The polling just continues to get worse for the Republicans, who clearly miscalculated on creating yet another crisis. From NBCNews/The Wall Street Journal:
The Republican Party has been badly damaged in the ongoing government shutdown and debt limit standoff, with a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finding that a majority of Americans blame the GOP for the shutdown, and with the party’s popularity declining to its lowest level.
By a 22-point margin (53 percent to 31 percent), the public blames the Republican Party more for the shutdown than President Barack Obama – a wider margin of blame for the GOP than the party received during the poll during the last shutdown in 1995-96.
Just 24 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion about the GOP, and only 21 percent have a favorable view of the Tea Party, which are both at all-time lows in the history of poll.
A new Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) survey that that by a 16-point margin, 43% to 27%, voters blame the Republican in Congress, rather than President Obama and the Democrats, for the government shutdown.
On the generic congressional ballot, Democrats now lead by double digits, 46% to 36%.
I am somewhat skeptical about this, or at least that it will hold until next year’s elections, but this is certainly a big enough margin to change control of the House. John Judis speculates that we may be in the last days of the Republican Party. Maybe they can recover by moving back from the extreme right, but without the extremists what is left of party?
Republicans in Washington could repudiate their radical base and shun the groups that appeal to it. That is roughly what people like Feehery are suggesting. But the question, then, is what would be the Republican base? How would Republicans win elections? Are there enough rational Republicans to make up for the loss of the radical ones?
We are just beginning to see the effect of the shutdown on the economy. Contrary to conservative claims of self-reliance, the red states get the most federal aide. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the red states are getting hurt more by the shutdown.
I’m skeptical this is the “end” of the republican party but I’ve got to admit down here in South Carolina the libertarian idiots, racists morons, and flaming religious nutcases are deeply dug into the party structure.
With the racial demographics in America rapidly changing and after alienating every ethnic group other than WASPs it does appear that republican could be reduced to an all white, regional party largely based in the south.
That’s the more likely fate==turning into a white Southern regional party along with support in some other conservative pockets of the country.
On the one hand it is hard to imagine a change in a situation which has been present so long–the Republicans as a major political party. On the other hand (a I mentioned in discussion of this on Facebook), it was also hard to imagine that the USSR would ever end until its final days.
The obvious answer is that the Republicans would become less extreme and more rational to survive, but there is no sign of that happening. Instead the radicals keep getting more influence and many Republicans believe they are losing elections due to not being conservative enough.
Good points, both. There seems to be a well-funded, concerted effort to prolong the agony for the US, by not only Koch’s, Coors’, etc., but the half-dozen major media companies that find every way to cast a light of legitimacy upon the GOP and their twisted positions. Even MSNBC is not immune from the false balance portrayed; lately Chris Mathews has shown that he has swallowed the pretend “middle ground” groups like No Labels, yet another Peter G. Peterson-like front group.