Back in 2002, John Judis wrote a book entitled The Emerging Democratic Majority. It was considered a juxtapostion to the 1969 Kevin Phillips book, The Emerging Republican Majority. In his book, Judis argued that given various demographic and political trends, the fact that most of the growth in the US population comes from Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans and that they overwhelming vote Democratic whereas the white population that votes Republican is relatively stagnant.
Judis's book came out a few months before the 2002 midterm elections which seemed to completely contradict his thesis. Contrary to Republican's losing their power, the party gained seats in Congress in what was unheard of at the time. Usually when a President is elected, the opposition party always gains seats in the midterm election 2 years later. Not only had the Republicans managed to win the 2002 elections, but they followed it up two years after that when George Bush was re-elected to the Presidency.
How could this have happened? The answer: 9/11. That event had a profound impact on the psyche of all Americans. It was so powerful that it managed to push all the demographics and trends to the side (at least temporarily). This was how the Republicans managed to win the 2002 election.
When it came to the 2004 election, there are 3 main reasons why George Bush was re-elected. First, the despite an increasingly unpopular war, he was considered to be Commander-in-Chief during wartime. Historically, Americans very rarely fire a president during such a period. Second, John Kerry ran one of the worst general election campaigns imaginable. Bush was incredibly vulnerable, but instead of making that the story and exploiting Bush's weaknesses, Kerry made himself the story with his flip flops and endlessly re-fighting the Vietnam War during the summer of 2004.
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I remember the war in Iraq as not being very unpopular at the time of Bush's reelection. The loss of support for the war came later. I agree that Liberals will be a majority soon but for more reasons that stated in your blog. The ethnic factor will be involved but also the Baby Boomer generation becoming senior citizens. That is a huge population of voters who will need medical care, and we know which party stands for the best heathcare. Also, that generation was very liberal to begin with (Flower Power). And Generation X is beginning to come to the age where people become more involved in the political scene, and they tend to also be much more liberal.
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