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Time magazine’s Joe Klein on “The Neglected Voter”
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1670184,00.html
“This is a key to the next election, the subject of a new book by David Paul Kuhn, The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma. Kuhn accurately links the Republican dominance of the past 40 years to the loss of the Haggard vote. The percentage of white males identifying themselves as Democrats has declined from 47% in 1952 to about 25% in 2004. Much of that decline was an unavoidable consequence of two honorable positions the party took in the 1960s: in favor of civil rights and against the war in Vietnam.
But civil rights slid into special preferences (for everyone, it seemed, but white men), and Vietnam slouched, all too often, into reflexive pacifism and a distrust of the military. Is it possible now, with the Republicans diving into foolish militarism and the indulgence of Thou-shalt-not killjoys, that Reagan Democrats might be tempted to come home? They will have to be wooed, of course.
Kuhn wisely suggests a ploy similar to John Kennedy's in 1960: Make the argument that we're weaker because of the Republicans.”
more coming soon..
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