Two months later, the Democrats still don't get it (thankfully!)

Two months later, the Democrats still don't get it

National Post
Wed 05 Jan 2005
Page: A13
Section: Editorials
Byline: Lorne Gunter

The year-end issue of Newsweek carries a cover story on Barack Obama, the rookie Democrat Senator from Illinois, entitled "Seeing Purple ... beyond Blue vs. Red."

For some reason no one can explain, about a dozen years ago American network news divisions reversed their traditional practice -- and the standard still followed in most Western nations -- of associating blue with the more conservative party in an election and red with the more liberal one. Suddenly, blue marked a Democrat state and red a Republican one.

Needless to say, America is a now a very "red" nation. Mr. Bush won 31 states; his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, won just 19, plus the District of Columbia.

The Newsweek story -- arguing that the Democrats can regain power if they can just convince Americans to meld into a new "purple" whole -- is more proof that, two months after the election, the Dems and their media cheerleaders still don't get it. They don't get why they lost to George W. Bush last November and they don't get what to do about it if they want to start winning back the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

The only time Democrats (or their liberal counterparts in Canada, the U.K. and other Western democracies) ever want to "get beyond" the traditional labels of blue vs. red, left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, is when those labels hobble them electorally. They're all about seeing purple when being "blue" relegates them to opposition-party status.

Funny: When they're winning, liberals assume there's no need to get beyond labels, since their mandate is taken as all the evidence anyone should need that electors are united in a common purpose -- liberalism.

You can bet that if the Democrats held the White House and the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, Newsweek would run exactly zero stories wondering whether and how their friends could pull Americans together and govern for all the people.

As Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes pointed out in The Wall Street Journal last week, "for the first time in more than a century, a Republican president won re-election as his party improved its hold on the House and Senate, while increasing its majority of governorships (28 now) and maintaining its control of a plurality of state legislatures."

Not even Ronald Reagan managed to win the kind of deep and broad electoral victory that George W. Bush did on Nov. 2. The GOP's seat counts in the Senate (55) and the House (232), coupled with Mr. Bush's re-election to the presidency, give it a grasp on power it has not enjoyed in nearly 80 years. If the "blue" Democrats had just won the kind of domineering victory -- top to bottom -- that the Republicans have pulled off, there would be no talk of creating a new "purple" America. The "red" states and "red" voters could go get stuffed for the next four years.

But assuming the Democrats can convince Americans to go "purple" -- even as so many millions of them are more than content to be "red" -- what makes the Democrats think Barack Obama is the man to do it?

He is a liberal Democrat from Chicago: pro-abortion, pro-affirmative action, anti-tax cuts, pro-gun control and so on. He is on the left-wing of the Democratic party, the wing that has dominated the party for 30 years, the wing so resoundingly rejected by middle America two months ago. How can he be the Dems' saviour?

Ah, because, as Newsweek points out, he is a "symbol." With a white mother and a black father, Mr. Obama possesses a "uniquely American heritage" that will help him unite disparate communities and voting blocks.

Oh, yeah, and he goes to church and has "worked with church-based community organizations" a lot. That'll satisfy those "moral values" voters who carried the day for Bush, won't it?

Never mind that most of Obama's affiliations are with the kind of social-justice-oriented church communities that already vote Democrat. And never mind that those communities typically espouse the very left-lib values Americans so resoundingly rejected last fall.

Because Mr. Obama is a "symbol," Democrats are sure voters will not bother with his stand on issues. Liberals are suckers for symbolism over substance, and because they are the smartest people they know, they are sure everyone else will be equally impressed with veneer.

But American voters have shown themselves of late to be unimpressed by such hollowness, at least; and at worst, contemptuous of it. Unless and until the Democrats stop throwing up such meaningless imagery in place of substantive policy alternatives, they are destined to remain the minority party in the U.S.

Lorne Gunter
Columnist/Editorial Writer, National Post
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
E-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca

I read it yesterday. It was very good.

The answer is: use it when it makes Democrats look good, oppose it when it makes Republicans look good, and try to defer any votes on it until after Federal elections.

-PJ

"I Can't wait till 2006, so that I can watch the Socialist Rock back like a stunned boxer after a blow to the head and swoons before falls heavily to the Mat!!"

What "Socialist Rock?" If it is Obama you speak of you will have to wait until 2010

Unless and until the Democrats stop throwing up such meaningless imagery in place of substantive policy alternatives, they are destined to remain the minority party in the U.S.

I like the sound of that: the minority party. the only prefereable alternative would be for the entire party to collapse!

I think we should wear it proudly. Red is the color of POWER in the business world. That would drive the demi's crazy if we embrace it that way. They would be even bluer

I am from Illinois and frankly am sick and tired of Obama. He hasn't done one thing to earn the spot light he is receiving. I don't like him one bit. All the attention is ill deserved, and this article is right. He is on the left of almost every possition. How in the hell is he going to win on a national level with those convictions. I frankly would like to see him go away, IMHO, but that isn't going to happen with this Left wing media playing up as some sort of Democratic savior. Seems stupid to me to save a doomed left leaning party with more left leaners. Stupid.

Nah, the MSM used blue for the 'rats because red is the Communist Party color, and the 'rats wanted to go under the radar as they went further left.

Originally posted by Political Junkie Too:

"Blue was traditionally used to represent the incumba[e]nt party in the White House. In 2000, that was the Democrats, so Republicans were red. After the Bush Country map in 2000, the networks kept Bush red this year."

Uh, no.

Here is a old FR link that I posted back in late November of 2003 with the explanation of the current color scheme... The problem was that in 1980 the Democrats bitched to the networks about the 'red' color being used for the Democrats with its worldwide association with Communism/Socialism in politics. The Networks/CNN slowly acceded.

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

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