I expected Republicans to resort to race-baiting in their fruitless effort to stop the inevitable confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The party of Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, and the old Dixiecrats simply can't help themselves. That's why only 7 percent of Latinos have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party.

More surprising has been the war on empathy. We polled that question back in mid-June.

Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not? Yes No

18-29 63 17

30-44 47 34

45-59 55 26

60+ 46 35 White 41 39

Black 81 4

Latino 79 4

Other 79 5 Men 48 34

Women 56 24

[...] Same question as above: Do you think empathy is an important characteristic for a Supreme Court Justice to possess or not? Yes No

Dem 73 12

GOP 18 56

Ind 54 28



Every demographic polled thought empathy was a good value to have except ... Republicans, while whites were fairly evenly split (not surprising given their heavy over-representation in the GOP). It is this very question that ultimately holds the answer to the GOP's current troubles.

Look closely at the crosstabs. What are the three groups that have abandoned the GOP in droves, costing them hugely at the polls? Youth voters, Latinos, and independents. And as Republicans spend the next weeks trashing the concept of "empathy", keep in mind that it is further alienating those very groups (as well as African Americans, Asians, and other rapidly growing non-white groups).

For the longest time, the GOP kept its hostility toward empathy fairly well-hidden. In fact, it pretended otherwise for the sake of electoral viability, as Jonah Goldberd complained in the National Review when assessing the root causes of Bush's failures:

But in the background there was an even larger problem: compassionate conservatism. As countless writers have noted in National Review over the last five years, most conservatives never really understood what compassionate conservatism was, beyond a convenient marketing slogan to attract swing voters. The reality--as even some members of the Bush team will sheepishly concede--is that there was nothing behind the curtain. Sure, in the hands of Marvin Olasky and others, compassionate conservatism had some heft. But Karl Rove's translation of it into a political platform made it into a pseudo-intellectual rationale for constituent-pleasing and Nixonian "modern Republicanism."

Got that? As conservatives themselves note, Bush and Rove wielded compassionate conservatism as an empty political ploy to win "swing voters". And "compassion" is no different than "emapthy". So, the last Republican to have electoral success (even though he lost the popular vote) was a Republican who pretended to be emphatic. Now, his party has determined that Bush failed because he tried to be compassionate, and they've resorted to openly sneering at the word.

STEELE: ... Crazy nonsense empathetic. I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind. Craziness.

Problem is, people want empathy in their government. And if Republicans aren't going to provide it, they will cede the electoral battlefield to the one party who will. And really, who are we to complain about that?