Could it be?

If the latest Pew poll is grounded in anything even remotely resembling statistical reality, if it's anything but the product of 50 chimps at tabulating keyboards, if it's anything but a cruel joke from the political gods, then 2012 is destined to replace 1964 as the presidential year that defines the electoral relationship between extreme ideology and party calamity.

In a head-to-head matchup between the president and Mitt Romney, the former leads by a game-over 12 points. Leads of fewer points than that (generally about 10) are unbeatable, considering the voting preferences from even unfavorable electoral-college states required to amass such a nationally comprehensive number.

Charles Blow of the Times is struck by Obama's 20-point lead over Romney among women, as well as a powerful lead among the young and even a tie among the 65+ demographic. "And," notes Blow, "he outperforms Romney in every region of the country and among every income group."

That "every region" is no typo. It does in fact include the South (Obama, 52; Romney, 44), which is what impels one to intense dubiousness about the Pew poll. The same goes for "every income group," in that Pew shows Obama leading by 26 points among voters with a family income of $30,000 or less. In addition, Obama is reckoned to hold a 7-point lead among the high school-only (or less) educated.

Obama also possesses a 3-point lead among men, which, if true, would offer absolute, even Inhofe-convincing proof of Darwinian evolution and resolve any questions as to the whereabouts of the missing link. It is here, though, that my Humean skepticism violently kicks in, with an exceptionally reasonable doubt that approaches the damning.

As Blow concedes, in so many and other words, the latest NY Times/CBS News and Washington Post/ABC News polls, for instance, aren't nearly as promising, overall, to the "Rational" demographic. But if Pew is on to something, however skewed for the moment, then 2012 shall be historic indeed.

Comments

[John Haas]

"... then 2012 is destined to replace 1964 as the presidential year that defines the electoral relationship between extreme ideology and party calamity."

I'm not sure what you mean by that. After their defeat in '64, the extreme right didn't exactly fold up their tent. They re-organized, got to work, and went looking for a more fetching candidate, whom they finally found in 1980.

[Robert Lipscomb]

The GOP is embroiled in an existential fight to decide who they are - or better yet, who they will be.

They are no longer Bob Dole or Howard Baker Republicans. In the 1976 election, Dole was the nasty one. In the mid 90's, he championed the AEI devised concept for healthcare reform, now known disparagingly as Obamacare. Baker's (Everet Dirkson's son) first election was the first battle won in the takeover of the South.

This is not the party of George H W Bush -or maybe even George W Bush, who at least embraced the concept of being a compasionate conservative.

And it is not the the party of Reagan who would have brushed aside grover Norquist to seal the deal on a 4-to-1 swap of spending cuts for tax cuts. i suspect Reagan would think our military is pretty healthy shape.

Is the Culture War anything but a concept - maybe like the Lost Cause of the South?

I do not offer these observation as cheap shots to prove that the current GOP is radicalized because I do not think that is their primary problem. Their primary problem is that they simply do not know who they want to become. This is a bigger problem than just "being against Obama" or "being radical".

Their current problem is not about who to nominate to best be their face or lead the election campaign, or who best to articulate their poltical philosophy. Those issues are meaningless when you do not know who you are.

[AnneJ]

But after 1964, we got Nixon in 1968. As far as I'm concerned he is the one they owe their political successes of the last forty years to, not their sainted Ronald Reagan.

[John Haas]

But Nixon was an Ike-style liberal Republican . . .