E.J. Dionne, citing data that highlights the fairly remarkable differences between the issues that matter to Democrats and the issues that matter to Republicans, remarks, "The Democratic [voter's] mind is focused on serious domestic problems, the Republican [voter's] mind on terrorism and national security." He adds,
Republicans will have little incentive to compromise to achieve health-care reform. Democrats don't perceive the terrorist threat at all the same way Republicans do. Republicans have less room for compromise on immigration, given the passion on the issue within their ranks.
In their primary fight, why should Republicans talk much about any domestic problem? Mitt Romney will not gain much by discussing the new Massachusetts health plan he helped push through, nor will Mike Huckabee get many votes by touting the education reforms he championed in Arkansas. The good news for Rudy Giuliani is that his talk about terrorism wins him a real audience in his party. The bad news is that the abortion issue, a stumbling block for him, matters far more to the Republicans he needs to court now than to Democrats or independents.
This is all true, but it glosses over the fact that, while Democrats are pushing what amounts to a different foreign policy philosophy than Republicans, Republicans are just ignoring domestic issues almost altogether. And when they do talk about domestic issues, they talk about them in extremely uninformed, GOP boilerplate ways.
Hey, its all they got! (Repubs, that is). Polls consistently show that on domestic issues the Dems position is the nation's position as a majority.
What's interesting is that the military, national security, terrorism, foreign policy issues, the standard GOP position is getting weaker and weaker - and the GOP folks know it.
What does today's GOP really care about? Staying in power is #1.
They should be worrying about whether they will remain even a national party over the next 10-15 years.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | June 01, 2007 at 07:39 PM