Why Republican Donors and Voters Don't Get Along

[DonViejo]

Even as Democrats attack Republicans for catering to the wealthy, the GOP base is distinctly working-class.

By Alex Roarty

It took David Perdue about 20 seconds of speechifying to expose a tension roiling the Republican Party. Speaking in January, the former business executive turned Georgia candidate for U.S. Senate asked a group of local Republicans to parse the resumes of his primary foes.

"There's a high school graduate in this race, OK?" said Perdue, referring to his opponent, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel. "I'm sorry, these issues are so much broader, so complex. There's only one candidate in this race who's ever lived outside the United States. How can you bring value to a debate about the economy unless you have any understanding about the free-enterprise system and what it takes to compete in the global economy?"

The two-pronged swipe elicited cries of condescension and elitism that eventually forced Perdue to apologize. And it revealed a vital reality about the state of the Republican Party as its members prepare to select a standard-bearer for the 2016 presidential primary: The GOP has long ago shed its stereotype of being the party catering to the wealthy.

These days, the GOP tone and agenda are set by a voting bloc of mostly white, blue-collar workers whose sensibilities skew more toward NASCAR than golf. In a general election, the party's most reliable supporters are white voters without college degrees. And they increasingly control the contest for the White House nod: In 2008, according to a tabulation of exit-poll data acquired by the National Journal, blue-collar workers made up 51 percent of all GOP primary voters.

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http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/why-republican-donors-and-voters-don-t-get-along-20140420

[Jamaal510]

1. Every time I

think about it, it leaves me dumbfounded that the GOP even gets way more than 1% of the vote at all. Unless you're rich, Christian, straight, and a man, there is really nothing for you in the Republican Party. It's a pity that more people outside of progressives (and some moderates) don't get it.