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I think this is the beginning of a long-lasting and steep decline for the Republican Party.
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Not according to Michael Barone...
[/ QUOTE ]Admit it. You didn't read that Washington Times article. Nowhere does Michael Barone (a self-described conservative) address the record low poll numbers, or theorize that one party or the other is on the decline.
"Recalling that his post-2000 commentary described America as "the 49-percent nation," evenly split between the two parties, Mr. Barone today concludes that "America is now, perhaps momentarily, or perhaps at the beginning of a long period, a 51-percent nation, a majority -- a narrow majority -- Republican nation."
He's hardly making any predictions.
Also, his whole focus is on the 2004 election, and he points out that the "red states are getting redder, while the blue states are getting less blue"- based only on the 2004 election results. What he fails to admit is that the Bush campaign was the only campaign to air ads specifically in 'safe' states to maintain his nationwide Kerry vs. Bush poll numbers because those numbers are widely used by the media to judge a candidate's success.
He also points to the 2002 election being one of the few off-year elections where the party in power gained seats, but fails to admit that 9/11 had just happened, causing Bush's approval rating to be atmospheric, and we were also building up to war.
He also talks about how much Democratic money went into 527s, but ignores that (almost surely) more Republican money went into 501cs, which are much harder to measure and keep track of.
He also looks to the changing county demographics and pretends they have some relevance to the future when all that really matters for the future is age demographics. It doesn't really matter where the people are, or where they're moving to.
Even his prognostications about the House and Senate are based entirely on the 2004 election results, which is just, like the terrible polls I post, one snapshot in time.
Again, since his article is outdated, and doesn't take these record low Nixon-like poll numbers into account, it's pretty worthless. Most of his arguments could have been made after Nixon's 1972 re-election victory and as anyone who follows politics knows, Nixon's Presidency had very deep and very long political repercussions.