The Era of Big Government: Looming

Mark Ambinder brings us the results of Tony Fabrizio's survey of the Republican Party base:

According to Fabrizio, the party’s social/cultural wing remains about the same size, while the economic wing has “shrunk by nearly two thirds.” Replacing those Republicans have been national security and defense voters. Free marketeers, per Fabrizio, comprise about 8 percent of the GOP electorate.

This, of course, explains why all the "Porkbusters" campaigns in the world are unlikely to deliver us into the clutches of actual reduction in the size of government.

Comments

Re "This, of course, explains why all the "Porkbusters" campaigns in the world are unlikely to deliver us into the clutches of actual reduction in the size of government"
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Especially when Porkbusters are led by people like Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit.com) -- who beat the drums loudly for an unnecessary war which is costing us around $1 TRILLION.

The two-faced hypocrisy of right wing bloggers knows no bounds.

Its like the NRA leadership saying we have to accept 10,000 homicides per year in order to keep our guns -- so that if a dictatorship ever happened to arise in the distant future, our grandchildren would be able to fight it.

Then that same NRA leadership turns around and helps elect a President who keeps trying to create a dictatorship here TODAY.

Posted by Don Williams | June 28, 2007 1:48 PM

The faster and more complete that the multi-headed hydra that is the current GOP is beheaded, head by head, the better the world is. Split off the corp-cons, the neo-cons, the theo-cons, and leave them with the sociopath cons and know-nothing cons.

It's time for a new party of the right based on real conservatism instead of an alliance of nuts. (and perhaps a real social democratic party of the left).

Posted by JimPortlandOR | June 28, 2007 3:06 PM

the economic wing has “shrunk by nearly two thirds.

Okay, then where did they go? Are they not voting at all anymore?

Or were they mostly hypocrites to begin with who were only for "small government" when the government was "handing out checks to welfare mothers and criminals" and for "big government" when the government is telling people who they can sleep with and bombing countries full of brown people? And now they're part of either the "Fortress America" or the "Bush Backer" demographics?

I also like this bit from the article:

Then there’s one of John McCain’s strongest groups – the “Gov Knows Best GOPers”. They’re focused on “social” issues (as opposed to “cultural” issues). They’re lifelong GOPers and believe that government can and should intervene to solve social and environmental problems. They tend to have a libertarian streak and many aren’t comfortable with sky-high defense spending. This group is disproportionately female and coastal in geography.

This seems like one confused group of people.

Posted by NonyNony | June 28, 2007 3:11 PM

Given that only 8% of Republicans are for small government, I'm not sure that big government vs small government is that significant of an issue anymore.

What interests me more is the extent to which Republicans reject current American life. I see three of Fabrizio's groups this way: 1. the Bush hawks who would view Americans as too weak-willed to fulfill our "destiny" as the next Roman Empire; 2. the Fortess (White) America crowd that would see the U. S. as over-run by blacks, Mexicans, the Chinese, and other non-white groups; 3. the moralists who view the U. S. as culturally degraded by feminism, gay rights, and a decadent popular culture in general.

That's 52% of the Republican Party according to Fabrizio's numbers, but it's also pretty much the entire right-wing Republican base. While the Republicans have been weakened as a whole, the right seems to have been strengthened by the Bush years. What's going to happen with them once the Republicans are out of power? Are they just going to return to their caves? I doubt it.

Posted by Ric Caric | June 28, 2007 7:30 PM

This is the reason Brooks took "national greatness" conservatism for a spin two years ago.

"The era of small government is over...."
Hillary Clinton, March 2010

Posted by Pepe | June 30, 2007 3:47 AM