GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio has done a huge survey of Republicans. As reported by Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic Online, it confirms a few things:
1. “Classic conservatives” are fading away:
the party’s social/cultural wing remains about the same size, while the economic wing has “shrunk by nearly two thirds.” Replacing those Republicans have been national security and defense voters. Free marketeers, per Fabrizio, comprise about 8 percent of the GOP electorate. They’re skeptical of government action, largely male, baby-boomerish, less frequent church-goers, and they’re not moralists.
And they’re going the way of the dinosaur.
2. “Bush hawks” comprise a full fifth of the party:
20 percent of the Republican party, again, mostly males, they love Bush, they believe in the quest to spread democracy overseas, and many are new to the GOP.
3. I just don’t get this:
the “Gov Knows Best GOPers”. They’re focused on “social” issues (as opposed to “cultural” issues). They’re lifelong GOPers and believe that government can and should intervene to solve social and environmental problems. They tend to have a libertarian streak and many aren’t comfortable with sky-high defense spending. This group is disproportionately female and coastal in geography.
Uh, how can you believe that “government can and should intervene to solve social problems” but consider yourself libertarian?
4. The culture warriors indeed hold sway:
The moralists are the largest chunk of the party – 24% in Fabrizio’s reckoning. In many ways, the media uses this group as a synecdoche for the entire GOP base. The moralists are strongly partisan, they’re very conservative, they have a lower average income than the rest of the party, mostly female and have the highest share of homemakers.
Other interesting nuggest: 74 percent believe Bush made the right call on Iraq; more than half agree that the party has spent too much time focusing on moral issues (the controlling interest of the moralists notwithstanding); and - knock me over on this - a full 50 percent say abortion should be legal “only in certain circumstances” (like, maybe, when it’s your kid).
“The average Republican is older,” writes Ambinder. Well, what’s that they say about becoming more Republican the older you get. Then again, there’s this New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll showing that younger Americans are most decidedly shifting to the left. Growing up in the Bush era - the era of Republican moralism - this is all they have really known; the result is that there has been a “long-term drift away from the Republican Party.”
Actually, a GOP that skews older isn’t necessarily a bad thing from an electoral standpoint, given the size of the Baby Boom generation, etc. But it doesn’t exactly portend well for the future.
