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Red State, Blue State,
Red County, Blue County
Posted 1-10-2005
Red State, Blue
State, Red County, and Blue County -- what does it all mean? And, what does
it really mean for the political parties and their futures? Let me start
with the Democratic Party. Every time we lose an election, there is this
hand wringing over what our message should be and what direction the party
should take. I believe the real message of this past national election is
that the Republican Party does a better job of mobilizing its voting base
than the Democratic Party. It appears too many Democrats still believe
registration advantages and groups like organized labor will do the
groundwork and everything will be okay.
A message
from the Democrats that sounds like the Republicans means that there will be
the traditional Republican message and one that mirrors it. If voters like
the Republican message, why would they choose a party that is simply trying
to parrot that message? We need to be proud of the Democratic Party's
policies that have been the bedrock of creating a middle class in America
and articulate that there is a correlation between "values" and a government
that is a positive influence in people's lives.
The 2004
election saw the emergence of the 529 groups, like America Coming Together
(ACT), who worked to register first time voters and tried to get them to the
polls. I'm not sure how successful any of that work was, and, as far as
places like Westmoreland County, it sure didn't help John Kerry's results.
Other groups like moveon.org focused on Democrats that hadn't participated
in recent elections. Now I'm sure there are some political operatives out
there, much smarter than me, who will tell you that these efforts were and
are effective. But, this concept flies against more traditional Election Day
thinking that says those are two groups of voters you cannot really count on
to vote. The effort to get these voters out is particularly labor-intensive,
and I wonder about how valuable it was.
As for
organized labor, they certainly support the Democratic Party from a
financial standpoint. But, I do not think they can count on their rank and
file members to be loyal Democratic voters any more. Even the leadership
sends mixed messages when they endorse Republicans like Arlen Specter. I
know labor's leadership wants to support likely winners, but it waters down
any effort carried out with the Democratic Party to support other Democrats.
I'm not
sure where the relationship between the Democratic Party and organized labor
is going in today's political landscape. Before that relationship is
resolved, labor's national level leadership has to rebuild its relationship
with its rank and file members. The financial support is essential for
Democratic candidates, but the candidates need the votes too, and I do not
think they are there like they use to be.
The
squawking out of the Democratic Leadership Council after the election is
ridiculous, and we need to clear up once and for all the idea that Democrats
need to be more like Republicans to win. They keep referring to Bill Clinton
and his 1992 victory. That victory had more to do with Ross Perot taking 20%
of the vote (coming not from our side but ones that would have likely gone
to daddy Bush), than it did to Clinton's positions. Republicans still called
him a "liberal" like they do every other Democrat. So, while in their own
minds the DLC crowd was being "centrists", I don't think ordinary voters
made that distinction. His re-election was because he had become popular,
and the Republicans put up a sacrificial lamb in old Bob Dole. Maybe the
real message of Clinton's win in 1992 is that we need to run more southern
governors for president, since only he and Jimmy Carter have won in the last
forty years.
I cannot
even tell what the differences are in these perceived labels: liberal,
conservative, and centrist. We have millions of people who benefit from
"liberal " programs, like social security, social security disability, and
Medicare, that don't even acknowledge that they are beneficiaries of the
"liberal" idea that we should extend a helping hand to those in need.
Many
Americans think of themselves as "conservative," and they want tough
criminal laws, until they or some family member is in trouble, then they
want some "liberal" judge to show mercy. Also, there is a mindset among some
conservatives that everything in government is bad, yet they are the
government! If they want to dismantle government, then do it, and let's see
how voters react. Republicans have done such a tremendous job in shaping
perceptions that they are for smaller government, yet at the federal level
spending has gone through the roof. And, the Democrats control none of it.
But
Republicans will face the same problems Democrats faced with regard to
fractionalization within the party. The far right wing of the party, the Tom
Delay's and Rick Santorum's are feeling real frisky after this election.
Within Congress they are pushing moderate Republicans farther into a corner
and fixing it so that there will be little dissent not only from Democrats,
but also from moderates within their own party. Over time, as they control
even more, egos will grow larger than they already are. Ultimately,
personality squabbles will supplant party discipline. Democrats know this
phenomenon very well. The fractionalization that evolves from unchallenged
control was the blueprint for our loss of power. It took years, but it
happened with us, and it will happen with them.
In time,
and it might be a generation, splits within the Republican Party will happen
and some moderates, like Barbara Hafer has already done, will come over to
the Democratic Party. The idea of a "permanent Republican majority" is
nothing more than some big egos feeling their oats after an election.
Nothing is permanent, and in time, working people in our country will
realize the policies of the right-wingers have made their lives worse. It
may take a generation, as it has taken generations of people benefiting from
the policies of the Democratic Party to take them for granted and assume
they will always be there for them.
The
concept of Red and Blue states makes nice simplistic visual aids for our
simplistic media to explain things in sound bites. But, we've always lived
side by side with friend and foe. Politics is much more like a pendulum. It
swings one way for a while, and, eventually, it swings back the other way.
The roots of this current Republican effort were sewn from the ashes of
Barry Goldwater's landslide loss in 1964, and, somewhere out there now,
among the 55,000,000 that voted for Kerry, there are people that will swing
that pendulum back in the correct direction.
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