But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put,
liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them,
they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is
suffering as a result.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688149/posts

The Fertility Gap
Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to
multiply.
Mr. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of
Public Affairs, is the author of "Who Really Cares: The Surprising
Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," forthcoming from Basic Books.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688149/posts

The Fertility Gap

Wall Street Journal Online ^ | August 22, 2006 | ARTHUR C. BROOKS

Posted on 08/22/2006 11:36:49 AM PDT by ritewingwarrior

Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to
multiply.

BY ARTHUR C. BROOKS
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

The midterm election looms, and once again efforts begin afresh to
increase voter participation. It has become standard wisdom in American
politics that voter turnout is synonymous with good citizenship,
justifying just about any scheme to get people to the polls. Arizona is
even considering a voter lottery, in which all voters are automatically
registered for a $1 million giveaway. Polling places and liquor stores
in Arizona will now have something in common.

On the political left, raising the youth vote is one of the most common
goals. This implicitly plays to the tired old axiom that a person under
30 who is not a liberal has no heart (whereas one who is still a
liberal after 30 has no head). The trouble is, while most "get out the
vote" campaigns targeting young people are proxies for the Democratic
Party, these efforts haven't apparently done much to win elections for
the Democrats. The explanation we often hear from the left is that the
new young Democrats are more than counterbalanced by voters scared up
by the Republicans on "cultural issues" like abortion, gun rights and
gay marriage.

But the data on young Americans tell a different story. Simply put,
liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them,
they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is
suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if
you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you
would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100
conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of
41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party
preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap
translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to
vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been
below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness
of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

Alarmingly for the Democrats, the gap is widening at a bit more than
half a percentage point per year, meaning that today's problem is
nothing compared to what the future will most likely hold. Consider
future presidential elections in a swing state (like Ohio), and assume
that the current patterns in fertility continue. A state that was split
50-50 between left and right in 2004 will tilt right by 2012, 54% to
46%. By 2020, it will be certifiably right-wing, 59% to 41%. A state
that is currently 55-45 in favor of liberals (like California) will be
54-46 in favor of conservatives by 2020--and all for no other reason
than babies.
The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age,
income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a
conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal
will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the
conservative. Some believe the gap reflects an authentic cultural
difference between left and right in America today. As one liberal
columnist in a major paper graphically put it, "Maybe the scales are
tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply
because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of
wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony,
whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health
of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation." It would appear
liberals have been quite successful controlling overpopulation--in the
Democratic Party.

Of course, politics depends on a lot more than underlying ideology.
People vote for politicians, not parties. Lots of people are neither
liberal nor conservative, but rather vote on the basis of personalities
and specific issues. But all things considered, if the Democrats
continue to appeal to liberals and the Republicans to conservatives,
getting out the youth vote may be increasingly an exercise in futility
for the American left.

Democratic politicians may have no more babies left to kiss.




Mr. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of
Public Affairs, is the author of "Who Really Cares: The Surprising
Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," forthcoming from Basic Books.

Sound of Trumpet wrote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688149/posts

The Fertility Gap

Wall Street Journal Online ^ | August 22, 2006 | ARTHUR C. BROOKS

Posted on 08/22/2006 11:36:49 AM PDT by ritewingwarrior

Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to
multiply.

Another stupid, stupid man pretending that political belief is a trait
inherited from one's parents, like eye or hair color. Only someone who
is dumber-than-rocks would believe that.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1688149/posts


The Fertility Gap


Wall Street Journal Online ^ | August 22, 2006 | ARTHUR C. BROOKS


Posted on 08/22/2006 11:36:49 AM PDT by ritewingwarrior


Liberal politics will prove fruitless as long as liberals refuse to
multiply.

She doesn't know my situation because she doesn't feel the need to go
looking into other people's business like you do.