How Republican Obstructionism Could Hand Congress To Democrats

In general there is little if anything positive I can say about today's Republican Party.  And I say this as a former Republican who held a city committee seat and was a precinct chair for 8 years.  The party's embrace of ignorance and insanity is near complete and those few sane Republicans who remain (they should be on the endangered species list)  appear unable to stop the run away freight train comprised of the Christofascists and their close cousins in the Tea Party.  With luck, the extremism of the GOP will help the Democrats to not only hold control of the Senate, but also allow them to recapture the House of Representatives.  A piece in Think Progress looks at this premise.  Here are excerpts:

Why are Republicans so freaked out?  . . . .  Politico suggests the reason for the glumness is fear about the political fallout from the GOP’s unyielding, nihilistic approach to governance on issues like Obamacare and the debt ceiling. That problem may be far worse than they imagine. A close scrutiny of the data reveals several demographic weak points that the current wave of Republican crazy could activate, leading to the outcome they dread the most: Democratic control of both houses of Congress.

Start with minorities. It’s not well-known, but Republicans in 2010 benefited not only from relatively low minority turnout (standard for an off-year election) but also from relatively low minority support for Democratic candidates.
If minorities snap back to 77-22 Democratic support as a consequence of Republican misbehavior, and the expected 2 percentage point increase in the share of minority voters from population trends emerges, then the Republican 6.8 percentage point margin in 2010 will be immediately sliced in half. And if the minority vote goes even stronger for the Democrats, reaching 2012 levels, that would eliminate about three-quarters of the Republicans’ 2010 advantage all on its own.

Another demographic problem for the GOP comes from a more surprising quarter: seniors. As Erica Seifert of Democracy Corps noted in a recent memo:

There’s something going on with seniors: It is now strikingly clear that they have turned sharply against the GOP.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare.

We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens.

It is therefore quite plausible that the GOP will benefit far less from senior support in 2014 than in 2010. If the senior share of voters returns to normal levels (19 percent) and the Republican margin among this group drops to its post-2000 average (6 points, about where it is right now in the Democracy Corps polls) that would take care of the rest of the GOP margin from 2010, getting the Democrats slightly past the break-even point in the popular vote. 

[T]here are certainly potential avenues to shift the 2014 House vote even farther in Democrats’ direction. There is the youth vote, for example  . . . If relative minority turnout is better in 2014 than 2010, then there will be an even larger increase in minority vote share over 2010, pushing the Democrats’ margin farther toward what they need to take the House.

The conjecture may be off base but one thing is certain: striving to disenfranchise minorities and leave senior citizens to live on dry dog food as they face staggering medical bills is not the way to win votes.  And with younger voters strongly pro-gay, the GOP's blind allegiance to the Christofascist anti-gay jihad isn't helpful either.