Archive for July, 2009
We’ve heard for decades now about the need to not appear too extreme in either direction lest we offend the “moderates”. In all that time we keep hearing how these people are the ones that decide elections and how the “true believers”, the “extremists”, can’t put a national candidate into office on their own. I have come to a conclusion regarding these claims.
It’s bullcrap foisted upon us by those on the extreme of one side or the other, usually the left, to protect their own pet issues and their own hardcore.
In these United States there are about 210 million potential voters over the age of 18. Of those the highest registration we have ever seen is 80%, or 184 million in 2008. Of that number about 124 million actually voted. About 55% of everyone eligible to vote. 45% of those who could stayed home. 20% didn’t even care enough to register in the highest registered election in 4 decades or more.
There are your fence sitters. There are your moderates. That block of people the talking heads and self-styled sooth-sayers tell us we must not offend lest we scare them off. Here’s a clue: They are never around to scare off in the first place. They…don’t…matter. By definition the “moderates” don’t care enough or know enough, or care to know enough, to be bothered by politics.
Those who care enough to actually cast their ballots ARE the extremists. They are getting out, rain or shine or snow to voice their opinion because one or two major issues drive them forth. They care and they are going to make damn sure to show it. Of those there’s a little less than 30% of the population on the conservative side of the aisle and a little less than 30% on the left and within those numbers are a few who can be swayed one way or the other by a major issue. Abortion, guns, taxes, war. The question is not whether we should be worrying about offending the non-existent fence-sitters…
It’s about which specific issues we can harvest the most extremists from the other side with. And how to stop them from harvesting from our side with their own hardline rhetoric. It’s about how we can motivate the largest percentage of those on our side, the disgusted ones who view the appeasement mentality directed at these fictional moderates with disgust to vote and bring along their friends.
The Republican Party needs to come down hard on its fundamental Christian values. It needs to come down solidly on it’s fundamental Constititonalist issues. It needs to cement its base while offering a clear alternative for those Dems who value the Second Amendment, the military and/or the Bill of Rights as a whole. If that offends the rest of the Democrat Party, so be it. If it offends the 45% of the voting age population who stay home anyway, the real moderates, who cares? They don’t matter.
All that matters are we “extremists”. the people who care enough to vote. Our job is to keep our own happy while offering theirs something worth changing sides for over one single, important, extremist, issue.
There’s nothing in the middle of the political road except yellow lines, dead possums and people who don’t vote. When the Repubs figure that out they, we, will win solidly. The Dems are already well on their way to grasping this reality, hence their “divisive” politcs. We can no longer afford to “moderate” our own for fictional votes and their fatal results.
