Democrats make desperate moves to stop GOP’s October surge in the polls – WaPo’s Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman has an important piece in the New York Times on Wednesday. It deals with a story from a few months ago about the “post-partisan” Republicans.
A couple of years ago, Republicans could barely imagine a Democrat winning the White House… But now, a Republican can be certain that an off-year election will bring on a Democrat.
In the meantime, as this new piece points out, the GOP is having to work harder to try to convince those voters that the party will always stand up for their interests. And they’re making some really desperate moves now.
[Krugman]: For many years, many Democrats thought that a Republican president would be a disaster. Some even thought the GOP would be overrun by white men forever. But over the past 10 years, Republicans have shown that they are capable of governing, of winning elections, of attracting significant minorities and young voters.
At the same time, though, GOP voters still overwhelmingly fear that Democrats will take their country back. And, as we’ve seen in recent days, voters are willing to pay big prices to make this fear a reality.
Today, it’s a different story. A Republican president is a good thing. And this is the moment, when, if we are not careful, the Republicans are going to lose the white vote. In fact, in many important states—including Texas, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—a Republican presidential candidate is already neck-and-neck with the Democratic front-runner.
That means that for the first time in memory, we have a presidential election in which the white vote, the party’s crucial edge in terms of turnout, is in real danger of going red.
It’s almost like the GOP’s only hope to retain its majority comes from working hard to convince those white voters who hate being told “I told you so.”
It’s almost like the GOP’s only hope to retain