The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza breaks down a number of recent polls, trying to answer the question: “What exactly does a Thompson supporter look like?” The answer isn’t surprising, but it has to be encouraging to the former Tennessee Senator, and worrying for Rudy Giuliani.
In a four-way race among the GOP frontrunners, Thompson holds a a very strong advantage among religious voters (20% according to the most recent LA Times/Bloomberg survey). He also leads Giuliani among self-identified “conservatives,” and runs even with the mayor among men. Religious, conservative, and male: your Republican base.
As Cillizza notes, Thompson is positioning himself as a “fusion” candidate, one who can reassemble the conservative coalition of the past few decades, despite all the strains and contradictions that have emerged within the movement more recently. It’s a job perhaps only an actor could do. But there are many reasons to believe that it’s an illusory promise for Republicans: there are reasons why the old conservative coalition is falling apart, and papering over the rot might not necessarily be good for conservatives in the general election, or in the longer run. Don Surber, for instance, points to one negative consequence of Thompson’s base-consolidation: a loss of support among women. Of the GOP field, Thompson and Giuliani perform worst among women. And the numbers are bad for Republicans generally:
Overall, women prefer the Democratic presidential candidates 51-38, while men prefer Democratics [sic] 46-44. Republicans are in trouble. They have to win the women back.
That’s just a narrow-angle view of the wider problems for the right’s coalition: a weakened social conservative base, a deeping crisis over the meaning of their ideological commitment to “smaller government,” and increasingly shrill efforts by the candidates to change the subject by running hard to the right on war and terror, even if it means lashing themselves to a disastrous and unpopular war. Fred Thompson’s appeal is that he invites conservatives to forget their troubles, suspend their disbelief, and pretend that somehow, some way, it’s morning in America again. The thing is, it’s all an act.
1 Response to “Thompson and the GOP Identity Crisis”
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Great post — that stuff about female voters can’t be emphasised enough. If Kerry had been able to maintain the traditional Dem advantage among women 2004 wouldn’t have been close. It is nice to see, given all the pundits who claimed the women who voted for Bush in 2004 were the security moms, that they aren’t falling for Giuliani’s 9-11 schtick. However, it should be noted that polls continue to show very significant percentages of women voters who will never vote for Hillary. It would be interesting to know whether having her as the nominee would help or hurt the Dem’s gender gap.
Left by The Sleep Thief
June 13, 2007 at 11:43am