It's True: Republicans Will Be Getting Even Poorer and Dumber Than They Are Now!

IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

(Charlie Cook, National Journal Magazine)

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.

When I was a kid, (don't ask) Republicans were thought of as, well, patrician. They were the professionals - doctors, lawyers, engineers - while the Democrats had unions and worked on assembly lines primarily because they lacked education. By reaching for the vote of Sarah Palin's "Joe Sixpack," they ignored their base and got stuck with Christofascists running the show for the RNC.

Now they're stuck with the kind of voters they once disdained. They're closer to Jeff Foxworthy's rednecks than they ever imagined. Soon, the list of jokes will be prefaced by "you might be a Republican if..." O.K., that's mean spirited of me and redneckphobic. But if Republicans don't recapture upscale voters - and quickly - they might find that their supporters are too wild and dogmatic to control.

And Ann Coulter's book - If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans - will become an anomaly. Now THAT would be wonderful!

Just a thought.