Dude, Where's My Voters?
By Brandon Dutcher
[This column appeared in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Oklahoma Gazette.]
After George W. Bush's reelection in 2004, I suspect many Oklahoma Gazette readers could identify with the liberal radio host Garrison Keillor who, despondent over the election results, said he spent an evening "crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark."
But I would suggest that if liberals want their team to win more elections, they need to start worrying about other people who are crouched in a fetal position.
In an article published in 2004 on the website of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, public policy researcher Larry Eastland detailed how Democrats are losing voters – literally – through abortion.
"Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population, Democrats have more than their proportion of the population," Eastland wrote. "The more ideologically Democratic the voters are (self-identified liberals), the more abortions they have."
He estimated that since Roe v. Wade, Democrats have lost nearly 6 million more voters than Republicans have. In Oklahoma, the net disadvantage for Democrats amounted to 20,983 "missing voters" in 2004.
"The Democrats have given the Republicans a decided advantage in electoral politics, one that grows with each election," he observed.
And it’s not just abortion. Family banning takes other forms as well. In the cover story in the current issue of Foreign Policy, adapted recently in USA Today, Phillip Longman pointed out that "the greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society" tends to be liberal.
"Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry," he wrote. "Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families."
Among Oklahoma voters, there’s only one group – senior citizens – that says it votes more Democrat than Republican, according to Pat McFerron, director of survey research at Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates. Among Oklahomans under 45, Republican candidates enjoy a 20-point advantage. "Clearly, as nature takes its course, Oklahoma will steadily become more Republican," he said.
The law of unintended consequences is not mocked. Eastland pointed out that millions of missing Democrat voters – missing because of the abortion policies advocated by Democrats – gave George W. Bush his margin of victory in 2000. "Whoever digs a pit will fall into it," the proverb says, "and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him."
As the "secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce," Longman observed, "people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default. ... The descendants of parents who have three or more children will be hugely overrepresented in subsequent generations, and so will the values and ideas that led their parents to have large families."
So get with it, liberals! While creative-class Kerry Okies with medicated wombs are sipping lattes and listening to NPR, the procreative class is multiplying and filling the earth.
If liberals persist in their planned barrenhood, contraceiving and aborting their base, the country is going to be taken over by pro-marriage, pro-family, gun-toting religious homeschoolers who don’t like high taxes and big government. In other words, the kinds of people who founded the country.
[This column appeared in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Oklahoma Gazette.]
After George W. Bush's reelection in 2004, I suspect many Oklahoma Gazette readers could identify with the liberal radio host Garrison Keillor who, despondent over the election results, said he spent an evening "crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark."
But I would suggest that if liberals want their team to win more elections, they need to start worrying about other people who are crouched in a fetal position.
In an article published in 2004 on the website of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, public policy researcher Larry Eastland detailed how Democrats are losing voters – literally – through abortion."Republicans have fewer abortions than their proportion of the population, Democrats have more than their proportion of the population," Eastland wrote. "The more ideologically Democratic the voters are (self-identified liberals), the more abortions they have."
He estimated that since Roe v. Wade, Democrats have lost nearly 6 million more voters than Republicans have. In Oklahoma, the net disadvantage for Democrats amounted to 20,983 "missing voters" in 2004.
"The Democrats have given the Republicans a decided advantage in electoral politics, one that grows with each election," he observed.
And it’s not just abortion. Family banning takes other forms as well. In the cover story in the current issue of Foreign Policy, adapted recently in USA Today, Phillip Longman pointed out that "the greatly expanded childless segment of contemporary society" tends to be liberal.
"Among states that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry," he wrote. "Childlessness and small families are increasingly the norm today among progressive secularists. As a consequence, an increasing share of all children born into the world are descended from a share of the population whose conservative values have led them to raise large families."
Among Oklahoma voters, there’s only one group – senior citizens – that says it votes more Democrat than Republican, according to Pat McFerron, director of survey research at Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates. Among Oklahomans under 45, Republican candidates enjoy a 20-point advantage. "Clearly, as nature takes its course, Oklahoma will steadily become more Republican," he said.
The law of unintended consequences is not mocked. Eastland pointed out that millions of missing Democrat voters – missing because of the abortion policies advocated by Democrats – gave George W. Bush his margin of victory in 2000. "Whoever digs a pit will fall into it," the proverb says, "and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him."
As the "secular and libertarian elements in society fail to reproduce," Longman observed, "people adhering to more traditional, patriarchal values inherit society by default. ... The descendants of parents who have three or more children will be hugely overrepresented in subsequent generations, and so will the values and ideas that led their parents to have large families."
So get with it, liberals! While creative-class Kerry Okies with medicated wombs are sipping lattes and listening to NPR, the procreative class is multiplying and filling the earth.
If liberals persist in their planned barrenhood, contraceiving and aborting their base, the country is going to be taken over by pro-marriage, pro-family, gun-toting religious homeschoolers who don’t like high taxes and big government. In other words, the kinds of people who founded the country.
