What does the future hold for the Republican Party if Obama wins?

(photo: ChazWags via Flickr.com)

We’re still five days out from the election, but, right now, if you listen to the popular press or read the polls, it appears to be Barack Obama’s race to lose, barring some unforeseen event or an unprecedented level of voter suppression and fraud.

Analysts say the Obama campaign has the momentum, the money and, more important, a message that seems to be resonating with American voters concerned about the economy and their futures.

States that, several months ago, weren’t in play now seem to be turning purple, and people everywhere are beginning to wonder what a victory by Obama might mean for the Republican Party.

In Sunday’s edition of the UK paper The Guardian, reporter Paul Harris argues that a Republican loss would be “potentially devastating” for the GOP. Here’s a clip:

… The Republican party is going to have to work out what sort of party it actually wants to be. It’s a changing world for them,’ said Professor Shaun Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside. It might not be easy. A powerful Democratic win could wipe out Republican moderates. It could leave the party in the grip of its conservative and evangelical base who remain critical of figures such as McCain but who are wildly enthusiastic about politicians such as Palin. The Republican party could end up in a bitter civil war for its political future…

Whereas President Bush has been able, at least up until now, to appease the far right without alienating the moderates in the party, it doesn’t appear as though that may be tenable from here on out, as the religious right becomes more demanding.

John McCain maintains that he picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin based on her executive experience and her track record of reform, but some critics dispute that. They say McCain did not want Palin for a running mate and that he took her as a concession to the right, who held her in high regard for her principled evangelical stands on issues like abortion.

Unfortunately for the GOP, that decision, while rallying the Christian base, did little to ingratiate moderates who in some cases saw the decision as cynical, calculated and ultimately not in the best interest of the United States.

But all of this aside, it might just be the case that the numbers no longer add up for the Republicans. As Timothy Egan points out in Sunday’s New York Times, we’re becoming a more urban, culturally mixed nation and, given that, the “us against them” politics of those like Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann who seek to draw a line between those they consider “real Americans” and those that they don’t, may not hold the same promise. (Once everyone’s drinking lattes, it becomes a lot less powerful of an insult.)

Here’s a clip from Egan’s column. It begins with a discussion about the top 10 most educated cities in America:

… These are vibrant, prosperous places where a knowledge economy and cool things to do after hours attract people from all over the country. Among the top 10, only two of those metro areas — Raleigh, N.C., and Lexington, Ky. — voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election.

This year, all 10 are likely to go Democratic. What’s more, with Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia now trending blue, Republicans stand to lose the nation’s 10 best-educated states as well.

It would be easy to say these places are not the real America, in the peculiar us-and-them parlance of Sarah Palin. It’s easy to say because Republicans have been insinuating for years now that some of the brightest, most productive communities in the United States are fake American — a tactic that dates to Newt Gingrich’s reign in the capitol…

Egan goes on to note that not only are we becoming a more urban nation, but we’re also becoming more ethnically diverse. “By 2023,” he says, “more than half of all American children will be minority.” So how long can the politics of division last? As young voters are already overwhelmingly in favor of Obama, one wonders what the future might hold when over half will be of mixed race.

Are we headed for a showdown between the evangelical base and the more moderate factions within the Republican Party? Some are already suggesting that Palin, having given up on McCain’s chances, is thinking about herself and how she’s positioned for 2012, when she might make a run of her own for president.

One thing is for certain: with no clear leader to rally around and hold these various factions together, it’s going to be interesting.