Pat Buchanan: GOP, Party of Smaller Government, Dying Out

MSNBC political analyst Patrick Buchanan says the GOP is all but dead and wonders whether it can even be called a national party anymore.

Buchanan, an author and former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, wrote in his syndicated column Tuesday that the “new majority” gains made during those previous administrations are but a distant memory. He expressed fear that the country is turning away from the GOP creed of small government and low taxes

“Demographically, philosophically and culturally, the party base has been shrinking since Bush I won his 40-state triumph over Michael Dukakis,” Buchanan wrote. “Indeed, the Republican base is rapidly becoming a redoubt, a Fort Apache in Indian country.”

In the commentary piece, Buchanan offered up National Journal writer Ron Brownstein’s grim prognosis of the Republican Party's chances of recapturing the White House any time soon, noting that the Democrats have won the past five elections in 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 248 electoral votes among them.

Those 18 include California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and all but New Hampshire in the six states that make up New England.

Additionally, in four of the past five elections, Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Mexico all have gone Democratic, and Virginia and Colorado have begun turning blue.

"State by state, election by election, Democrats since 1992 have constructed the party's largest and most durable Electoral College base in more than half a century,” Buchanan quotes Brownstein as saying. “Call it the blue wall."

Buchanan noted that the Democratic base “is becoming so solidified it may block any Republican from regaining the White House, in the absence of a catastrophically failed Democratic president.”

Buchanan cited two reasons he believes the Republicans have lost so much ground to the Democrats since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992:

1) The majority of younger, college-educated voters are turning increasingly to the Democratic Party in a counterculture attack on the issues of abortion, same-sex marriage, and affirmative action.

2) Republican voters are aging, while Democratic voters, “fed by high immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants,” are expanding.

Nearly 90 percent of legal and illegal immigrants are poor or working class and are forced to rely on government help with health, housing, education, and welfare, Buchanan noted, adding that nearly 40 percent of wage earners have dropped from the tax rolls because of tax cuts.

“If one pays no federal income tax but reaps a cornucopia of benefits, it makes no sense to vote for the party of less government,” Buchanan concluded.