A Matter of "Demographics"?

Hello everyone. Been awhile since we spoke. Most of you know I've had more pressing personal issues to deal with.

I see much ado being made today about "demographics" being the "issue" for the Republican party. I think looking at their "problem" as just being one of "demographics" is a bit self-deluding. It is, to an extent, about "demographics"...but their issue is not that they don't appeal to a broad enough demographic...it's that they have chosen to appeal to a very narrow demographic.

John Danforth saw the hand-writing on the wall seven years ago...

There are two key quotes from the article itself I want to bring to focus and elaborate upon:

"When government becomes the means of carrying out a religious program, it raises obvious questions under the First Amendment. But even in the absence of constitutional issues, a political party should resist identification with a religious movement. While religions are free to advocate for their own sectarian causes, the work of government and those who engage in it is to hold together as one people a very diverse country. At its best, religion can be a uniting influence, but in practice, nothing is more divisive. For politicians to advance the cause of one religious group is often to oppose the cause of another." (emphasis mine)

When the Republican Pundits shout out that their problem is a problem of "demographics"...they are being disingenuous both with themselves and with those would do what they can to help the Republican party not continue to see the sorts of embarrassments they saw at the polls on Tuesday. They deliberately chose the demographic, as Senator Danforth points out, based on early successes they saw by doing so. But the pendulum has swung the other way. The choice is now hurting them more than it's helping. And the only way to reverse that trend is to unchoose that demographic.

They need to get back to core Republican beliefs...fiscal conservatism and keeping government out of your daily life. What has really killed them, in my estimation, is that while they spout those two key principles out of one side of their mouths, when it comes to actually doing the work of governing, they work at exactly the opposite. Pushing legislation that, rightly or wrongly, women have seen as declaring a "war" on their rights. Trying to tell people who they can and cannot fall in love with and marry. And at the same time virtually ignoring the bigger issues of ever-growing spending, poor unemployment numbers, etc. etc. etc. The outright hypocrisy of spouting those two key Republican pillars while actually working for just the opposite is not lost on the average voter.

Senator Danforth goes on to say in the article:

"As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around."

This is by far the most salient point of Senator Danforth's article...and until the Republican Party "gets it"...they are only going to keep seeing the sorts of defeats they saw on Tuesday.