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Originally Posted by kane
I read a similar thing. As more and more companies leave big cities for smaller towns and more and more people either commute or telecommute and move out of the big cities we are seeing shift in rural politics. Areas that were always republican are now sudden flush with new liberals. The big thing that the democrats will be doing is the census followed by the redistricting afterward. The republicans were in power for the last one and it helped them tremendously in some states so you know the democrats will return the favor. If Obama does well and you factor in the shift in where people live and the redistricting we could see democrats in power for many years to come.
Then again they could do exactly what the republicans did which is get power then get bloated and corrupt and screw things up to the point that they are all thrown out of office.
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The other factor is just demographics in general. If the electorate had the same ethnic makeup in 1980 as it did in 2008, Reagan would have lost by a healthy margin.
In 1980 the electorate was 88% white, in 2008 it was only 74% white. The more the republicans try to ignite the "culture wars" the more they drive away minority voters.
Nixon's "silent majority" doesn't exist anymore. They're now a minority and loud as hell, and their numbers are shrinking every year.
I agree about the bloated/corrupt thing. I hope that doesn't happen. I'm a big believer in term limits and public financing of campaigns....but since that's not going to happen anytime soon (if ever) I just have to hope the legislative branch fights to keep it's independence from the executive instead of them basically being the same thing the way they were from 2000-2006.
