In general, in the higher-growth segments of our country, Republicans lost
ground, prevailing only in small towns and rural areas. When Democrats win the
suburbs, Republicans are in trouble.
Republicans have lost an enormous amount of support among upscale voters, basically just breaking even among those with household incomes above $50,000 a year, a traditional GOP stronghold. Similarly, McCain's losing to Obama among college graduates and voters who have attended some college underscores how much the GOP franchise is in trouble. My hunch is that the Republican Party's focus on social, cultural, and religious issues --
most notably, fights over embryonic-stem-cell research and Terri Schiavo -- cost
its candidates dearly among upscale voters.....
Those who write off the 2008 election by saying that Republican
candidates weren't conservative enough are in denial. They are political ostriches, refusing to acknowledge that the country and the electorate are changing and that old recipes don't work any more.
Obama's message and agenda were a far cry from those of the Democratic
Party of a generation or two ago, but the Republican Party's message and
agenda haven't changed much other than becoming even more fixated on cultural issues and tax cuts.
http://www.cookpolitical.com/node/4071
And here is where John Mica portrays himself as the political ostrich advocating more conservativism for the GOP:
But Both Mica and Flake noted that though the conservative voice has grown in
strength in the aftermath of the Nov. 4 elections, conservatives likely would
not have been able to replace Boehner as House Minority leader with one of their
own. “We [conservatives] could certainly have mounted a more formidable
challenge” towards Boehner, Flake told CNSNews.com. “But I don’t know that
it would have been enough. We thought we mounted a pretty good challenge last
time, and we got socked.” “I don’t think conservatives would have had the
votes,” said Mica.
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39635
