Sunday, November 16, 2014
Rand Paul Maximizes GOP Voters
With the current distribution of voters, neither Republican nor Democrats seem to be gaining the upper hand due to policy choices. Nick Gillespie seems to believe the Republicans could actually become an attractive party instead of "bank[ing] on the Democrats sucking all the time." He believes Rand Paul is at the forefront of changing the reputation of the Republican Party. Rand Paul has been reaching out to black communities with issues like the drug war and holding the party closer to it's semi-libertarian rhetoric. What could occur here if the GOP takes after Rand Paul's initiative, is the Republican party could reach into the well of Democratic voters (move left amount the distribution of voters), mainly African-Americans, while also mobilizing formerly disinterested libertarians who had decided to stop voting in general (move right amount the distribution of voters). And as the Republican party, if it truly follows Paul's trend, gains these formerly unachievable votes, the Democrats, retaining their numbing policy of the status quo, would be losing some of their usual voters, due to its venture too far to the center. Such a move by the GOP would be expected by a Party that wished to maximize votes (ideology set aside).
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Although ideally the Republican’s method to attract more black and libertarian voters would increase support for the party, Downs’ Median Voter Theorem would disagree with this strategy. As has been frequently discussed this semester, Downs’ Median Voter Theorem centers on parties creating more moderate platforms to try and attract the “median voter,” which would allow them to secure the most votes in an election. Therefore, the Republican’s strategy of trying to attract support from more minority populations, that are not representative of the median voter, may backfire. While the strategy could end up allowing the Republicans to get more votes from blacks and libertarians, the policies used to attract these voters may alienate more moderate voters, who are representative of the “median voter.” Although you claim that the Democrats have ventured “too far to the center,” according to the Median Voter Theorem this centered platform is beneficial and would attract the moderate voters alienated from the Republican Party to vote Democrat. The Republicans thus must be careful to not push away the moderate voter in their quest to increase support from blacks and libertarians.
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