I was just trying to frame a response to your last post :)
Then this one came in, and I am trying to decide how it fits with my view.
I think what you are saying (or the author) is that people rejected-- pretty strongly-- the Republican party that emerged under Bush-CHeney? But that they haven't changed their conservative values and were the Party to return to its older self- (Reagan? BUsh I?) it would again dominate?
And my instinct at the moment is that to capture the new voting blocs, some of those "values" may not be as attractive as they once were. Or rather, they won't have the same priority.
My boys both called after the election, and I wish you could have heard them. They were so excited. Ammo pointed out that he had turned 18 in '01. His entire political life has been spent watching Bush and Cheney, and he felt completely excluded. They are thrilled to be part of a new era. They feel involved, connected, and PROUD. They finally understand what America really means. They saw it work. Now they feel part of something big, and they are committed.
But they will never respond to a party that emphasizes issues they see as personally invasive or judgmental. Laws on marriage, abortion, religion in schools, refusal to provide birth control in third world countries, the things they would see as dictating moral decisions to others- These aren't going to fly with a lot of young people. They may may a personal decision on them that agrees with conservatives, but the priority of personal choice trumps absolutism.
And race doesn't exist for them, of if it does, it is a neutral issue. Ammo can't believe that when I grew up in Va, anti-miscegenation laws were on the books til I went to college. The world that shaped me is so very different from the one that has shaped them.
So when MM says he hopes that Obama will unify the country under its core values, I am not sure what that means exactly, since I have always thought both parties have the same ultimate goals of life, liberty, etc but different paths to get to them. |
