The Republicans Are Going to Lose, Right

[A recurring feature pointing to evidence and analyses of the Republicans’ pending defeat in 2008.]

Yes.

Ohio Trending Blue

The ultimate Swing state is looking good for Democrats. Clinton holds solid leads over all Republicans in a state marred Republican corruption and scandal.

In head-to-head matchups, Ohio voters said they favored Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, over former New York mayor Giuliani, 47 percent to 40 percent.

The same candidates were tied in an Aug. 8 poll by Quinnipiac University.

In other matchups, the latest poll found that Clinton topped Arizona Sen. McCain, 46 percent to 41 percent; and she also beat former Tennessee Sen. Thompson, 49 percent to 37 percent.

Democrats open huge lead in generic congressional ballot
by kos

Rasmussen Reports.
Generic congressional ballot
Democrats 50 (47) Republicans 32 (37)

Another interesting datapoint, from the subscription-only internals -- most "moderates" see the Democratic Party as representing their ideology.

Funny how "moderate" voters view Democrats, not Republicans, as the mainstream "moderate" party, no matter how much conservatives may have fooled themselves otherwise.

Republican Forecast: Cloudy
Party's Woes Go Beyond Bush as It Bleeds Support Among Key Groups
By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON -- For Republicans hoping the 2008 campaign will bring a fresh start after the troubled tenure of President Bush, there are sobering signs: Evidence indicates that the party's problems with the American electorate are much bigger than the president and won't go away when he leaves office.

Recent voter surveys, including private polling done by a leading Republican strategist, suggest a broader erosion of Republicans' appeal. In particular, three groups crucial to Mr. Bush's goal of a "permanent Republican majority" are drifting away: younger voters, Hispanics and independents.

The reasons include the Iraq war, conservatives' emphasis on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research, and a party-led backlash against illegal immigrants that has left many Hispanic and Asian-American citizens feeling unwelcome. The upshot is that Republicans face structural problems that stem from generational, demographic and societal changes and aren't easily overcome without changing fundamental party positions.

Longtime Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio this year conducted an exhaustive survey of his party's voters to update one he did in 1997. He found that the party is significantly older and more conservative than it was a decade ago. That, he says, suggests a Republican Party
increasingly at risk of being seen "as very old-fashioned, very old ...

Bad news just keeps on coming for the Grim Old Party
September 3, 2007
ROBERT NOVAK
During the summer, a female acquaintance of mine in her 70s who had been a faithful Republican was solicited by a GOP cold caller as a previous contributor to the party. Not this time. She informed the fund-raiser that President Bush's position on immigration was the last straw. She would not give the Republicans another dime -- not now, maybe never. So, she told him, "Stop calling me!"

That rebuff, commonplace in today's Republican fund-raising, puts a human face on the Federal Election Commission's cold statistics. They show a commanding Democratic lead over Republicans in raising money for the 2008 elections. Such an unusual disparity is at once a symptom and a contributing cause of the melancholy suffusing the Grand Old Party as Congress reconvenes after the August break.

… But never before have I seen morale within the party so low. While Republican support for an unpopular war has remained remarkably strong, almost all non-war news during the dreary August recess has been bad for the GOP.

The week before Labor Day, when nothing of importance was supposed to happen, brought bad news for the party just as it appeared nothing worse was possible:

• • The disgrace of Sen. Larry Craig, a former member of the party leadership, is all the worse because several Republican senators and Senate staffers were not a bit surprised. That raises two questions. If so many people knew Craig was an accident waiting to happen, why was he not eased out of office? How many other examples of scandalous behavior are known but hidden?
• • The decision by Sen. John Warner, announced Friday, not to seek a sixth term from Virginia at age 80 was no surprise but still a disappointment. Former Gov. Mark Warner, no relation and a Democrat, is an overwhelming favorite to win in Virginia next year. Republicans privately estimate that this will be one of four Senate seats they will lose in 2008, giving Democratic leader Harry Reid a real working majority.
• • Rep. Rick Renzi announced he would not seek a fourth term for the highly competitive Arizona northern district that could go Democratic. That represents a double whammy for Republicans. Renzi, investigated by the FBI for receiving an alleged kickback in a land transaction, is but one of at least half a dozen House Republicans under federal inquiry. In addition, a growing number of scandal-free GOP incumbents representing contested districts are heading for the exits. That depresses meager hopes for restoring a Republican majority in the House.
• • Most of the dwindled contingent of Republican governors have abandoned conservative principles to embrace the Democratic-sponsored extension of the State Children's Health Insurance Program to people who are neither children nor poor. Only three -- Indiana's Mitch Daniels, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and South Carolina's Mark Sanford -- resist the lure of federal dollars.

Given these multiple developments, the melancholic Republicans yearn for a leader. The party's many presidential candidates pretend that George W. Bush does not really exist, not mentioning his name during debates. But none has inspired the party faithful. Front-runner Rudy Giuliani is anathema to social conservatives who were the core of Republican success for more than two decades. This situation explains the interest in Fred Thompson as a savior.

Mitt Romney approached the calamitous atmosphere last week by asserting that Sen. Craig, until last week his Idaho state chairman, is part of the capital's corruption that only a real outsider -- specifically, the former governor of Massachusetts -- can cure. Past candidates have succeeded in pointing to corruption in Washington, but always by the opposite party. The Republican Party's next leader faces a more complicated problem.

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