Republican Party Problems

Ambinder has a post titled The Republican Lockbox which gives an interesting breakdown of voting patterns. The takeaway from the post, at least mine, is that the current GOP can't win without social conservatives (duh!), but the appeal to social conservatives is a drag on the party's chances in national elections.

This was an encourage comment from the article.

One reason why wealthier, knowledge/service workers are voting Democratic is because the Republicans have boxed themselves in on cultural issues, including the role and place of science in society.

I don't know how true that is, but I really want to believe the number of people who think dinosaur bones are just God's way of testing our faith are shrinking.

On a more serious note I think one of the reasons why we as a nation are falling behind in areas like science is due to one of the major political parties spending a fair amount of time mocking and challenging it. See stem cell research, climate change, creationism, etc.