Voter rolls show rough road for GOP

Party hopes McCain can sway voters, if not affiliation

Active voters are the "gasoline" that makes a political party go.

For Maryland Republicans, cheap gasoline is hard to come by these days as Democrats continue to outnumber registered GOP voters 2 to 1 statewide.

"What these numbers tell you is Republicans are running with only half a tank," said Cain, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy at St. Mary's College of Maryland. "They really need to get every single voter out in this election."

The cost of gas is high — both at the pump and when it comes to attracting voters. The price Republicans say they are paying this summer is a lot of pounding the pavement, registering voters door-to-door and at fairs and parades, pitching the party to moderate voters in the voice of the Grand Old Party's presumptive presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. John McCain.

While a GOP win in Maryland's presidential election is a long shot, Republicans are hoping to get the party's engine revving for the 2010 race for the governor's mansion and General Assembly.

"We want to make this a two-party state," said Justin Ready, executive director of the state GOP. "Voter registration is the fruition of hopefully people seeing that Democrats have gone too far to the left and are driving people over the cliff."

This year, pundits say, both parties are marketing faces, not appealing to bases.

"This election is going to be decided in the middle of the political spectrum, among true independent voters," said Kevin Igoe, a Republican strategist and former executive director of the state GOP. "The fact that it's not a base election plays to McCain's strength, to his record in the Senate, to his image as a maverick and to his ability and willingness to build bipartisan coalitions."

But McCain must overcome the appeal of Barack Obama, whose primary campaign had the advantage of running late into the primary season, registering new voters — mostly Democrats — along the way. Those newly registered voters, especially the young ones, could have implications in 2010 and beyond.

"[Obama's] campaign did a good job of registering voters," Ready said. "So we have to equal that."

That could be a tall task, especially in parts of the state where Republican elected officials are nearly extinct.

U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-Dist. 6) of Buckeystown provides Republicans with their only foothold in Montgomery County, a small portion of the upcounty.

The Montgomery County Council has not had a Republican since Howard A. Denis was defeated in 2006, the same year the county's General Assembly delegation lost its only Republican, when three-term delegate Jean B. Cryor was defeated in District 15.

"We have to take this as an opportunity to say, ‘Look, our party runs someone like John McCain,' and show that our party has a big tent," said James F. Shalleck, chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party.

But the tent in Maryland is shrinking, Cain said.

Since 2004, the number of people registering as Democrats has grown by 202,581; Republicans have gained 45,166.

The GOP is not replacing active registered Republicans who fall off the rolls, Cain said. That could be because of changing political dynamics in the state, caused by unpopular Republican policies or changing demographics, including aging populations or changing ethnic compositions, he said.

"What these numbers tell you is the Republican name brand is falling way behind the Democrats," Cain said. "It's a clarion call for Republicans to do a lot more in the state to make the state legislature or the U.S. Congress more Republican."

The White House is out of the question for the GOP, said Larry J. Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

And, he said, "Obviously, Maryland's not in play" for November's presidential election.

Voters are registering Democrats at rates that Republicans cannot match this year, Sabato said.

"This is happening all over the country," he said. "Most of the new registrations are Democratic. A lot of the registrations have been generated by [U.S. Sen. Barack] Obama. Republicans say they are facing a real enthusiasm gap this year."

That is the case in Montgomery County, said William J. Witham, who resigned from the county Republican Party chairmanship in June for family reasons.

"There's a lot of apathy," he said. "And also there's a challenge with trying to get the message out."

Democrats say they have seen the opposite.

"We haven't seen this kind of energy in a while," said David Paulson, spokesman for the state Democratic Party.

A good bit of that energy comes from those who have it, namely, young people.

Republicans should be concerned that new voters, ages 18 to 24, are registering "overwhelmingly Democrat," Sabato said. "… Young people keep their partisan identification for most or all of their lives."

Voter registration drives held in Montgomery high schools in the winter of 2007 and spring of 2008 reflect the national trend.

Party distribution of the registered students included 1,471 Democrats, 468 Republicans, and 468 who declined to affiliate with the two major political parties, according to the county elections board.

Registration is a key factor, Sabato said. Over time, about 80 percent of voters are going to vote in presidential elections. Party affiliation has been shown to be the best predictor of how someone votes.

That makes independent voters, who make up nearly 14 percent of Maryland's 3.2 million active registered voters, a key voting bloc.

"We have to get to our base first and then try to appeal to independents and conservative Democrats," Shalleck said.

Republicans should not count on winning over independents, Cain said.

"Many of those independents, they're politically progressive," he said.

Instead, Igoe said, Republicans need to focus on getting strong turnout from their base, appeal to the center of the political spectrum and understand how to target and turn out undecided voters.

"There's certainly ways to do it," he said. "Bob Ehrlich proved that."