Georgia And U.K. Conservatives Have Something In Common- Demographic Shifts They Can't Adjust To

According to The Hill, Georgia Republicans are starting to panic that their party's demented and ill-informed base will saddle the party with "a flawed candidate" (meaning almost any of the crazy contenders) and allow Democrat Michelle Nunn to win the open seat.

Recent polling shows the two candidates Republicans are most anxious about-- Reps. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.)-- leading the pack. Whoever emerges from the clown-car primary, with seven candidates and counting, will face a candidate Democrats are high on in a state where shifting demographics benefit their party... Those are the two that worry Republicans the most as potential problems going into the general election,” said Georgia Republican strategist Joel McElhannon, who’s neutral in the race.

...Eric Tanenblatt, a Georgia strategist who advised and was national finance co-chair for Governor Mitt Romney’s 2012 Presidential campaign, says he’s worried the candidates haven’t acknowledged the state’s shifting demographics. Georgia has fast-growing African-American and Hispanic populations and a large number of younger voters moving in from across the country.

“Georgia is changing, and the further you go to the right in the primary, the more difficult that becomes in the general,” he says. “If we're not careful we could create an unfortunate situation for ourselves.”

Funny... Conservatives in the U.K. are running into the same problem. Who would have guessed that the targets of racism would react decisively at the polls!

Of course Conservatives in England don't have the history of violent and brutal racist aggression that conservatives in Georgia have. But they have a big problem that has increased as black and Asian voters have become a bigger part of the electorate. Similar demographic shifts in the U.K. and Georgia are threatening to destroy conservative/Conservative election prospects.

A study by the cross-party group Operation Black Vote (OBV) found the number of seats where black and Asian voters could decide the outcome had rocketed by 70% compared with the 2010 election.

The study suggests that in 168 marginal seats, the ethnic minority vote is bigger than the majority of the sitting MP. The seats extend beyond inner-city areas to include places such as Southampton, Oxford, Sherwood, Ipswich and Northampton.

The findings will be of particular concern to the Tories, who have acknowledged that they are struggling to capture the ethnic minority vote. The party secured only 16% of the minority vote at the last election, compared with 68% for Labour. Experts say the trend will continue and may change the dynamics of British politics.

...According to one new estimate, the change in Britain's ethnic makeup may already be enough to cost David Cameron the next election. The Conservatives' race deficit will cost them between 20 and 40 seats in 2015, according to calculations by Prof Anthony Heath, of Oxford University, who has studied ethnic demographic changes and their effects on elections.

In 2010, Labour polled its second worst result ever, but the party still thrashed the Tories in the ethnic minority vote, where its 68% to 16% win contrasted with the Tories' overall 36%-29% victory. Operation Black Vote estimates that the BME vote was bigger than the sitting MP's majority in the 2010 election in 99 seats, but those figures are based on the 2001 census, so probably underestimate the impact.

The Tories fell short of a majority by 20 seats. Heath, in estimates for a forthcoming book, says 10 of those were down to their race problem. "Minority voters can be won away from Labour, but only if you make active efforts, including addressing their concerns. There is little sign of long-term erosion from Labour," he said.

Tory insiders acknowledge that they have recently introduced eye-catching measures in areas with high immigrant populations-- including adverts telling illegal immigrants to go home-- as they try to hold on to white working-class and lower middle-class voters who are moving to Ukip. But these measures tend to play badly with ethnic minority voters.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Tory MP for Stratford-on-Avon, who has called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, said the findings should lead to a redoubling of efforts to attract black and Asian voters. "These numbers are significant. The ethnic minority vote is going to be important. The party is in the midst of a debate and it is an issue which is now being taken seriously," he said.

Besides growing in numbers, minorities are moving out of inner cities into more marginal seats. This double whammy will increase their electoral importance in 2015 and is expected to feature even more prominently in future elections.

...Privately, leading Tory figures fear their chances of victory will be hampered unless they improve their insipid appeal to ethnic minority voters. Figures such as Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy chairman and treasurer, fear the party has a race problem, and he has commissioned polling that demonstrated this.

In the 2012 US election the defeat of the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, was blamed in part on a failure to connect with a growing ethnic minority vote.

Labour's efforts to secure and increase its huge ethnic minority lead are being led by Sadiq Khan, the MP who ran Ed Milliband's leadership campaign.

Khan said: "The DNA of politics needs to change in the light of this research." He added: "This research shows how important the ethnic minority electorate is going to be in future general elections. Any party that seriously wants to win needs to take the ethnic minorities with them."

Labour cannot count on continuing to dominate the ethnic minority vote, warned Khan, who expects the Tories to try to compete harder. He pointed to the Bradford byelection, where Muslim voters turned their backs on Labour and cost the party the seat as they backed George Galloway's Respect party. "We can't take ethnic minority votes for granted," he said.

If the Conservatives fail to win an outright majority in 2015 it will mean their last such majority was almost a quarter of a century ago, under John Major in 1992. Heath said: "The Conservatives may need to adjust their appeal in the same way Labour created New Labour to deal with the decline in the working class [vote]."

And that's exactly what the UKIP fascists are hoping for-- an exodus of angry white wing-nuts from the Conservatives to the more extremist right. So far, that's what has been happening across a wide array of issues as Cameron has moved the Conservatives more into the mainstream center. Georgia Republicans have no worries about anyone trying to move their party towards the mainstream, not for a very, very long time and a lot of lost elections.