NYT This Sunday Probes "The End of Republican America"

The cover story of this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine asks the provocative question: "The End of Republican America?" The photo below it shows a red, inflatable elephant -- collapsed and leaking air.

"Karl Rove had a plan to realign American politics for generations. Now GOP leaders are struggling to prevent another 1964," reads the rest of the cover tag. The article was penned by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who also writes for Rolling Stone.

Ken Mehlman, the former party chairman, says in the massive piece, "What is concerning is that we lost ground in every one of the highest-growth demographics" in 2006. "If there are Republicans out there who think that 2006 was a year that could be changed by a few votes in a few districts," he adds, "they need to wake up."

Much of the article examines the plight of Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who is in charge of turning around the GOP's fortunes. But the article notes, "In their intimacy with the numbers, many Republican operatives now worry that crucial segments of the electorate are slipping away from them." For example, "Republicans had traditionally won the votes of independents; in 2006, they lost them by 18 percent... Suburban voters, long a Republican constituency, favored Democrats in 2006 for the first time since 1992."

Says longtime GOP candidate/consultant Rich Bond: "Tom was dealt an almost unwinnable hand."

Many more Republicans than Democrats are stepping down this year, making it almost impossible for the GOP to make gains, the article relates. The influential Cook Political Report offers an even worse assessment, projecting that 12 of the 14 seats most likely to change hands now belong to Republicans. But Cole sees fully 75 seats in play and feels John McCain at top of ticket will help in many.

"Cole's strategy is not complicated," Wallace-Wells observes, "but it does contain an essential difficulty: at a moment when Washington is deeply unpopular, he wants his candidates to run as insurgents, but voters still identify Republcians with that they don't like about Washington."

But Cole promises to define Nancy Pelosi as THE face of the Democrats as a party too liberal - too "San Francisco" -- for the country.

And the writer also notes: "The perversity of Cole's position is that the consummate party man has arrived at precisely the moment when the party is eroding beneath him. The problem is the money."

The Democratic party has built an 8-1 advantage over the GOP's main apparatus. Comments House minority leader John Boehner on the party's fundraising: "It stinks."

Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It feature a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, and Glenn Greenwald, among others.

Comments

[larry278]

Am I supposed to think that the NYT is again a newspaper of record? I'll wait till I read the article in the NYT MAGAZINE to decide if the NYT has had a temporary remission of the conditions which have caused the NYT to go into an ever steeper, more rapid spiral which will lead to the NYT's death. The short episodes of the NYT using a story which could appear in a newspaper of record are becoming increasingly rare. There is little to no reason to expect that the NYT will ever again be a newspaper of record despite the puff this blog gives to the NYT.

[larry278]

I did a speed read of this puffed piece of word salad. I even bookmarked it. I may even read it after I re-arrange my sock drawer. The editor of Mr Mehlman's book is going to have a very difficult time making the book into something which will sell, even when its in the remainder bins. The praise for the book by Ms Huffington & others won't sell this book. If JSMcC becomes POTUS #44-that could kill Mehlman's book. The Democrats have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Some dour folk say the Dems will be a divided party who won't be able to elect a dog catcher. It is said that the fierce battle between HRC & BHO will leave the party hoplessly divided & impotent. Who knows?
Regardless of the election's results-Mr Mehlman's book will make a good door stop. The book will be a turgid slog for grad students who have sadistic professors.

[EspritDeVoltaire]

Bush = Pariah

It's hard to run as insurgents after the Boss has been touting himself as God's Appointed for 8 years. Too bad, so sad, don't let the door hit you on the way out boys.

A friend's father, who is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, told me when Bush was given the presidency by his father's friends in the Supreme Court, "Bush will be so extreme that there won't be another Republican administration for a generation". Looks like he may be correct. GW certainly spoiled the image of responsible Conservatism.

[andyg]

what the difference between the magazine and the paper. The homeless vets living under bridges, need more magazines to use as sheets compared to the paper.

[dadw5boys]

TOO MAANY HAVE ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN SETUPS THE ONE FROM TEXAS WHO GOT BUSTED.

YOUR WIFE AND KIDS TAKING PAY CHECKS TO MOVE CAMPAIGN MONEY AROUND IN INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS AND KEEPING THE PROFITS. .

THAT IS RUNNING A FINANCIAL OPERATION FOR PROFIT NOT A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN!

[castlerider]

One thing for sure. - With an Obama win, and Dems taking the House and Senate in Majority- The GOP would not be back with "a vengeance" anytime soon... The constant media drubbing of how they lost the country, how they plagued themselves with scandals, and all the general public's own knowledge without the media that Bush has trampled our Constitution and pretty effectively ruined our standing in the world along with the country will haunt the GOP'rs for a long time to come.

It will be the responsibility of the Dems to get important and urgent things done and really accomplished quickly.

What will also really freak everybody out is if Dems can bring peace to the war torn Iraqi nation. As long as America really commits to leaving, the whole dynamic will change. No one will believe that all it really took was to get rid of Bush and the all his honchos that make up the greed factor. On the other hand, if another tyrant is to take over after we've left and starts trouble, which is not really likely but possible, the neocons will be jumping up and down and screaming how the Dems gave away all that oil for a so called "peace'.... It never ends.

[HollywoodBill]

The demise of the dominance of the Revival Tent Republicans is more like it. This brand of Southern social conservatism is killing the GOP. The snake handlers are demanding purity tests for becoming Republicans. Those that don't meet the criteria, which always includes packing the Courts with "originalists" and "strict constructionists" are deemed unsuitable, called RINOs and chastized through Rovian/Bush techniques. Bush will go down as the worst Republican President in modern history. He divided the party in favor of the Southern social conservatives and as a result, alienated the entire Western libertarian faction of the GOP.

The Reagan coalition is over. Or is it? Should the Dems be stupid enough to nominate Mrs Clinton, there would be one last hurrah for the creaking Reagan coalition. And it would defeat her. Obama is another story and he just might be able to politically realign the country for the next generation.

By almost all historical reckoning, the GOP should lose the 2008 election and have a time out for regrouping. The split within the Dems is providing an unparalled opportunity for the GOP to reorganize while Clinton and Obama slice each other to ribbons. The historical evidence also indicates that split political parties don't win elections. Paraphrasing Mark Twain, the reports of my death are premature. John McCain just might pull it off yet.

[rjean]

it isnt the ny times

it is THE NY SLIMES

[InofTouch]

magazine, not the paper :rollseyes: