The Red 14%

14% - Congressional Job Approval Rating

(http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html)

Tuesday Romney won Pennsylvania, and four other states, locking up the Republican nomination.

Money can’t buy you love.

He didn’t get 60% of the vote in Pennsylvania which is a weak showing for presumptive nominee running unopposed. More than 40% of voters still favored someone other than Romney two weeks after having the Republican primary field to himself.

The Tea Party and other extremists that control the party will blame Romney, if President Obama wins re-election. They won’t look at their ideology that is shared by a very small slice of voters.

They don’t see how their zealotry turned off the independents, and conservative Democrats they needed to win. Instead the Tea Party will blame Romney and in 2016, nominate an even more extreme candidate rather than pulling back to the center where the voters are.

If the Republicans do that, they can look at what happened to the Democrats in the last century to see what they have to look forward to.

In 1968 the Democrats narrowly lost the Presidency. Their response to that loss was to nominate increasingly ideologically pure liberal candidates. Between 1972 and 1992 Democrats won the Presidency one time, in 1976 as result of Watergate.

Only when Bill Clinton and the DLC stood up to the left wing of the party and pushed the Democrats back to the center did they start winning the White House again.

Between 1992-2008, the Republicans won the White House by a statistically significant margin one time - 2004. They lost in 1992, were crushed in 1996, lost the popular vote and took the Presidency by chicanery on 2000, and lost in 2008.

Each loss pulled the Republicans further to the right. “compassionate conservatism” in 2000 gave way to the “swift-boat” campaign of 2004. The danger for the Republicans is a loss in 2012 will pull them to the fringe. If anyone other than a Rush Limbaugh conservative runs next time it will be very hard for them to win.

Even now the Tea Party crowd is openly talking about waiting out the 2012 Presidential race and focussing on the Senate and House races. They want to build their bench for future Presidential runs in 2016 and 2020 with an ideologically pure candidate from the ranks.

These candidates appeal only to small activist base. The Congressional Job approval rating of 14% is an indication of what Americans think of the Tea Party agenda. After all it is the Tea Party agenda, not a liberal left wing agenda that is debated in the House and used to block progress in the Senate.

With their hard support of “papers please” anti-immigration laws and their solid opposition to any form of the “Dream Act” the Republicans have alienated Hispanics, who are the fastest growing voter population in the country. With their recent moves against fair pay acts, contraception, and medical privacy, Republicans have also alienated women who make up over half of the electorate.

If this alienation locks in broader voting patterns, Republicans could be starting a long period of being the minority party. Over time, demographics will reduce their power in the House and Senate and create a long term Democratic majority. The Republicans nationally could look like the Republicans in California.

Will that be a good thing?

Between 1955 and 1988 the Republicans carried California in every Presidential race but one. (http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-22/news/31383123_1_swing-state-unemployment-auto-industry) Since 1992 the Democrats have carried it in every Presidential election. It is not even competitive for the Romney in 2012. Today, there is a 15% gap in voter registration with the Democrats firmly in the majority. Republicans are all but locked out of Statewide office.

So what happened?

In 1992, then Governor Pete Wilson (R-CA) supported Prop 182 which at the time was the strongest anti-immigrant statute in the country, denying a range of social services to “illegal aliens.” The growing Hispanic vote which had been reliably Republican because of the Party’s stance on social issues moved firmly to the Democrats. Southern California Congressional Districts once represented by the likes of arch conservative Bob Dornan elected the Sanchez sisters.

Locked in as a political minority, the Republicans became more partisan, and unwilling to work with Democrats to resolve California’s tough issues. The Democrats, released from the responsibility of working across the aisle also moved to more extreme positions. The result was the State simply ceased to work effectively. Budgets haven’t passed on time, the higher education system has been dramatically cut back (the CSU system is not taking in new students this semester - it can’t afford to), roads crumble while Sacramento bickers.

California is often seen as a bell-weather of future trends nationally. If this is true the trend is for the country could be political gridlock and decline. What we have seen so far in Washington is just taste of what's to come. We are faced significant economic problems, a civil conflict in Syria that could spread, a restive and North Korea and nuclear Iran. Let’s hope we can break the trend.