TRENTON — Republicans must decide if they want to remain a major party or be relegated to perpetual loser status in national elections, whether they will let a small minority of far-right zealots take them down or be relevant.
Now that the presidential election is past, I can reveal I possess the secret document that propelled the Democrats to victory — code name U.S. Census 2010. It tells us women are more than half the country and older white men are dying off. Hispanics and Asians are growing. Every year 600,000 Hispanics reach the voting age of 18.
The Republican defeat last week is not due solely to a guy at the top who flip-flopped and seemed stuck in the 1950s, although that didn’t help. Look below the White House race for clues. Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock had their clocks cleaned in their U.S. Senate races. They both made ridiculous comments about rape. Women and people who respect women were mightily offended.
As Alec Baldwin quipped, you know your party is in trouble when someone says “Did the rape guy win?” and somebody else asks “Which one?” These guys would never have been taken seriously were the GOP not kowtowing to far-right dimwits whose limited view of the world and preponderance of overrated self-worth is laughable. They can win in primaries, but in general elections they are light years away from the electorate. It’s gold for Democrats.
If women occupying seats in Congress in January — 20 of 100 senators will be female, that’s an additional five, and there will be at least 77 in the House — don’t tell the story of growing female power, look to New Hampshire, a bellwether state for politics. It will have an all-female congressional delegation and a woman in the governor’s office. As Sen. Barbara Mikulski said, they’re going to suit up, square their shoulders, put on their lipstick and get things done. I believe it.
Young people, the Millennial generation especially, don’t see the world as older voters do. Polls show the further below age 50 voters are the less important they think issues like same-sex marriage are.
