Time for a GOP Northern Strategy

[soniquemd21921]

I think the party needs to pursue some sort of strategy to win back it's old territory again in the near future: namely by appealing to white New England voters and assuring them that the GOP was born
in this region and was the strongest in this region, that the "Family Values" voters don't at all reflect classic GOP values, and also trying to moderate on social issues. And if it means alienating evangelicals to the point of leaving the GOP and forming a new party, so be it.

The evangelicals have destroyed everything the party has stood for (I actually consider the second half of the Bush administration to be hands down the GOP's worst period - far worse than the New Deal era or Watergate).

[soniquemd21921]

Protestants have always been the voting core of the party, but it was mainstream Protestants in northern states, not evangelicals and southern Baptists. And Congregationalists (UCC) were the safest GOP voting bloc until the 1960's (Landon got 78 percent of the vote of Congregationalists, Eisenhower got about 82 percent).

[soniquemd21921]

The Upper Midwest is the North as well. I mainly meant places like upstate New York, suburban Pennsylvania, Maine and especially Vermont.

[soniquemd21921]

It does seem like the "Family Values" well has been run dry, having reached its peak during what I personally call the 'Teri Schiavo/Tom DeLay/Mark Foley Era' (for obvious reasons). But while I doubt rural New England and upstate New York are ever going to revert to pre-Goldwater GOP percentages again or even Nixon-Ford-Reagan era levels, I'd like to see a return to 2000/2004 voting levels again, i.e. 40%-42% of the vote in Vermont rather than 31%, and 45-50% in Maine rather than 37-40%.

I actually expected Romney to do 5-7 points better in the Northeast than McCain had because it's been 4 years since Bush, so I was somewhat surprised that the swing towards Romney was only 1-2 points across the region.

[soniquemd21921]

It's pointless trying to appeal to secular transplants in New England, but what about New England Protestants such as Congregationalists? In 50 years, they've gone from being the most Republican of any mainline denomination to the least.

[soniquemd21921]

San Mateo, Santa Clara and even Marin (of all places) were Republican strongholds before the 80's as well. Envisioning Marin County as actually being a Republican county is even harder for me to imagine than envisioning the Pioneer Valley as a Republican stronghold.

[soniquemd21921]

San Mateo, Santa Clara and even Marin (of all places) were Republican strongholds before the 80's as well. Envisioning Marin County as actually being a Republican county is even harder for me to imagine than envisioning the Pioneer Valley as a Republican stronghold.

What % Hispanic were those areas in the 80's compared to now? I suspect that's the reason for the change. The GOP's future lies in doing well with Hispanics, not secular Northeastern liberals who would never vote for them.

Marin County is the most liberal white majority county in the nation. It's the county on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge - one that has long had a reputation as being a land of "hot tub" liberals. Barbara Boxer and Lynn Woolsey represented Marin County in Congress - that's how liberal it is. Yet it used to be fairly Republican back in the 50's and 60's - it voted for Dewey, Eisenhower and Nixon by solid margins. Much of American Graffiti was shot in Marin County as well.

San Mateo County is the county on the San Francisco peninsula directly south of the city. There's a mixture of working-class suburbs (Daly City, South San Francisco) and some upper-income, formerly rock-ribbed Republican suburbs (Burlingame, Hillsborough). Anti-war GOP congressman Pete McCloskey represented that area for many years.

Santa Clara County is the heart of Silicon Valley, and where San Jose is located. That area has a fairly sizable Asian population.  Tom Campbell was the last Republican congressman to represent that area.

From what I understand, Bay Area Republicans were very moderate - maybe even more liberal than Northeastern Republicans were.  Again, as in the Northeast, I blame the social issues on the loss of Bay Area Republicanism (which used to be very strong). Even Oakland used to have a rock-ribbed Republican suburb, Piedmont (50's GOP senate leader William Knowland was from there).

[soniquemd21921]

Republicans, at least in the Northeast and possibly the upper Midwest, seemed to have held moderate (or even liberal) views on women's rights in the pre-Moral Majority era. Yankees in Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly in favor of birth control in both the 1942 and 1948 referendums, but it lost both times due to heavy Catholic turnout. And the GOP platform was calling for the Equal Rights Amendment as early as 1940, while New York passed one of the country's earliest abortion laws in the 1960's at a time when the NY legislature was dominated by upstate Republicans.

If abortion had been an issue in the 40's and 50's, would have the party supported it (due to their support for birth control and the ERA)? Something tells me it may very well have, considering the party's core base were Congregationalists, Episcopalians and other "liberal" mainline denominations.

I'm not sure how Republicans in Midwestern states would have supported that issue, though. But the Midwestern GOP was the domain of Landon, Taft, Halleck, Ford and Dirksen, not
Brownback, Akin, Bachmann, Mourdock or even Ryan (the "new" Midwestern GOP leaders).

[soniquemd21921]

If abortion had been an issue in the 40's and 50's, would have the party supported it (due to their support for birth control and the ERA)? Something tells me it may very well have, considering the party's core base were liberal mainline denominations.

This piece by Newt Gingrich's faith coalition co-chair on particular liberal mainline denominations (specifically the Episcopalians and Presbyterians) is rather interesting. Symbolic of how times have changed.

And as I mentioned elsewhere, the most liberal mainline denomination (UCC) was the most Republican of any mainline denomination before the 70's. Eisenhower got 82 percent of the Congregationalist vote in 1952, making them as Republican then as Mormons are today.

I have no idea what percentage of Congregationalists still vote Republican, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 40 percent.

[soniquemd21921]

The Upper Midwest is the North as well. I mainly meant places like upstate New York, suburban Pennsylvania, Maine and especially Vermont.

No Vermont is like an extension of Canada nowadays politically. Its way too liberal for the GOP in national races nowadays(US Seante and US House.) I wonder why New Hampshire politically isn't an extension of Canada since its right near it just like Vermont is.

Vermont was hands down the most Republican state in the nation from the founding of the party in 1854 until the early 60's - one of only two states FDR never won (the other being Maine), and it remained strongly Republican until the 80's. For some reason, this fact tends to get either downplayed and/or ignored altogether today, as it seems that some people cannot think of Vermont as anything but "that crazy state that has Bernie Sanders as its senator".

[soniquemd21921]

The Upper Midwest is the North as well. I mainly meant places like upstate New York, suburban Pennsylvania, Maine and especially Vermont.

No Vermont is like an extension of Canada nowadays politically. Its way too liberal for the GOP in national races nowadays(US Seante and US House.) I wonder why New Hampshire politically isn't an extension of Canada since its right near it just like Vermont is.

Vermont was hands down the most Republican state in the nation from the founding of the party in 1854 until the early 60's - one of only two states FDR never won (the other being Maine), and it remained strongly Republican until the 80's. For some reason, this fact tends to get either downplayed and/or ignored altogether today, as it seems that some people cannot think of Vermont as anything but "that crazy state that has Bernie Sanders as its senator".

I knew that!

Most political historians are well aware of this fact, but it really does seem to get largely forgotten and overlooked today.

Wouldn't you agree that the transition from "most Republican state" to "most Canadian state" was completed with Bernie Sanders' election in 1990 and Howard Dean becoming governor a year later?

[soniquemd21921]

The Upper Midwest is the North as well. I mainly meant places like upstate New York, suburban Pennsylvania, Maine and especially Vermont.

No Vermont is like an extension of Canada nowadays politically. Its way too liberal for the GOP in national races nowadays(US Seante and US House.) I wonder why New Hampshire politically isn't an extension of Canada since its right near it just like Vermont is.

Boston suburbs/exurbs.  The two largest counties in the state are Hilsborough (which went narrowly for Obama) and Rockingham, which went for Romney by a little over 4.5%.  The rest of the state is quite a bit more liberal and Democratic.  Not exactly Vermont, but similar to Maine.

In the early 20th century Cheshire was the most Republican county in New Hampshire, followed by Carroll for most of the 20th century (it was the lone county in New England that Goldwater won). And since the Clinton years it's been Rockingham, which is now the most Republican county in New England (although Rockingham has always been Republican). And until the Reagan years Hillsborough was the most Democratic county because of the big Catholic/union vote in Manchester and Nashua before shfiting to Cheshire.