Ron Dreher: Poll's shocking SOS for Texas GOP - Dec 4th 2008
Rod Dreher: Poll's shocking SOS for Texas GOP
08:13 AM CST on Thursday, December 4, 2008
Things are tough all over for Republicans these days, but at least the GOP is holding tough in Texas, right? After all, the state party's Web site asserts, "Without a doubt, Texas is the strongest Republican state in the nation."
It's an empty boast. A shocking survey of registered Texas voters taken after the November election shows that the party that has dominated Lone Star politics for a generation is in very serious trouble.
The statewide poll of 636 active voters by Hill Research Consultants, a Houston-based Republican polling firm, is a five-alarm wake-up call to the GOP. Among its findings:
•Half the voters polled believe the state is on the wrong track; only 37 percent believe Texas is headed in the right direction.
•On nearly every measure, the Republican brand is "significantly less appealing" than the Democratic one.
•Voters believe the GOP is out of touch, lacks common sense and is more interested in looking out for special interests than the common good. When voters were asked which party "champions the needs of homeowners, small businesses and average taxpayers" – classic GOP constituencies – Democrats score an astonishing 13 points higher.
•Republicans lead in negative characterizations ("arrogant," "racist," "corrupt," "angry") by double-digit margins. Dems, by contrast, lead by double digits on positive descriptions like "smart," "fair," "innovative" and "party of the future." Perhaps most devastating to the GOP's future, only 14 percent of those polled agreed it was "open and welcoming" – a whopping 33 points lower than the Democrats' rating.
"Every single person I've shown this to has said, 'Wow, I thought something like this might be happening,' " says David B. Hill, who ran the poll. "I don't think it's terribly surprising."
The full report, which will be released today, knocks the legs out from under two principles cherished by the party's grassroots: staunch social conservatism and hard-line immigration policies. At the state level, few voters care much about abortion, school prayer and other hot-button issues. Immigration is the only conservative stand-by that rates much mention – and by hitting it too hard, Republicans lose both the Hispanics and independents that make up what the pollster defines as the "Critical Middle."
Who's in the Critical Middle? Mostly young males who see themselves as moderates and who lean slightly GOP. Clustering around Austin, they're largely unchurched and care little about social issues or immigration. They're open to a GOP appeal to overall spending cuts and credible promises to be good economic stewards.
"Republicans are going to have to win 70 to 80 percent of these voters if they're going to win statewide," Mr. Hill tells me.
This is not going to go down well with the activist core of the Texas GOP, especially people like me: a social conservative with firm views on illegal immigration. But reality has a way of focusing the mind, forcing one to realize that political parties are not dogma-driven churches, but coalitions that unavoidably shift over time.
The Hill poll shows that Texas voters are overwhelmingly concerned about the economy. For all the state GOP's woes, economic management is the lone area where Republicans have parity with Democrats. It's something to build on. Moreover, the future of the party – that 10 percent of the electorate the poll calls "Emerging GOP" – lives around Dallas and its suburbs.
The Emerging GOP leans Republican but doesn't like the party today. Emergents are younger, more secular, socially moderate, Internet-savvy – and more suburban. Dallas County GOP Chairman Jonathan Neerman runs into these people all the time.
"They considers themselves Republican, but they don't like some of the rhetoric that they hear on illegal immigration, on social issues, on the environment," he says. "I think Dallas is going to be the epicenter of the state party's change."
The question is not whether change will come, but when – and how traumatically. The old guard is not going down without a fight. In a recent Dallas Observer, Eagle Forum's Cathie Adams lays into Mr. Neerman for reaching out to gays, pro-choicers and "environmental wackos."
"Yeah, I am talking to them, and that's OK," Mr. Neerman tells me. "If we quit talking, we lose those people who are fiscal conservatives, pro-Second Amendment and pro-environment."
A party that ends up only talking to itself is a party that cannot change. A party that cannot change lacks the means of its conservation. Texas Republicans have a decision to make. A demographic tide is rolling across what was once the reddest state. The troubled party can choose to roll with it – or watch their prospects drown in a deep blue sea.
