GOP at Risk of Becoming Monochromatic Party?

Here's Ronald Brownstein on the implications for the GOP of Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party:

In one sense, Specter's defection merely continues a generation-long trend. Since the 1960s, each party's electoral coalition has grown more ideologically homogenous as conservatives have migrated away from the Democratic Party, and liberals and moderates have moved away from the GOP. That ideological resorting has thinned the ranks of Republican House and Senate members from left-leaning areas such as the Northeast and the West Coast and has culled Democrats from conservative regions, principally the South.

This ideological and geographic sorting-out has narrowed each party's reach. But Democrats in recent years have maintained a broader coalition, both in Congress and among voters, by demonstrating more receptivity to diverse views. In the Senate, for instance, Democrats hold 22 of the 58 seats representing the 29 states that twice voted for George W. Bush. And just 40 percent of self-identified Democrats consider themselves liberals, according to Gallup polling; the rest identify as moderate or conservative.

By contrast, the GOP is becoming an increasingly monochromatic party, dominated by the most conservative voters and regions. This process enormously accelerated under Bush and Karl Rove, who built their governing strategy on energizing the Republican base rather than on expanding it by courting swing voters. Today, Democrats hold their largest advantage in party identification over Republicans since President Reagan's first term, and 70 percent of the shrunken GOP core identifies as conservative. After Specter's leap, Republicans hold just two of the 36 Senate seats in the 18 mostly affluent and secular "blue-wall" states that twice voted against Bush -- and that have now voted Democratic in each of the past five presidential elections.

Notice Brownstein's framing: The Democrats have reached out "more receptively" and "maintained a broader coalition," while the Republicans have "thinned the ranks " and have become "an increasingly monochromatic party."

The Repubicans, in other words, have emerged as a "fearmongering neo-fascist hate-machine."

That's all well and good for the Democratic/progressive Republican political establishment that wants to turn the GOP into the party of gay marriage and cap-and-trade.

But as the power of the Tea Party movement is demonstrating, Republicans won't return to power by "running as a less enthusiastic version of big-government Democrats."

See also, Nice Deb, "For You Slow Learners Who Still Haven’t Figured Out The Tea Parties."

GOP-Smearing Image Credit: David Hoogland Noon.