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Here's the new Democratic Party base

By Michael J. Smith on Sunday July 23, 2006 10:50 PM

From the Wall Street Journal:
ELMHURST, Ill. -- At her home in this Chicago suburb, 68-year-old Alice Doyle has a sign in her front window for the Republican candidate for governor. But on a recent morning, she joined a small group at her neighbor's house to lend support to the Democrat running for Congress in this historically Republican district. The candidate, Tammy Duckworth, 38, is an Iraq-war veteran and double amputee. Her subject at the coffee this day is public funding for medical research using embryonic stem cells. She endorses it....

While Mr. Bush's position cheers religious and social conservatives in the Republicans' base, nationwide it has alienated many moderates and has some questioning their fealty to a party increasingly defined by its cultural conservatism....

Moreover, as the party has grown more socially conservative over the past quarter-century, the suburbs where many Republicans live have become more diverse and politically independent, marked by a mix of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism....

That, in turn, has Democrats hoping to capture some of their foes' strongholds, by picking up disgruntled Republican moderates as well as independents....

[State senator Kirk] Dillard illustrates the way the stem-cell issue has split his party. He switched to support funding for research in the state Senate, imploring, "How can you not be for this?" In an interview, he says he was influenced by advocates from nearby Children's Memorial Hospital and a local pediatrician.

Mae Pearson, a 77-year-old widow at the Duckworth coffee, [said] "I was raised Republican -- strong Republican -- and I thought it was so wonderful to move to DuPage County after I got married" in 1950, she says. "But it's just too hard to be a Republican anymore because it's not the Republican Party I grew up in."

"Embryos count, people don't," complains George Strejcek, 62. He and wife Elizabeth, 58, describe themselves as former Republicans. "Goldwater I could tolerate," he says. "But with these Republicans, they forget we live in a democracy, not a theocracy."

"They're not fiscally responsible either," his wife says.

There you have it. The Democrats are pinning their hopes on people who really respect doctors, and who believe in "fiscal conservatism," and who used to be Republicans, and are even older than I am. Alas for the party of Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan.

Comments (2)

js paine:

it occurs to me

we need a this side party
that can
whip
the reppugs
otherside party

of course
the tower troll core
the mr burns repugs
love this flesh pot
its their own personal hot tub

but the rube/boob
exploited jesus base
needs a party
that might restore promise for them
on this side of the great exit door

-------------------------
after all
for most low rent white amerikans
ain't it prolly
correct
to hope
their death
carries
if not a promise
at least a chance
of a better deal
by that i mean
one
at least better
then what they see
in store for em
and their loved ones
on this
planet in this incarnation

after all bottom line
for lots of folks
the null hypo
ie
rest in peace
might not be
a bad career move

there is a practical basis for suicide taboos

-------------------
yes
a new deal
on the other side
better than what most of us
got out of this deal
in the here and now

i'll vote for that

Yep, that's the new democrat base. Elderly Republicans and Kosniki androids.

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