The 3.6 Percent Republicans

...Rather, as the ANES and other surveys showed, most voters, including many Republicans, were disenchanted with Bush’s Iraq policies and generally worried that the country was moving in the wrong direction...

...But that still means just 5.2 percent of all voters (40 percent times 13 percent) qualify as “very conservative” Republicans...

...I was not a Reagan Democrat, but every one of my six closest lifelong friends —each, like me, born a workingclass Catholic and raised as a Democrat in the 1960s and 1970s in Philadelphia—was...

...If that just seems too low, consult the American National Election Studies (ANES) and add the 12 percent of independents who lean Republican to the 12 percent who are self-described “weak Republicans” and the 16 percent who are self-described “strong Republicans...

...By comparison, the left often draws fl ies...

...Most leading conservative writers, radio hosts, and activists would probably concur that their liberal counterparts have never really connected with average Americans...

...he is conservative, but he is not what the pollsters call “very conservative...

...Post-FDR, the last time that staunch liberals saw their favorite candidate elected president was never...

...Take a glance at Gallup Organization surveys...

...Independents matter most...

...But what is true for the liberal goose is true for the conservative gander...

...The 2008 presidential election may turn on whether the GOP can win back independents, and on whether my friends and millions more like them become McCain Democrats...

...But in this exceptionally weird election year, witnessing the not-so-vast right-wing conspiracy McCain-bash its way to a third Clinton term would win the prize for irony...

...They all say that they will vote for him if he is the Republican nominee...

...Based on ANES data, Emory University’s Alan Abramowitz has calculated that in the 10 elections from 1952 to 1988, the Democrat, on average, won about 40 percent of the total two-party vote cast by independents...

...Nor were they particularly upset with the GOP over social issues or support for traditional values...

...Win, lose, or draw, Democrats are prone to eat their own...

...To get the fi gure into double-digits, the “very conservative” faithful would have to be at least a quarter of the party’s people, and the party’s identifi ers would need to be 40 percent of the mass electorate (25 percent times 40 percent just equals 10 percent...

...As Daniel Patrick Moynihan liked to quip, people are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts...

...can keep myriad media personalities in the money and favored candidates in offi ce...

...By every standard measure (voting record and ratings, positions on major issues), McCain is conservative...

...This sums to 40 percent of the mass electorate...

...got 38 percent of the national vote...

...But, refl ecting national trends, half voted for Kerry in 2004, and all but one voted Democratic in 2006...

...Many other general election scenarios remain possible...

...In 1984, in a two-man race, he won 26 percent of Democrats again, plus 63 percent of independents...

...And while about a tenth of all Americans today self-identify as “religious right,” about 7 percent selfidentify as “religious left...

...In 1980, in a three-man race, Reagan won 26 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents...

...The trend is most evident among 18to 29-year-old white evangelicals, only 40 percent of whom self-identify as Republican...

...In a country of some 300 million souls, a lively and like-minded 4 or 5 percent of the voting-age population John J. DiIulio Jr...

...In 2000, Bush won independents 47 percent to 45 percent over Gore...

...In December 2007, Gallup surveys found voters giving Democrats the edge on four out of fi ve issues that mattered most to them: health, taxes, the economy, and Iraq...

...In 2007, self-identifi ed Republicans were about 28 percent of the mass electorate, self-identifi ed Democrats were about 32 percent, and self-identifi ed independents were about 39 percent...

...He often wisely bent his sincerely held conservative principles in order to get a legislative half-loaf, a partial regulatory rollback, and so on...

...is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...Even given another candidate as popular with evangelicals as Bush, there is simply not much more electoral juice left to be squeezed from the evangelical orange...

...The only issue on which voters favored Republicans was terrorism...

...So, fi nally, an unscientifi c survey: All my ex-Reagan Democrat buddies like McCain best because he is a war hero, because he seems strong on national defense, and because he looks the part...

...For even in our decidedly right-leaning mass electorate, few Americans, including few Republicans, answer to “very conservative...

...None other than John McCain keeps asserting that Republicans lost in 2006 because they stopped strictly adhering to conservative orthodoxy by succumbing to Washington’s overspending ways...

...Very conservative” Republicans are only about 3.6 percent—28 percent times 13 percent—of the mass electorate...

...George McGovern, who recently called for President Bush’s impeachment (cue applause in Cambridge, Mass...

...Nor did Reagan by any means always govern from the right...

...The winning difference in 2004, an election in which both parties exceeded their early turnout projections, was the several million evangelical voters who favored Bush but had not turned out in 2000...

...And until recently, conservatives seemed to be on an electoral politics roll begun in 1994 when the GOP retook the House...

...John McCain is more conservative on more issues than average Americans are...

...In 2004, Bush lost independents, getting 48 percent to Kerry’s 49 percent...

...Surveys indicate that most Republicans who voted for Democrats or simply stayed home in 2006 were not focused on overspending or overtaxing...

...Now, do the simple math...

...Fifty-fi ve percent of Republicans self-identifi ed as “conservative,” 26 percent as “moderate,” and 13 percent as “very conservative...

...Within Republican ranks, for all the talk about crack-ups and implosions, the Reagan legacy still bridges divides between libertarians, social and religious conservatives, and national security conservatives...

...McCain is probably the only Republican who can win as Reagan did...

...In the last four presidential elections, however, the Democrat, on average, won 55 percent of the total two-party vote cast by independents...

...But that would be a data-free stretch...

...That is one obvious reason why he has such wide appeal...

...But the conservative party cannot win the presidency without more than a little help from weakly conservative and moderate voters including Democrats and independents...

...The independents in 2004 cast one in three ballots...

...But evangelical Christians, though predominantly conservative, are trending slowly toward the center...

...This claim may warm some very conservative hearts, but total yearly federal spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has averaged in the low twenties since Reagan was president, and the annual nondefense discretionary spending that conservatives especially love to hate rose only from 3.2 percent of GDP in 1999 to 3.8 percent of GDP in 2006...

...Unlike his critics on the right, however, he is no ideological purist...

...President Bush made measurable electoral inroads with that population, but those gains have evaporated for Republicans...

...The exception would be the fast-growing evangelical Latino population represented by groups like Esperanza USA, and encompassing Latino churches and fraternal organizations by the thousands...

...Plus, the Democrats fi nally woke up and ran some less decidedly liberal candidates, including a few pro-life Democrats, in key races...

...Personalities on the right sell more books and get higher radio and television ratings...

...The GOP’s hard-line rhetoric on immigration, and its failure to deliver big on federal aid for faith-based initiatives, has alienated even religiously conservative Latino leaders...

...In fact, the only time Democrats actually nominated a candidate who toed the liberal intelli gentsia’s line was 1972...

...I have the “liberal egghead” teasing scars to prove it...