WELL, FOR ONE THING...:

This Is Not Your Father's Democratic Party (Stuart Rothenberg, 10/11/11,  Roll Call)

Just four or five decades ago, Democratic strategists could count on an army of working-class voters and union members to turn out to support the party's nominees, tapping on a deep party loyalty that developed out of the Great Depression. While WASPs and the rich hated President Franklin Roosevelt, that animosity didn't drive American politics.

But over the past few decades the New Deal generation passed away, President Ronald Reagan transformed our politics, the union movement shrunk noticeably, white voters as a percentage of the total electorate dropped significantly and both economic and social issues evolved.

How those changes have affected our politics becomes stunningly clear after talking to Democratic operatives and strategists, who see their best opportunities in 2012 as centering on states and Congressional districts populated by Hispanics, African-Americans, upscale white liberals, suburban voters and the young.

Even after Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's narrow victory in West Virginia last week, Democratic strategists seem to acknowledge that their party has lost downscale white voters -- particularly those in rural areas -- for 2012.

...it's a chick party, so your father never belonged in it.

Posted by oj at October 12, 2011 6:34 PM
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