Why do republicans win elections?

James J. Kroeger thinks he knows. Go read and see what you think.

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Actually I think the Republicans have a built-in nation-wide advantage in the centralization and organization of the national Republican Party. Here is what they currently have:

• Financing - . the K-Street Project in which promising Congressional staffers are hired by K-Street lobbying firms at the direction of Tom DeLay, who then direct corporations wanting to get access to the Congressional leaders to send money to Republican organizations who need it (This is how Tom DeLay took control of the Texas House of Representatives and caused the mid-term redistricting that eliminated four Democratic Congressmen.)
• Ideas, policies and public opinion-shifting - The right-wing think tanks that prepare and publicize conservative messages so that the public opinion is shifted to the right and candidates have already built programs to run on.
• Right-wing media for news and public opinion - The right-wing 'news' media such as the Moonie Times, Weekly Standard and Fox 'News' that conduct the well-known echo chamber.
• An activist/candidate training and development career path - "an emerging pattern of ascent, something like the traditional European parties of the left, where you got to be the guy running for office in your forties by spending your twenties and your thirties working as a party employee, staffing district offices, running local elections." See Benjamin Wallace-Wells's guest blog on Kevin Drum's Political Animal.

With central control by top Republican politicians of nation-wide strategy, message control, finances and personnel development, we are seeing a whole new type of political party in America. The Democrats have nothing at this time to match it. The Republicans can build on their strengths, pick off Democrats when they are weak (this reduces long term Congressional power for Democrats), take advantage of gerry-mandered districts so that the Republican incumbents rarely have to be challenged, and slowly expand their power. In the meantime, their think tanks are slowly crafting and publicizing policies that shift the electorate towards the right wing.

Previously I also referred to several articles that described the permanent lock the Republicans currently have on national politics.

The Democrats are going to have to counter-organize if they are to continue to exist. Simply having the main-stream popular policies is not enough.