The Republican shrinkage problem

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

No, I am not referring to a classic episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza gets caught with his swimsuit down.

From Chris Cillizza's The Fix blog The Republican Shrinkage Problem:

The new Washington Post/ABC news poll has all sorts of intriguing numbers in it but when you are looking for clues as to where the two parties stand politically there is only one number to remember: 21.

That's the percent of people in the Post/ABC survey who identified themselves as Republicans, down from 25 percent in a late March poll and at the lowest ebb in this poll since the fall of 1983(!).

In that same poll, 35 percent self-identified as Democrats and 38 percent called them Independents.

These numbers come on the heels of Steve Schmidt, former campaign manager for Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, declaring the Republican party a "shrinking entity" last week — citing the decline of GOP numbers in the west, northeast and mountain west as evidence.

And they show a somewhat significant decline from even last November's election when exit polls showed 32 percent of voters identifying as Republican as compared to 39 percent for Democrats and 29 percent for independents and others.

* * *

The number of people who see themselves as GOPers is on the decline even as those who remain within the party grow more and more conservative.

That means that the loyal base of the party has an even larger voice in terms of the direction it heads even as more and more empirical evidence piles up that the elevation of voices like former vice president Dick Cheney does little to win over wavering Republicans or recruit Independents back to the GOP cause.

In short, America's moderate middle is fleeing from the GOP in droves which is increasingly viewed as a far-right extremist fringe party. Keep this up GOP, and you will be wandering in the wilderness for a generation or more until you finally show your extremists the door.