In his book, Andrew Taylor argues that Republicans have amassed structural advantages in overlapping areas that give the party a persistent “edge” in national elections. Taylor does not claim that Republicans have become an enduring majority party, but rather that they are positioned to regularly win presidential, congressional, and state elections, albeit by small margins. At the end of the book, he highlights a number of pitfalls into which Republicans could fall and thus jeopardize their electoral standing.

The heart of the book patiently leads the reader through the various aspects of the elephant's edge. Because Republicans are disproportionately strong in small states, they are overrepresented in the Senate and, to a lesser degree, the Electoral College. Geography also helps Republicans because their strength lies in regions of the country gaining in population, particularly the Sunbelt. At a more micro level, Taylor notes, President George W. Bush in 2004 won all 50 of the fastest growing counties. Beyond geography, the rules of campaign finance benefit the GOP. As the prime resources of campaigns have shifted from labor to money, the party with a natural allegiance to business and the well-heeled will invariably benefit. The McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform of 2002 accelerated these trends by eliminating soft money, an area in which Democrats had gained parity, to emphasize hard money contributions of the kind that Republicans have traditionally accumulated in great volume.

Crucial areas of public policy reinforce the GOP's electoral advantage. The terrorist attacks of September 11 elevated foreign policy in the public mind to a status not seen since the end of the Cold War. As the literature on “issue ownership” makes clear, the American public normally trusts Republicans more than Democrats to promote a strong defense and keep the nation safe. Any world events that heighten the salience of foreign policy play directly into the GOP's historical electoral strengths. On the domestic front, Republican-led tax cuts and the resulting budget deficits have crippled the ability of Democrats to pay for new programs in areas like education, health care, job training, and environmental protection.

The domestic advantages of Republicans continue in the judicial arena. Appointments by Republican presidents have steadily changed the composition of federal trial and appellate courts, and Republican candidates for judicial positions at the state level frequently win by emphasizing law-and-order and pro-business themes. New judicial doctrines in areas such as business regulation, intellectual property, federalism, race, and criminal justice have pushed policy to the right. At the same time, the countertrends on high-profile issues like same-sex sodomy and the display of religious symbols on public property have given religious conservatives an effective electoral rallying cry to overturn the supposedly liberal judges and their “legislating from the bench.”

The worlds of media and ideas have also evolved in ways favorable to Republicans. Talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative and offers a pipeline though which conservative elites can speak to and mobilize their core constituencies. With the establishment of Fox News, a variety of print magazines, and a range of blogs and electronic news sources, conservatives hold their own in the larger realm of the mass media, thereby providing an echo chamber for conservative ideas. Conservatives fare even better in the world of advocacy-oriented think tanks, where liberals have been struggling mightily to make up for lost time. Think tanks often provide a home for Republican politicians out of office and allow intellectual activity to inform the policies and programs of elected officials. Taylor argues that other social and economic changes, as well as shifts in Americans' core values, similarly boost the electoral appeal of the GOP's candidates.

The book was published in 2005 at the end of a period of Republican ascendancy marked most especially by the party's takeover of Congress in 1994 and its presidential victories in 2000 and 2004. Needless to say, Taylor's assertion of a consistent electoral edge for Republicans will now strike readers as remarkably ill-timed. As I write this review in May 2008, Democrats have already seized control of Congress through the decisive 2006 elections, and they appear poised for further gains at the congressional, presidential, gubernatorial, and state legislative levels in 2008. One might be tempted, therefore, to label Elephant's Edge a “period piece” superseded by subsequent events. I think that would be a mistake, for Taylor's analysis helps place recent political developments in the proper context. With the nation still mired in an unpopular war in Iraq and with the economy suffering from a range of problems—from a precipitously declining dollar to a housing market in shambles to massive levels of debt carried by Americans from all walks of life—it should not be surprising that Democrats have made major gains at the ballot box. It might be more enlightening to consider how little Republicans have lost, at least as of this writing. Problems of far lesser magnitude sank Democrats in 1994, whereas Republicans of the George W. Bush era managed through 2008 to hold onto enough electoral strength to block any major Democratic policy initiatives. The book helps us understand that recent gains for Democrats are overlaid on a set of long-term advantages for Republicans. Should Democrats win the White House in 2008, as appears likely, they will be the ones stuck with a faltering economy and an unmanageable situation in Iraq. It remains to be seen whether Democrats can use their voter appeal in the current political environment to build a governing coalition sustained across multiple elections.

A second possible critique of Elephant's Edge would note that most of the book's arguments and observations can be found elsewhere. This is not a book of original research; instead, it is a heavily footnoted work of synthesis that draws from the previous work of political scientists as well as journalists and political commentators. As a work of synthesis, however, it succeeds admirably. Although most of the individual elements have been discussed by other writers, no one has pulled all of these domains together into the coherent analysis that Taylor presents. For those interested in a thoughtful, one-stop-shopping portrayal of American party politics in the first decade of the twenty-first century, this would be a good choice.