This past Friday Mitt Romney held a rally in West Chester, Ohio (a 15 minute drive from IntoxiNation headquarters). More then 30,000 people came out to see Romney speak. Well let me rephrase that. 30,000 came out to see Kid Rock play. Many went ahead and stayed to see Mitt Romney speak.
West Chester was a prime location for this event. In 2010 it was the site of a Tea Party rally that drew 10,000 people. Given how red this area is, that is no shocker.
But if you look at the photos from Friday’s rally, you will notice something. Everyone appears to be white. Here’s one image from the rally:
You can also view more images here and here.
To see little to no diversity in such a huge crowd should be troubling for the GOP. Sometime in the next few decades, it is predicted that whites in America will become the minority. Non-white births are now actually exceeding white births, so that day is quickly approaching. This is a statistic that Republicans love to throw out there all the time, using it as some scare tactic. That, in itself, appears to be a problem, but the crowds at these GOP rallies are even more troubling.
Politico’s Jonathon Martin, reporting on the crowd at this event, has this to say:
But they did so before a crowd that was nearly all-white and their appearances were sandwiched in between slashing speeches from a familiar roster of older white males like Rudy Giuliani, who took it upon himself to demand that President Barack Obama resign over the Benghazi attacks.
Regardless of whether Romney wins or loses, Republicans must move to confront its demographic crisis. The GOP coalition is undergirded by a shrinking population of older white conservative men from the countryside, while the Democrats rely on an ascendant bloc of minorities, moderate women and culturally tolerant young voters in cities and suburbs. This is why, in every election, since 1992, Democrats have either won the White House or fallen a single state short of the presidency.
The problem the GOP faces is these “older white conservative men”. They constantly put out rhetoric that pushes away moderate women, minorities and young voters. They still live in the time where they view themselves as the superior race and sex.
There is a chance Romney will win tomorrow, but it will be very close if he does. That won’t be the sign of an agenda or anything, but rather a very shrinking majority that still has a little bit of a grip. If the GOP wants to be contenders, they must move more to the center and stop alienating those that aren’t white men. That’s the only key to their survival and the survival of our two party system. Without it, we will become a one party system and that scares even this Democrat.