Lower-earning voters reshaping GOP base
CONCORD, N.H. - They were called Reagan Democrats and then "values voters." They were the police and firefighters President Bush credited with his 2004 reelection. And in this week's Iowa caucuses, they were the dominant constituency in the Republican Party.
For decades, Republicans sought to reach beyond their traditional base of business-oriented, upper-income voters by wooing blue-collar voters through social issues and appeals to patriotism. But Thursday in Iowa, working-class Republicans flexed their muscles, sending former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas to a clear victory over businessman Mitt Romney - and leaving some upper-income conservatives to wonder whether they are in control of their party anymore.
Like Romney, Huckabee emphasizes faith and family values, but he also focuses more on the need for government to help lower-income Americans than on the traditional Republican antitax message, which concerns mainstream Republicans. "I'd like to know what his economic message is - he throws out phrases suggesting he's against free trade and supports more government regulation. Those are not views that most Republicans share," said Frank Donatelli, the former White House political director under President Reagan, who this year is supporting Senator John McCain of Arizona.
But the demographic dynamic between the parties has changed since the Reagan years. As more lower-income voters have joined the traditional Republican Party of business, Democrats have gotten richer: A Pew Research Center survey of prospective presidential matchups earlier this year showed voters earning more than $100,000 a year about evenly split between the parties.
Perhaps as a result, some Democrats have adopted traditional GOP themes like fiscal restraint, while Republicans such as Huckabee advocate a larger government role in healthcare and education. And, like many Democrats, Huckabee accuses his primary opponents of being too friendly to the rich.
"In looking for a presidential candidate, people want someone who looks more like the guy they work with than the guy who laid them off," Huckabee quipped, referring to Romney, a former business consultant who earned his fortune in part by making companies more efficient.
In past Republican eras, that line wouldn't have won many votes; but this year in Iowa, with its relatively large population of Christian conservatives and working-class Republicans, it went over well. "Since the late '80s and early '90s, white evangelicals have grown as a Republican constituency, and its brought more lower-income voters into the Republican Party," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "What's becoming clear now is the divide between social and economic conservatives."
Kohut described Huckabee's voters as "big-government conservatives." And the party's success in broadening its base to include them may now threaten its unity around a small-government message. Surveys of voters entering Thursday's caucuses indicate that Huckabee drew disproportionate support from voters on the lower economic rungs. He beat Romney by 16 points among people earning less than $50,000 per year. He edged Romney by just four points among those earning more than $50,000.
Since party identification keeps shifting, its unclear whether there are enough "big government" Republicans to give Huckabee the nomination. But the clout of working-class voters in the GOP has expanded.
In the '80s and '90s, Republicans were often accused of using "wedge issues" like crime and abortion to persuade working-class people to vote against their economic interests, which would have been a far bigger priority of the Democrats. But throughout George W. Bush's presidency, lower-income voters have become more Republican, and have played a greater role in shaping the GOP agenda.
Many working-class voters supported the war on terrorism, and Bush, himself a product of Yale and Harvard Business School, acknowledged his debt to them.
"This election was not won by country club Republicans," he told his political aides in November 2004, according to an account by journalist Bob Woodward. "I don't know if they exist. There are only country club Democrats. This election was won by people who carry lunch pails to work. I think that if it had just been policemen and firemen voting in this election, I would have the most - you know 90 percent of the vote."
But in Bush's second term, working-class conservatives, including many from the Christian right, expressed growing opposition to the administration's priorities. And Bush's efforts to appease both social and economic conservatives tore at the fabric of the party.
When Bush launched his ambitious campaign to privatize Social Security, Christian conservatives expressed dismay, saying their members couldn't support such a scheme. But when Bush answered requests from Christian conservatives to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose husband wanted her removed from life support, many GOP economic conservatives were dismayed.
Such economic conservatives also blamed social conservatives for increased government spending on Medicare, education, and other traditionally liberal priorities under Bush and the recent GOP-led Congress.
"The way the Republican Party's going, [Huckabee's rise] is not a surprise," said Shane Cory, executive director of the Libertarian Party, which sees itself as a prod to Republicans to maintain economically conservative policies. "People can't see past his pastoral charm to realize he's a big-government liberal. He sees big government as a fix for everything."
"If that's what Republican voters get stuck with, it's their own fault," Cory added. "It's an unfortunate situation."
In fact, Huckabee does not define himself as a supporter of a large role for government programs. But he has called for a greater government role in promoting health and fitness, and for government action to block job losses caused by free-trade agreements. He has also refused to apologize for tax increases during his tenure as governor of Arkansas, saying they were supported by voters. And he has chided some fellow Republicans who have praised the health of the economy, suggesting they are out of touch with the struggles of lower-income people.
David Carney, a former White House political director in the first Bush administration who is now a New Hampshire political consultant, said Huckabee's Iowa victory was a wake-up call to the GOP's Washington establishment, suggesting it needs to be more responsive to average voters.
"The Republican establishment has to wake up and smell the coffee and realize that voters are not bound by the rules of hierarchy and won't go for the person that all the bigshots are for or where all the money is," Carney said.
After watching Huckabee speak yesterday at a rally in Henniker, N.H., Lloyd Wiley, a retired police officer from Bedford and self-described Republican and Christian, said he found himself "very inspired."
Huckabee's focus on policies that would help less affluent Americans improve their lives, he said, "is the part that the Republicans have been missing. It's not all about big money and big corporations - though we need them - but it's about the people."
Charlie Savage of the Globe staff contributed to this report. 