Mark Shields: 'Republican Base Moving From Its Own Home to the Rest Home to the Funeral Home'

November 10th, 2012 7:30 PM

"The Republican base is moving from its own home to the rest home to the funeral home."

So said PBS's Mark Shields Friday on Inside Washington (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo):

GORDON PETERSON, HOST: President Obama took 71 percent of the Hispanic vote. If you were taking a look at the Republican Party, wouldn’t you start there Mark?

MARK SHIELDS, PBS: You would. I would also start with the Asian vote which is the fastest growing.

PETERSON: Which is 73 percent.

SHIELDS: 73 percent. No, it just is. The Republican Party is increasingly an older, whiter, male Party, and just all you have to do is to look to the larger percentage of voters under the age of 29 turned out on Tuesday than over the age of 65. So the Republican base is moving from its own home to the rest home to the funeral home.

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: [Laughs]

SHIELDS: And the Democratic base is moving from their own room to an apartment of their own maybe eventually to a home of their own, if they get a job of their own. But that, that really is a profound difference between the two parties, and I think the Republicans are up against it in that respect.


This is at least the tenth election in my life that I've heard liberal commentators declare the Republican Party dead.

Will they ever be right?