The Basics: The "Leave Us Alone" Group Is Key

This essay is about 12 years old, but Norquist was right then, and he's right now, too. Some (R) candidates will find out that they are on very thin ice if they don't understand the "Leave Us Alone" segment of the population.

...the "Leave Us Alone" coalition is built around a single political principle consistent with American history and tradition -- that government should be limited and the people free. As such, it is a "low maintenance" coalition. Conservative leaders can meet in a room, and the taxpayers can agree not to throw condoms at the children of Christians and orthodox Jews; the gun owners can agree not to raise everyone else's taxes; the Christians can agree not to steal anyone's guns; and they all can agree not to take anyone's property. Everyone in the coalition can agree to keep out of the pockets and faces of everyone else. United, they can turn to do battle with the Left. In America, unlike Europe, traditionalists and supporters of limited government are allies, since America's political tradition is one of ingrained distrust for centralized authority.

The Left as embodied in the Democratic Party is a "Takings" coalition made up of groups that want the government to take things -- usually money -- from other Americans and give it to them. This coalition includes government workers, unions, contractors, big-city machines, Federal grant recipients, left-wing intellectuals, and both wings of the "dependency lobby" (those locked into welfare dependency and those who earn a handsome living managing that deliberately never-ending dependency). A recent addition has been the new paymasters of the "Takings" coalition-trial lawyers.

Within these economically self-interested groups are the radical utopians who wish to use the power of the state to restructure society-radical leaders of the feminist, homosexual, environmentalist, and animal rights movements. Then there are the anti-military pacifists, who now would have us surrender our sovereignty to the United Nations instead of the Soviet Union.

Norquist reviews the utterly-dismal % of votes garnered by Clinton, Mondale, and (eventually) Carter. It's clear that there are two reasons that Obama managed to obtain a majority of Presidential votes:

1) GWBush, McConnell, and Hastert betrayed the "Leave Us Alone" group; and
2) Obama pretended to be a centrist.

(R) candidates whose platforms consist solely of "No Obamacare!! Less Taxes!!" are not going to retain their current popularity. There are far more fish to fry: poison lightbulbs, Corn-A-Holing, inane regulations, licensing-run-amok, "equal opportunity", the War on Energy....

So many targets, so little time.

HT: Tabin at AmSpec, who explores the Beck phenom in his essay.