As a practical matter, the difference between 3.5 percent and 2.5 percent growth in gross domestic product might likely be the difference between net job creation and no net job creation. In short, the economy was doing what the Obama White House needed it to do, at least in terms of unemployment. But now there is a very real threat to economic growth if the situation in the Middle East doesn’t settle down soon.
On the demographic front, Republican pollster Bill McInturff makes an excellent argument in the PowerPoint presentation he has been using of late to illustrate the challenge facing the GOP. He notes that Republicans carried the white vote by 12 points in 2000, 17 points in 2004, and 12 points in 2008, but that white voters’ share of the electorate has dropped from 81 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2008.
So, although Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had the same share of the white vote in 2008 as George W. Bush did in 2000, Bush lost the popular vote by only about half a percentage point, while McCain lost it by 7 points.
The rise in the minority population, particularly Hispanics, is effectively moving the goalpost farther away for Republicans. If their share of the minority vote doesn’t improve pretty dramatically, they will need an impossibly high performance among white voters to win the White House, not to mention down-ballot offices.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member