[Politics]

GOP House of Cards?

I have a sense that many people care far less about election strategies and analysis than I do, but hey, cut me a break, we're two weeks out from the election (to the day, actually).

In any case. Andrew Sullivan has some interesting analysis about the structure of the GOP support depending on the rural base and gerrymandered districts--which you knew. In his words:

One of the things Mann emphasizes is how the electoral college and the Senate strongly favor rural areas over urban ones in American politics and how the Republican gerrymandering of the past decade or so has accentuated this still further by wedging in small majorities of rural voters in seats that might otherwise be dominated by suburban and urban (i.e. Democratic) voters.

So what happens if the GOP loses enough of the rural voters to start losing elections? The geometric structure of the GOP machine begins to implode in on itself:

If these rural voters were to abandon the current GOP, or stay home in sizable numbers, then the entire strategy collapses. Many, many more seats would fall to the Dems than most of us now expect. Republicans have lost a lot of support in the suburbs and cities this past decade and a half - making them more than ever dependent on the rural base and exurbs....

But if the facade cracks, if these rural voters begin to believe they have been misled, or their president has been criminally negligent in the conduct of this war, then the rock-solid patriotic support could become something else. It would not fade into indifference. It could turn in an instant into rage.

Okay, probably it won't happen. But in these dark times, fairy tales are a soothing comfort.