In December, John Kenneth White, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, wrote
a report entitled "The Reagan Coalition Meets the Twenty-First Century" for Zogby International.
The 35-page report, which reads quickly, has good news and bad news for the Democrats.
White explains that in 1980, Ronald Reagan put together a coalition of Southern whites, Westerners, Catholics, white Protestants, men, and first-time voters. It won 51 percent of the vote.
Reagan added to the coalition in 1984, getting 59 percent, much of it the result of getting religious conservatives to switch parties. Vice President George H.W. Bush--seen by many voters as the next best thing to a third Reagan term--won 53 percent in 1988.
The Reagan coalition was the proverbial "big tent:
John Judis writes that it "consisted of seemingly incompatible constituencies--pro-choice suburbanites from New Jersey alongside small-town fundamentalists from Alabama, anti-communist Chinese-Americans from California alongside nativist white North Carolinians."
In 2000, George W. Bush put together just enough pieces of the old coalition to win. Ironically, he was helped by the fact that foreign policy was far down on Americans' list of concerns. Otherwise, White believes, Bush's lack of experience would have sunk him.
In 2004, foreign policy was at the top of the agenda, and this time it helped Bush (you can't deny the man has been lucky). Security moms were the key to his win: Women favored Kerry by only three points, compared to an 11-point advantage for Al Gore. In other words, Dick Cheney's "vote for us or die" message worked.
But White suggests that 2004 might have been the last hurrah for what he calls the "diminished" Reagan coalition. The reasons:
- Sixty-two percent of voters aged 18-24 favored Kerry. History suggests that once voters identify with a party, they tend to stay with it.
- Racial diversity. Other than the investor class, the Reagan/Bush coalition has yet to win over "non-white 21st century voters."
- Growing acceptance of non-traditional living arrangements and a decline in churchgoing.
On the other hand, a Democratic revival is not a foregone conclusion. The reasons:
- Bush's immigration reform proposals could win Latino voters to the GOP. (A friend of mine, who voted for Bush, warns that issues like gay marriage could sour Latinos, as well as some African Americans, on the Democratic Party).
- Proposals such as Social Security privatization and medical savings accounts will expand the "investor class," who favored Bush over Kerry, 61 to 37.
- Fear of social unraveling. White notes:
Bush benefitted from a sense that the old rules had been lifted and a new moral freedom was emerging. This new freedom was creating a country that was more expressive in its personal and family choices, but also far less orderly. Bush projected a Reagan-like sense of fatherly order--something many welcomed in an era of overwhelming and vast social and economic transformations.
And I'll add the following:
4. Fear. Count on the Republicans to keep exploiting 9/11, terrorism, and homeland security until Mr. and Mrs. Joe Sixpack wise up to them. Unfortunately, I see no sign that they are.