral votes needed to win, the states that are either likely or lean Obama total 253, while Romney’s likely or lean states total 170.

What is even more significant is the list of toss-up states.

Below is a list with their electoral votes and a hyperlink to the latest Obama vs. Romney polling averages in each state.

Arizona (11)

Colorado (9)

Florida (29)

Iowa (6)

Missouri (10)

New Hampshire (4)

North Carolina (15)

Ohio (18)

Virginia (13)

Together these 9 states total 115 electoral votes of which Romney must win 100 if he is to reach 270.

Consult your nearest statistician for the odds of that happening.

Upon examining this lopsided electoral match- up one could conclude that Romney is not the strongest candidate the Republicans could nominate to go up against Obama.

Sure, you could say that, but you would be wrong.

The truth is Romney at this time, is actually the best candidate the Republicans could have to spearhead the ticket. The reasoning is since Romney is perceived as “more moderate”, he has a better chance of converting independent voters in those 9 toss-up states with 115 electoral votes, than any of his former GOP rivals.

(Do you seriously think Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, Cain or Perry would be doing any better?)

Romney’s problem with the electoral map is NOT Mitt Romney. But it is his problem in that the attitude and composition of the voting electorate is trending away from what the Republicans as a brand, have traditionally stood for — less government, traditional values, taking charge of your own destiny, strong defense, God, family and apple pie.  Does anyone seriously have a plan to turn around current social and cultural trends?  Think about the 10 reasons at the beginning of this piece and it becomes clear that the Democrat voting mold is cast.

This pains me to write, but let’s just say the statistical chances of Romney winning 100 out of those 115 electoral votes prove to be too much and President Obama is re-elected.

What happens to Republicans as they try again for the White House in 2016?  Here is a preview.

Base conservatives who were against Romney and wanted a “true conservative” at the top of the ticket in 2012 will blame Romney for the loss and the cycle of finding a “Reagan Conservative” leader will begin again just like it did after McCain’s loss to Obama in 2008.

Meanwhile, traditional Republican states like North Carolina, Virginia and Arizona have become fierce battlegrounds joining the usual battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida. Thus, the path to 270 for ANY present and future Republican presidential nominee becomes narrower and narrower while the Democrats have an increasing number of options.

Looking back, based on how much the demographic composition of the nation had changed, there are studies (by Democrat think tanks) that conclude John Kerry in 2004 and even Michael Dukakis in 1988 would have won the White House if they faced the same electorate then that President Obama is facing this November.  The Democrats know that today’s demographics are their destiny.

I wish I had better news to report but based on the 10 reasons cited above I conclude that President George W. Bush and President Millard Fillmore might have something in common.

Fillmore in 1850 was the last Whig Party president and Bush re-elected in 2004 might be the last Republican Party president.

For the sake of this nation’s future, I hope I will be proved wrong. However, when I look at all the young Democrat voters in my own family I shake my head.

The thought of any of them voting for a Republican president this time or anytime in the future, is as unlikely as any one of them quitting Facebook.

It’s the culture, stupid.

 

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  • acat

    Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded

  • xymbaline

    Re: McCain 2008, Dole 1996, Bush 1992, Ford 1976, and coming soon, Romney 2012.

    Bush II won by people thinking that the guy from Texas *had* to be a conservative. Once it was clear that he grew government like any liberal, his support cratered and the Republican Party suffered major losses.

    The only actual conservative, Reagan, won twice by convincing people to agree with him, not by tacking left to gain the “independents”.

    So yes, if the GOP had thrown their might behind any of the conservatives, they’d be doing better than Romney is now.

    Republican Conservatism wins; Republican “Moderatism” does not.

    • exitsfunnel

      I don’t know. This stuff is all pretty slippery; one man’s conservative is another man’s moderate. The electorate has changed a lot since 1980. And you can try and make the argument that the Republican’s suffered major losses because Bush II was actually a moderate but you kind of gloss over the fact that the guy won reelection.

      Regarding this cycle, I think that the problem with your argument is that the ‘conservatives’ (I’m assuming that you’re referring to Gingrich and Santorum) were absolutely horrible candidates for reasons that had nothing to do with their level of conservatism. Believe me I am no particular fan of Mitt Romney but the only credible candidate in the race to his right was Tim Pawlenty and for reasons I’ll never quite understand he threw his campaign away on 15000 Iowa straw pollers.

      -exits

    • Kyle-MI

      Only blind fools and liberal trolls see him that way.

    • Xasteius

      At least that’s what the Democrats say.

    • zfwoodward

      First of all, if that is the view of enough Republicans going into the election, then yes, of course Mitt Romney will loose, and it will have nothing to do with his “moderatism” or conservatism.

      Ford almost won in 1976, he made a fantastic comeback and closed the gap in the poles by the late summer. However, pardoning Nixon killed his campaign. Speaking of Nixon, he was no conservative but in 1972 he had the greatest landslide victory ever and in 1964 the most conservative candidate we’ve ever run lost in one of the worst landslides ever. Also, in 1952 a pretty moderate Dwight Eisenhower was elected.

      Bush in 1992, much like Ford, faced a bruising primary challenge from the right, and then also faced Ross Perot in the general election, Bill Clinton won with less than 50% of the vote. If Buchanan didn’t go after Bush and if Perot was not in the race, Bush senior probably would have gone on to reelection. If fact, Democrats at the time were lamenting that Bill Clinton wos the nomination because he was too moderate and all of the strong candidates like Mario Cuomo stayed out of the race. In 1996, who would you have nominated over Dole? Pat Buchanan? Phil Gram? Arlen Specter? Steve Forbes’s certainly ran on good ideas, but his campaign was terrible and he possessed no political instincts; Clinton would have killed him in the general election.

      And in 2008, do you really think if Mike Huckabee or Fred Thompson won the nomination that they would have done any better? If a conservative can’t win the nomination of the conservative party over a moderate, what chance would he have in the general election? Look, like anyone else I wish that we could run Reagan every time, but you have to remember that Reagan in 1976 and 1980 was not the Reagan we know now, his time as Governor of California was a little more moderate than his presidency. Regardless of who you liked in the primary, Mitt Romney won. Moderate or not, he is our standard bearer against Obama, and we cannot let Obama get a second term.

    • gekster

      Romney is now the apparent nominee, so get on board or get out of the way.

  • exitsfunnel

    A two-party system with the parties having more or less equal support has become such an established fact of our country and history that it’s essentially part of our political DNA. Though you raise some valid issues, that kind of static analysis misses the point. (and it’s worth noting that it was only 8 years ago that people were writing about the permanent republican majority, the principle argument for which was the higher birth rates among social conservatives)

    Outside forces will always move the parties, almost by magic, so that they stay more or less in equilibrium. The GOP will adapt on certain issue (immigration, gay rights) because demographics and monied interests averse to democratic party control of the economy will force them to. This will happen in more or less that same way that the democrats in the late 80s and early 90s moved to the right on taxes and, to a lesser degree, regulation.

    Things may get out of whack for a cycle or two, but in the steady state I think that we will always have two parties with generally equal support and control of government.

    -exits

    • aesthete

      that a stable first-past-the-post electoral system will converge towards two large parties with only marginal differences. To some extent this is mitigated by constituency and other factors, but persistent and comprehensive one-party rule in a stable democratic state with no “scale tipping” is extremely rare. The parties adapt to survive, or one of them goes “bankrupt” and is replaced by a third party as one of the two majors.

      • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

        It’s also quite possible for one party to dominate for a while, like how Democrats owned the White House from 1932 to 1952 and how either party was dominant in Congress at different times. Party attachments are long-term, so an advantage can persist.

        Think national league and american league in baseball or NFC/AFC in football. one could dominate.

        He’s right to be concerned about the GOP losing the youth vote, that makes our life harder down the road. In the meantime, though, we are competitive and both parties are FOR NOW closer to parity than anything else.

        • aesthete

          that played into Democratic dominance of politics for a time after the Great Depression. Same goes for many other countries with long term one-party dominance (PRI in Mexico, Singapore, Japan, etc).

          Ceteris paribus, demography and voting patterns alone won’t change the general two party swap-structure, though they might change the party platforms as these parties adapt to court voters in this changed demographic environment.

        • acat

          It’s when We The People start toggling rapidly back and forth between parties, looking for solutions that neither party want to provide, that we have the most problems ..

          Mew

  • keepcoolwithcoolidge

    In 1912 about 80% of the popular vote went to a self-proclaimed “progressive” candidate.(Including socialst Eugene Debs) This during a time when women and minorities could not vote. 3 elections later, conservative champion Calvin Coolidge was elected President in an election where his opponent also ran as a conservative. 100 years later, and “progressives” make up less than 25%. When leftists run the country, the public always rejects them eventually.

  • trimulchio

    be the last Democrat to hold the office. Since 1968, there have been three Republican 8 Year Administrations and one Republican one term President. Congress has largely been in Republican hands since 1994.

    The Obama years have (again) demonstrated that Keynesian Stimulous and other tried and true “Progressive” ideas only worsen adverse events in teh business cycle.

    There is no up and coming Democrat to even run in ’16, with the exception of New York’s Cuomo, who ran and governed generally to the Right.

    • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

      There can be no permanent realignment in our system because when people want change, and from time to time they always will, then they will turn to the other party. Expect a pendulum swing every 8-12 years. It always will happen.

    • massachusettsdemocrat

      it was Obama. The stimulus bill was too small, and too much of it was wasted.

      Obama wanted to create green energy jobs. We call countries which depend on green energy “developing”.

      Obama said he was going to prosecute the fraud that led to the financial crisis. Instead, he bailed out the failing banks again and again.

      In the end, he didn’t even care about the environment. He had the Coast Guard keep reporters away while ignoring the EPA to allow BP to dump Corexit all over the oil spill.

      Ultimately, Obama has no one to blame but himself.

      • acat

        As usual with liberals, you leave out that Keynesian stimulus-borrowing *only* applies in relatively low-debt-to-GDP scenarios.

        I do find your anti-Obama bias interesting … but you could at least get your facts right. Makes your anti-Obama arguments stronger, y’see.

        Mew

      • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

        You people always claim Commu… er, Keynesianism is NEVER at fault. There’s alw ys an excuse.

        No matter what weight of empirical evidence proves your ideology bankrupt, you bring on the special pleading.

      • APA Guy

        I swear, it’s like Democrats have their heads up their arses 24/7/365.

        What good is a stimulus bill to build and rebuild physical infrastructure (something that has been historically predominately handled via state funds) when there are no businesses alongside the roads and highways you are working on?

        The answer, of course, is the socialist rat trap. Depending on the government for temp jobs makes you perpetually dependent…just like a national health care system makes you dependent on the federal government. But of course, that never bothered a Democrat.

      • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

        We need a debt ratio similar to Greece, then we would all be prosperous!

    • trimulchio

      Federalists were 200 years ago. Around 2020, I think the pundits will realize that we are in a new “Era of Good Feelings.” Expect a new opposition party to develop in the mid-2020s, probably out of a schism of the TEA-publicans and the Rinos . . . .

  • 6eorge Jetson

    Oh, wait…

  • checkmate2012

    Recent history tells us that Republicans are voted in to do the dirty clean up work of a Dem prez time after time. Dems will say visa-versa. History proves that our country grows tired of one ruling party and decides to give the other party a chance when they don’t have a good feeling of the direction. In this election, Obama is going down.

    Looking at the list below and counting BO as a 4 year term (it’s all we know so far), R’s have been in office for 4 eight year terms; D’s have been in office for 3 eight year terms. R’s have 1 four year team and D’s have 2 four year terms counting Obama.

    I chose to list after FDR’s anomaly:

    D-Harry S Truman (1945-1953) Alben Barkley (1949-1953) = 8
    R-Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) Richard Nixon = 8 years
    D-John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) Lyndon B. Johnson = 2 years
    D-Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) Hubert Humphrey = 6
    R-Richard Nixon (1969-1974) Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford= 8
    D-Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) Walter Mondale= 4
    R-Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) George Bush = 8
    R-George Bush (1989-1993) Dan Quayle = 4
    D-Bill Clinton (1993-2001) Al Gore = 8
    R-George W. Bush (2001-2009) Dick Cheney = 8
    D-Barack Obama (2009-present) Joe Biden (2009-present) = 4?

    Rep. years = 36
    Dem years= 32

    Lastly, note that back-to-back win counts are tied at one R and one D.

    So to say that we’ll never vote in a Republican president is not only ridiclous, it defies history.And your premises don’t prove anything except you think the Left has the winning the narrative but I’ll argue that your premises are wrong.

    The Left thinks they’re cool but to what do you attribute the 2010 landslide? The answer is the Tea Party and the fact that the population knew the Dems overeached on many items.

    Once again, I’ve proved that we’re a center-right or at least a centric country in that if one party goes to far on either side of the equalibrium, they pay as in a new prez. This time BO has gone over the line and we will have a Republican president. Mark my words.

    • ww2nd95

      I really do not want another Obama Presidency, but then again, I think the OP makes some valid points. I do see Romney with a narrow EC votes path. Romney will win AZ and steal WI and possibly MI. and also FL. But I see OH, PA, VA, and CO going to Obama. I think Romney has a tough road ahead. He needs to shake things up somehow and I’m not talking the Etch-A-Sketch, I’m just not sure how though. He’ll probably pick a conservative VP, but I’m not sure what kind of difference that will make as I do not see any Sarah Palins out there he could use to excite the base.

      We’ll see. I hope you’re right.

    • texashistorian

      Not that we won’t have another GOP chief, but that Dem Presidents have done far more damage than the Repub Presidents have done good when all is said and done. Pick a Dem off that list and you can rattle offa laundry list of statist, big government, socialist programs and spending. Pick a Repub off the list and you will find . . . the same damn thing, but generally on a lesser level. Disgusting.

      • http://impudent.edublogs.org/ kyle8

        Coolidge, and Reagan, and even Reagan was a bit of a squish.

        • texashistorian

          Warren G. Harding!!!!

  • http://www.timelyrenewed.com timelyrenewed

    Your analysis assumes that voters never change their views. However, remember the wise old French saying: “He who is not a radical at 20 is pig, he who not a conservative at 40 is an idiot!” Today’s brainwashed youth will get wiser as they enter the job market and start families, and become more conservative. And the long-term demographic trend is for the population (and hence the electorate) to get steadily older.

    Similarly, as Hispanics become more Americanized, they are likely to follow the path of other Catholic ethnics into becoming what was once called “Reagan Democrats,” and are now a solid majority Republican voting block.

    Your analysis also assumes that economic conditions will continue as they are without disruption. However, the impending fiscal collapse from excess government spending and entitlement obligations could mix up the odds considerably. When the federal government finally goes broke, or funds itself with wild inflationary fiscal expansion, many Americans now swayed by the leftist media and education establishments will become more open to the necessity of returning the federal government to the limited role originally contemplated by the Constitution. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com

    • massachusettsdemocrat

      I volunteered for Obama in 2008 and the blue team in 2010, and now I’m here. I’m not even 30 yet, so I’m ahead of schedule ;]

  • Viet71

    Consider these Republican presidents:

    Eisenhower
    Nixon
    Reagan
    GHWB
    GWB

    Moderates all in the way they governed. Reagan surely was good at appearing to stand on principle more than the others, with the exception of Eisenhower. But even Reagan wandered off course, with the help of some advisers.

    Romney fits right in with this group. He’s not an ideal conservative, but neither were any of them.

    As long as the Republican party is realistic about who can run on its platform and win, it will stay in the fight. The real issues are:

    – realistic look at the playing field
    – realistic platform
    – realistic (meaning likable and qualified) candidate

  • ennaneko

    1. Rapidly changing demographic trends that favor the Democrat Party.

    - Hispanics are the fastest growing minority and a lot of them are Christians and come from cultures based on old European values. The liberal ones are mostly the product of public schools and the nature of the urban political environment and the only issue keeping a lot of them Democrat is the current fight over illegal immigration.

    2. An education system controlled by liberals that churns out young liberals.

    - true but they also come out losers and many are fighting for charter schools and vouchers in liberal areas like Los Angeles. The product of American public schools are being left behind in the global labor market.

    3. A population with an ever increasing dependence on government in the form of entitlements and subsidies.

    - which a lot of people in the world now see as unsustainable.

    4. A mainstream media that is overwhelmingly comprised of journalists who subtly and not so subtly spin the news in support of Democrats and liberal causes.

    - but the mainstream media is becoming less and less relevant

    5. The influence of Hollywood, which makes it cool to be a liberal Democrat.

    - Hollywood is lame, they