Yes Virginia, There is a Republican Party in the Northeast
May 9, 2009When Senator Arlen Specter upset the political apple cart with his party switch last week, the nation’s attention was once again drawn to the decline of the Republican Party in the Northeast. As members of the dwindling breed called Northeastern Republicans, many readers of this blog are well aware of the travails our Party has endured in New Hampshire and the rest of the region.
Are we really in danger of slipping into irrelevance in this part of the country? Let’s take a closer look at the map and the numbers to quantify the problem.
With Specter’s defection, Republicans hold only three Senate seats north of North Carolina. In the House, the numbers are equally grim. There are no Republican-held districts left in New England (down from 5 after the 2004 election), while we have lost nearly a dozen Congressional seats in New York (6) and Pennsylvania (5) alone over the last two cycles.
The performance issues encountered by Republicans in New Hampshire and the rest of the Northeast over the past few years are only the surface of a more troubling, longer term trend. Looking at voter registration trends over the past decade there’s no question that people are voting with their feet.
In New Hampshire, 2008 marked the first time in recent memory Democrats surpassed Republicans in voter registration. Over the last decade the percentage of registered Republicans has declined from 36% to 29%. What was a 68,960 voter advantage over the Democrats in 1998 is now a 1,914 registration deficit. That’s a net gain of 70,874 voters for the Democrats.
This is a trend that’s not unique to New Hampshire among nearby states. In Maine, Republicans have had a net loss of over 30,000 voters in the last decade. New York Republicans have had a net loss of over a million voters since 1998. In Specter’s home state of Pennsylvania, the net loss is 763,657 voters.
So what does this all mean, and how do we fix it?
The first step – as with any problem – is to recognize the seriousness of the problem. This problem is larger than Obama’s appeal, the economy, the war in Iraq, or the unpopularity of George W. Bush – though all of these have contributed to it. These registration trends started well before any of these factors emerged, but have been reinforced and multiplied by them.
The second step is to make a serious commitment to grow the Party in the Northeast. The numbers – whether they be election results and voter registration numbers – don’t lie. We can’t win by merely appealing to the base. Expanding the GOP doesn’t have to mean compromising our ideals, but it does mean adopting a mindset that values building a broader coalition.
The third (and most difficult) step is to develop a message that will bring former Republicans back into the fold, as well as bringing in new faces. Many voters abandoned the GOP over the past few years because they no longer believed us on our bread and butter issues like spending – recapturing our credibility on this issue is vital.
Growing the party also means talking about issues that haven’t traditionally been in our comfort zone, like health care, alternative energy and the environment, and education. We won’t be able to win over key groups like women, younger voters, and suburbanites without a credible message on these important issues.
This is only one Republican’s suggestion for the path out of the wilderness. I hope others will use this space to discuss the way forward for the GOP in the Granite State and the Northeast.
NorthernObserver
May 11, 2009
Yes, people associating themselves with the Republican Party is shrinking, however, people associating themselves with the Democrat Party is also shrinking. People calling themselves independents are the only one growing.
There is a message in this. Another message being ignored by many Republicans in what was call the Ron Paul Revolution. Most of his followers were young adults who believed in the constitution more than any one party. They were very active and extremely energized to the point of being obnoxious in some cases. Most of them chose to vote for libertarian candidates rather than supporting a RINO. This is the new generation. We need to listen to them and learn what they need and want. I have spoken to many of them and I find that they have ideals that are much closer to that of our founding fathers than our large tent candidates.
SteaknAle
May 11, 2009
They also lost….resoundingly (and I say that as one who voted for Ron Paul).
The point here is that too many Republicans carry over their “church patterns” into their political thinking. There are more than 26,000 Protestant denominations today, many of them claiming to be ‘right’ on every issue. Over and over history has shown us how churches split over disagreement on ONE issue (eternal security, baptism, you name it…). Evangelicals take pride in ‘church-shopping’ until they find the church that has the “right” combination of beliefs. The result? Thousands of churches with small memberships.
This mentality has been brought into the GOP, where far too many people would rather wallow in self-righteous “correctness” on every issue, content to being Right with God or some Inalterable Philosophy, all the while becoming less influential and a smaller and smaller party. In the end, if we continue to allow the Tail to Wag the Dog (or the Elephant), there will in fact be nothing left but a tail.
We may, in fact, be witnessing a major realignment of American politics over the next decade. The question is whether the Republican Party will BECOME the fringle loony theocrat’s party, or whether it will seek to be a viable party by being willing to part with the loonies and embrace a fiscally responsible AND SOCIALLY PROGRESSIVE philosophy: in essence, Republicanism without the Theocrats, Libertarianism without the Fringe Purists.