How today’s Republicans are like 1980s Democrats

From the article:

The intersection of thinkers and elected officials was a key element in the Democrats’ revival, and it will have to be part of the GOP’s efforts over time.

Ha! In other words, we need to stop electing idiots. I was all ready to disagree with Balz’ article, but…

I don’t think Republicans are quite as far out of the mainstream/lost in the wilderness as were Democrats 1984–Romney was actually a serious candidate, and he didn’t lose by a margin of 48 states to 2–but the comparison is in some ways apt. Democrats in the 1980s were attempting to navigate the fracturing of the New Deal coalition without succumbing to the excesses of the rather extremist post-Vietnam “new Democrats.”

Republicans in 2012 are attempting to navigate the fracturing of the Reagan coalition without succumbing to the excesses of the rather extremist Tea Party.

DonS,

Taking your points one-by-one:

1) A period of 6 consecutive presidential elections is hardly cherry-picking. It represents over two decades. Yes, all periodizations are somewhat arbitrary. But I could just as easily rebut that 12 of the last 21 presidential elections have been won by Democrats. These sorts of claims don’t prove anything except in context. And the context here is that Republicans haven’t been doing well in recent Presidential elections.

I agree with you that the 2000 election, with a margin of only 500k votes, doesn’t provide evidence for much of a theory about anything, but neither Bush I, Dole, McCain, nor Romney lost by slim margins.

2) Don’t use Ross Perot as an example. Research of the voter turnout for Perot shows two things: first, that Perot “stole” about an equal number of voters from Clinton and from Bush, and, second, that many Perot voters were cynical about politics in general and only voted because Perot was running (i.e., they wouldn’t have voted for Bush or Clinton).

3) Absolutely no one disputes that Democrats were “lost in the woods” in the mid-1980s. They were fringe, out of touch, extremist, anti/unintellectual, unable to win elections. And yet they maintained a solid majority in Congress during the entire decade. Sound familiar?

4) I largely agree with you regarding the comparative strength of the presidential “benches” of the respective parties. The Republicans offer a larger number of young, ambitious candidates. But, with the exception of Rand Paul, none of those candidates are promising anything different from Republican-politics-as-usual–the politics that have arguably lost Republicans their elections and their currency with the public. Not Rubio, not Christie, not McDonnell, not Jindal, not Portman.

Don’t be defensive. That’s the sort of “strategy” that gave Democrats their 1984.

Reg @ 5, Cincinnatus @ 6: I’m not advocating “staying the course”, and I don’t think I’m being defensive. Just trying to supply some perspective about the cyclical nature of politics.

The “prescription” by the MSM and other hand-wringers who aren’t Republican or conservative, for the Republicans’ current troubles is to become like Democrats. I am arguing against that approach. I think today’s Democrats are far more “lost in the woods” than they were in the ’80’s — they have no concept of the permanent damage they are doing to our nation’s economy and future because of their deliberate refusal to deal with the spending, entitlements, and over-regulatory problems we have today. That will fall on them eventually, but I don’t want it to be at the cost of our kids, grandkids, and beyond. Republicans need to listen to guys like Rand Paul and stick to their guns (some pun intended) with respect to the ideas that will make a difference — a simplified tax system that promotes productivity and doesn’t punish success, a required impact analysis of all regulation to ensure that tangible benefits outweigh economic harms, and that there is genuine federal jurisdiction over the activities being regulated, and balancing the federal budget at no more than historic revenue and spending levels, which will mean a serious curtailment of entitlements.

I would argue that the Democrats haven’t exactly been on an intellectualism kick for the last 20+ years as opposed to the Republicans. Democrats on screen and print come across as more of the “pseudo” type of intellectual generally capable of mouthing catch phrases and simple slogans, but lacking in any real depth. They may be great at political calculus, but there intellectual bonafides are noted more for their absence than their ubiquity.

As to the Republicans, they are reeling not so much from the extremist Tea Party, but from the ramifications of the party takeover by revanchist/irredentist neo-conservatives. Granted, the Tea Party also often exhibits an unthinking and reactive politics hostile to intellectual thought or debate. Compare the hostility to the calls for a foreign policy of non-interventionism put forward by Ron Paul as the logical extension of calls for a smaller and less intrusive government with the unquestioning calls for American Empire within the Tea Party.

Cincinnatus @ 6
One minor quibble – the research about the vote in the 1992 election shows clearly that the Perot vote hurt Bush significantly more than Clinton. However, the damage was not enough by itself to swing the election. In other words, in a two-candidate, sans Perot, matchup the numbers indicate that Clinton would have still won, but by a smaller margin…

Christy, please check the answer I gave to John who has the same issue.