REAGAN AND W MADE IT THE PARTY OF JUDEO-CHRISTIAN PEOPLE:

The evangelical shift that wasn’t (DAN GILGOFF, 11/20/08, Politico)

Recently, however, Warren’s Southern California church has come to play a much different role, as a staging ground for heated demonstrations in support of the state’s same-sex-marriage ban, which Warren vigorously supported and which voters passed on Election Day.

These days, Saddleback embodies the culture wars Warren had pledged to help end.

The protests — and Warren’s support for the same-sex-marriage ban, Proposition 8 — are an important wake-up call that, for all the talk of an evangelical “branching out,” evangelical politics hasn’t changed so much after all.

Evangelicals are still much more concerned with so-called wedge issues than any other demographic group. A Barna Group poll found that 40 percent of evangelicals chose their presidential candidate based on his position on “moral issues,” compared with 9 percent of other voters.

And the movement’s leaders are still leading the conservative charge in the culture wars. Most of the 29 state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage that have passed were organized by Focus on the Family, its state affiliates and other evangelical activists.

Perhaps most strikingly, the anticipated evangelical shift away from McCain never happened. Despite widespread predictions that many evangelicals would stay home or pull the lever for Obama, McCain managed to collect more white evangelical voters than George W. Bush four years ago.

Demographics shifting, but GOP isn’t (ROBERT E. LANG, 11/20/08, Politico)

The United States is the only developed country that is projected to add lots of new residents by mid-century. In 2006, the nation’s population reached 300 million. The Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. will get to 400 million by 2039. To put this growth in perspective, consider that even China (yes, China) will not add 100 million people by that date. The U.S. will gain more new residents in the next three decades than the current population of Germany — the largest European Union nation.

With each decade, more than 22 million potential new voters will enter the electorate. Parties that fix on a strategy may find that it is unworkable in just a few cycles. The Republican Party’s idea of stoking its base to gain office assumes a somewhat static voting public, which, given the dynamic nature of American demographics, is a faulty notion.

So who are most of these new people? The quick answer is both recent immigrants and their American-born offspring. By 2043, the U.S. may be a majority minority nation. Another scenario is that a high rate of intermarriage among whites and minorities may open to question the whole notion of who is “majority.” The bottom line for Republicans is that no matter how this population is defined, an increasing number of current minorities are voting for Democrats.

Republicans can, of course, switch their strategy and make more direct appeals to minority voters. As recently as 2004, President George W. Bush almost won the Latino vote. But at the moment, the Republicans seem branded as the party of white people.

The House GOP, talk radio hosts, and the like seem to want it to be the party of white people. Which strategy worked?

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 20, 2008 8:36 PM