Saturday Open Thread [4.6.13]

Jon Chait on the differences between the old New Deal Democratic coalition and the new Obama Democratic coalition:

The old Democratic coalition was ideologically diffuse, and depended on overwhelming support among white Southern conservatives who elected reactionaries to Congress and frequently defected on the presidential ballot. The current Democratic advantage represents a smaller but more stable ideological plurality. … Something could happen to dissolve the new Democratic majority just as race and the sixties dissolved the last one. Even if it doesn’t, it won’t last forever. The Republicans will adapt to the new political climate, or else they’ll simply bore more deeply into the political institutions, discovering and expanding ways to exercise power without appealing to a majority of America. But the changing contours of America really do seem to have swept aside the old conservative majority, and there’s no foreseeable event to bring it back.

Eric Schickler thinks the GOP will have to remake itself to become competitive again:

[T]he challenge for Republicans is perhaps more difficult than just changing position on a handful of issues: it is to foster an identity that young voters find consistent with their own self-image. Given the demographics of this next generation of voters – including the growing share made up of Latinos – this may well require a substantial “reboot” of the GOP’s approach.

Nemski bait: A new political action committee launched this week to support bearded candidates from across the political spectrum, according to The Hill.

Said spokesman Andy Shapero: “It’s been 125 years since our last bearded President, Benjamin Harrison, was elected. We’re hoping that with our support, bearded individuals will shrug off over a century of political irrelevance and start running for office again.”