The GOP's “missing five million” white men

Trump Bets on the ‘Missing Five Million’ - Some say Republicans can win by turning out disaffected whites—but is it working?

Excerpt:

Mr. Trump and his managers assume that victory depends on turning out whites who did not vote for Mitt Romney in 2012. This theory holds that President Obama won re-election by 4.9 million votes only because five million whites stayed home, unenthused by Mr. Romney, who didn’t connect with them or wasn’t harsh enough on Mr. Obama.

On the surface, the “missing five million” sounds plausible. Although 129 million Americans—55% of the voting-age population—cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election, 106 million people didn’t. Among them, according to the website FiveThirtyEight, were 47 million whites without a college degree, including 24 million men.

Exit polls from 2012 show that Mr. Romney won 59% of white voters, and that whites constituted 72% of the turnout. The Trumpers say their man can win by boosting those figures only slightly. Increase the GOP’s share of the white vote a few points, say to 62%. Raise the white turnout to 74% or 75%. Voilà, President Trump.

Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump hurled almost as much abuse at what they said were pusillanimous Republican leaders as they threw at Mr. Obama. Mr. Trump won the nomination by arguing that the “missing five million” would turn out for hard-line immigration policies, anti-trade rhetoric and a neo-isolationist foreign policy that put “America First.”

How’s that working out so far? The Trump camp’s first strategic premise—that he can do better among whites than Mr. Romney did—isn’t being borne out. The Oct. 17 poll from Fox News is representative: Among registered voters, Mr. Trump drew 49% of whites and Mrs. Clinton 38%. Other polls also show Mr. Trump lagging Mr. Romney’s performance among whites. Perhaps he could match or exceed it on Election Day if he converts virtually every undecided white voter, but that isn’t likely.

We can’t evaluate the second strategic premise—that Mr. Trump can increase the white turnout—until after the election. But recent history doesn’t suggest a dramatic increase in the offing. Exit polls show that whites were 81% of turnout in 2000; 77% in 2004; 74% in 2008; and 72% in 2012. The country is becoming more racially diverse. It will be nearly impossible for Mr. Trump to keep the white share flat, let alone increase it.

... If the “missing five million” fail to reappear, Republicans will have to find another road to political dominance and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Comment: Image source. Too bad that Trump has turned off white women!

Noonan and Rove on Obama's mess with Health Care "reform"

Voters send a message to Washington, and get an ugly response

Excerpt:

The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss—loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t.

People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.

What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a “no” slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis.

Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that people are “storming these town hall meetings,” that they were “well dressed”, that “this is all organized,” “all planned,” to “hurt our president.” Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.

Health Reform and the Tax Pledge

Excerpts:

Public support for his plans shrank when Americans saw the trillion-dollar-plus price tag, recoiled from the intrusive expansion of government into patient-doctor decisions, and came to understand the plan was financed in part by huge cuts in Medicare and large tax increases.

So, after running into heavy opposition among Congressional Democrats and growing public hostility to his plan, Mr. Obama has now recast the debate as an attack on insurance companies, with the president serving as savager-in-chief. This would be more credible if he hadn’t surrounded himself with insurance CEOs and lobbyists when he kicked off his effort in March.

....

The campaign team is intent upon protecting a pledge driven by its 2008 campaign polls: Mr. Obama promised never to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year to avoid being labeled a tax-and-spend liberal.

Even so, Mr. Obama has already broken his no-new-taxes pledge. On Feb. 4, Mr. Obama signed a $33 billion cigarette tax increase, which fell disproportionately on lower- and middle-income individuals. And the “cap and trade” energy bill, approved by the House on June 26, is a tax on anyone who owns a light switch, uses a car key, or has bought anything manufactured, shipped or sold in the U.S.

The House version of Mr. Obama’s health-care—excuse me, “health-insurance”—reform already has four taxes that will largely be paid by people making less than $250,000 a year. There’s $8.2 billion in taxes for using health savings accounts and other tax-free medical savings vehicles to purchase over-the-counter drugs. There’s an 8% tax on employers who don’t offer insurance: The Congressional Budget Office says workers in those businesses would pay the $163 billion cost via lost wages.

There’s a 2.5% “Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage” in the House bill that applies to people who either don’t have insurance or whose policies the government deems inadequate. Finally, there’s a $2 billion “Comparative Effectiveness Research Tax” on all private and “public option” insurance policies.

If some version of ObamaCare is passed, the president will break his tax pledge several more times while adding trillions to the deficit, dismantling the best elements of our health-care system and slashing Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars.

Comment: Crash and burn time for Nancy Pelosi and crowd!