Saturday, November 6, 2010

Back to the Bush Coalition | The Weekly Standard

Jay Cost of The Weekly Standard sees the GOP pickups Tuesday as signaling the return of the Bush coalition:
The midterm results also revealed that some longstanding alignments are still in place. Again, this might come as a surprise to liberals who mistook Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 for the beginning of a new, enduring Democratic majority. The 2010 midterms proved that their interpretation was wrong. The midterm battle revealed that the “Bush majority” is still alive and well—and strong enough to sweep the Republican party to its largest House majority in several generations.
Cost goes on to point out that this Bush coalition is shallow in the sense that it depends much more on swing voters to achieve electoral success, but, therefore, it hews more to the mainstream of America. The real challenge will be in choosing a 2012 presidential candidate that espouses these mainstream ideals, appeals to the conservative base, and is able to get their voters out on election day.

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