Toro
Diamond Member
This poll captures my sentiments exactly.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119127620102645595.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
GOP Is Losing Grip On Core Business Vote
Deficit Hawks Defect As Social Issues Prevail;
'The Party Left Me'
By JACKIE CALMES
October 2, 2007; Page A1
WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party, known since the late 19th century as the party of business, is losing its lock on that title.
New evidence suggests a potentially historic shift in the Republican Party's identity -- what strategists call its "brand." The votes of many disgruntled fiscal conservatives and other lapsed Republicans are now up for grabs, which could alter U.S. politics in the 2008 elections and beyond. ...
Already, economic conservatives who favor balanced federal budgets have become a much smaller part of the party's base. That's partly because other groups, especially social conservatives, have grown more dominant. But it's also the result of defections by other fiscal conservatives angered by the growth of government spending during the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress.
The most prominent sign of dissatisfaction has come from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, long a pillar of Republican Party economic thinking. He blasted the party's fiscal record in a new book. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said: "The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize." ...
But polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago. ...
Some of the most compelling evidence suggesting a redefinition of the Republican Party comes from prominent Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. Earlier this year, he surveyed 2,000 Republican voters, updating his similarly exhaustive poll of 10 years ago. In 1997, about half of Republicans said they were motivated mainly by economic issues, and about half by social and moral issues. This year, the culturally conservative wing was roughly the same size, but economic conservatives accounted for just one in six Republicans. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the ranks of Republicans whose main concern is defense have grown after subsiding with the end of the Cold War.
The economic conservatives, Mr. Fabrizio found, are split into opposing camps: "free market" conservatives opposed to any new taxes, spending and regulations; and what he calls "government-knows-best" moderates, who sometimes favor regulations and higher taxes for causes such as education, environmental programs or infrastructure.
The once-dominant "deficit hawks," who put balanced budgets ahead of tax cuts (think former Sen. Robert Dole, or Mr. Bush's father), are all but extinct. A quarter-century of infighting between those Republicans and others who seek lower taxes regardless of deficits has been decisively settled in the current Bush administration in favor of the tax cutters.
The result has been big tax cuts, and in the dozen years when the Congress was under Republican control, big spending increases as well.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former Democrat who left the Republican Party three months ago, complained Sunday at Britain's Conservative Party conference that conservative politicians in the U.S. were guilty of "lunacy" for running up deficits for future taxpayers to pay.
Many old-school fiscal conservatives are also upset. Economist Bruce Bartlett, a Treasury official in the Reagan years, recently commiserated with like-minded conservatives on a blog. "I haven't changed my philosophical views in any significant way over the last 10 years, but in the pre-Bush era, I felt comfortable in the Republican mainstream," he wrote. "Today, I don't really feel there is any significant element of the Republican coalition where I am comfortable." ...
Some intraparty tension is rooted in cultural differences. Social conservatives tend to be relatively lower-income, less educated, concentrated in the South and West, and newer to the party than many old-line Republicans of an economic or business bent. Each blames the other for the party's current state -- often employing pejoratives such as "Bible-thumpers" or "country-club Republicans."
For example, he says, the Chamber supports a higher gasoline tax if revenues are dedicated to funding highways and bridges that truckers and other businesses want, and to hold down deficits. But that has put the Chamber at odds with antitax Republicans in Congress and the administration. That split comes atop other tensions over trade and, especially, immigration. As the party's base has shifted south and west, it has become more protectionist and focused on secure borders. Business generally favors free trade and liberal immigration laws that keep workers coming and employer sanctions to a minimum. ...
Mr. Greenspan, who was President Ford's chief economic adviser and Mr. Reagan's choice for the Fed, praises Mr. Clinton for fighting for deficit reduction and free trade, over the opposition of fellow Democrats and unions. "A consistent, disciplined focus on long-term economic growth became a hallmark of his presidency," Mr. Greenspan writes. In recent years, his own party's leaders, he writes, "seemed readily inclined to loosen the federal purse strings any time it might help add a few more seats to the Republican majority."
Goldwater Republican
In an interview, Mr. Greenspan noted: "I was brought up in the Republican Party of [Barry] Goldwater. He was for fiscal restraint and for deregulation, for open markets, for trade. Social issues were not a critical factor." Today's Republican party, he added, has "fundamentally been focusing on how to maintain political power, and my question is, for what purpose?"
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has lost some Republican Party support because of his socially liberal stands and his proposals on global warming and universal health care. But those stands have made him more popular generally in the state, while his party is less so. Last month, at the state Republicans' convention, he sounded an alarm. Noting that California Republicans have lost 370,000 registered voters since 2005, the former actor said, "We are dying at the box office." The voters that Republicans need, Mr. Schwarzenegger argued, "often hold conservative views on fiscal policy and law-and-order issues, while taking more liberal stands on social and environmental issues."
Nationally, support for some Republican causes espoused by social conservatives and hawks has declined in the general population as Americans have grown more concerned about economic matters. Those were the conclusions last spring of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, based on its latest surveys on Americans' political attitudes.
'Old-Fashioned Values'
Pew found that between 1987 and this year, for example, support for "old-fashioned values about family and marriage" had dropped 11 percentage points. The percentage of those who said gay teachers should be fired dropped 23 points, Pew said. Support for U.S. global engagement and "peace through military strength" also shrank.
But the number of Americans who share some classic Democratic concerns has risen. Three-quarters of the population is worried about growing income inequality, Pew found, while two-thirds favor government-funded health care for all. Support for a government safety net for the poor is at its highest level since 1987, Pew said.
"More striking," Pew concluded, was the change in party identification since 2002. Five years ago, the population was evenly divided -- 43% for each party. This year, Democrats had a 50% to 35% advantage.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119127620102645595.html?mod=hps_us_pageone
