Fertility Gap - hee hee

Liberals aren't having babies, and the country's tilting red.

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.

Brooks goes on the point out that there is no guarantee that liberals will vote Dem and conservatives will vote Republican, and that many people consider themselves neither and will vote less predictably. But still, it does seem that the far-left's frantic pulling of the Dem Party away from the center, and the Party's willingness to go there, is not going to do them any favor in upcoming years. Which hopefully means the length of time I will have to watch the scary Ms. Pelosi speak on TV is limited. And while I don't like the idea of having only one party to choose from, I'm very happy that big "L" liberals may be a dying breed. 'Cuz they're just stupid, and I don't want them running my country.