Posted on 11/08/2006 3:48:50 PM PST by MadIvan
Our correspondent examines how the party masterminded its move to the centre and reined in liberals to seize hostile territories
They wear cowboy boots, chew tobacco, love hunting, hate abortion, want less government spending — and some voted for Ronald Reagan. Now they are headed to Congress as Democrats.
Although the Democrats’ victory was above all an overwhelming repudiation of the conflict in Iraq, it was also built on the back of moderate, often conservative candidates recruited to compete in traditionally Republican territory.
When Congress returns in January, both the House and Senate will see something of an ideological shift, with an influx of freshmen Democrats who, while unified in their opposition to the war, are well to the right of the party’s current caucus on cultural issues.
Their success reflects a resurgence of “Blue Dog” Democrats — socially conservative but generally economic populists — across the Midwest, and a bold new strategy to target the Republican-leaning West and South West — states such as Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico — as a way of winning back the White House in 2008.
If Jon Tester, the Democrat’s Senate candidate in Montana, wins his race against Conrad Burns — he declared victory last night but votes were still being counted — the chamber will have a Democrat who is an anti-abortion, pro-gun, three-generation farmer with a buzz cut, three missing fingers on his left hand and no big fan of Hillary Clinton.
Jim Webb, the Democrat favoured to win a probable recount in the Virginia Senate race, was Reagan’s Navy Secretary. A social conservative, he hates liberals and likes guns so much he gave one to his son at the age of 8. He champions, as he puts it, “Southern redneck culture”. A decorated Vietnam veteran, he converted to the Democrats only over his opposition to the Iraq war.
Bob Casey, who soundly defeated the Republican Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, is also anti-abortion. Like many of the new Democrats, he ran a profoundly populist protectionist economic message which attracted many blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” back to the party in the Midwest, where job losses and economic pessimism combined with Iraq to make the region one of the bleakest landscapes for Republicans yesterday.
Heath Shuler, a former quarterback for the Washington Redskins, was once courted by the Republicans as a possible congressional candidate. He is anti-abortion, pro-gun, anti-free trade — and is now the Democrat representative for the North Carolina 11th District.
In Indiana, a state overwhelmingly won by President Bush in 2004, three Republicans in the House of Representatives lost seats. All faced conservative Democrats. One, Brad Ellsworth, a county sheriff, is a social conservative who signed a no-tax-rise pledge during the campaign. Joe Donnelly was another cultural conservative winner in Indiana.
In Colorado, Democrats continued their push into the West with victory in the state’s gubernatorial contest, meaning the party now has a sweep of western governors stretching from Canada to Mexico, through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
In Kentucky, John Yarmuth, a former Republican candidate running as a Democrat, beat Anne Northup, a five-term veteran. Democrats also picked up an open seat in Republican Arizona and even unseated a Republican incumbent in Kansas — where Mr Bush won
62 per cent of the vote in 2004.
These new Democrats represent what Rahm Emanuel, the congressman who masterminded its takeover of the House, described as the future of the party, and the key to its presidential hopes. The growing belief of many Democrat strategists is that the South — the party’s base until the 1960s, but now solidly Republican — is beyond their reach, and that the future lies in targeting the Midwest and West with moderate candidates. That theory was bolstered by the defeat in Tennessee of Harold Ford. Despite running as a conservative on nearly every issue — even immigration — the black former congressman could not prevail in the one Southern senate seat in play.
The result was rich vindication for Mr Emanuel and other top Democrats who have spent two years recruiting candidates to make the party competitive in western states they had all but ceded in recent years.
Mr Emanuel and other centrists have told the incoming Democrat leadership — which is far more liberal than the new influx of moderates — that the party’s liberal wing must not dominate the agenda. The new crop of moderates will be anxious to keep the party rooted to the middle ground.
Their arrival on Capitol Hill will be one of the first early tests of the leadership skills of Nancy Pelosi who, as House Speaker, will have to forge a coalition in a party that has profound philosophical disparities.
Ironically, the greatest losses for Republicans came in the North East, the last redoubt of the party’s mainstream moderates. They were routed.
NE pubs were all RINOS anyway.
Ford lost in Tennessee because he's a liar and a phony who couldn't fool enough of the people with his bogus "conservative" views adopted just for the election. Being part of the Ford Crime Family of Memphis didn't help either. As for the rest of the wins by these so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats, well, they just were able to fool more voters in their states. And they will all take their orders from the Pelosi, Kennedy, Kerry bunch. You can freakin' bank on that.
I agree completely with your assessment.
One cannot be socially conservitive with the likes of Kennedy, Reid, Byrd and Pelosi running the show. They seem to only care about today. Tomorrow is going to be real tough on them -- and us.
The Demon-crat party will either selfdestruct or these noobs will be forced out to the fringes like sacraficial lambs.
I agree with you 100%!
The Democratic party should have been outlawed during Reconstruction and its place assumed by the Prohibition party!
"
A D IS A D, AN' THAT'S THAT
LOL!!! Though it's hardly fair to criticize them for a social conservatism Blacks have always gotten away with (so long as they vote "right").
Just like Dracula's slaves. Bought & paid for, eternally damned unless they don't want to stay in Congress for more than 2 years. Anybody for term limits yet?
They used to called Klansmen...
Uhhh...my grandfather ran for Congress as a Democrat
At one time Al Gore and Moi Kerry were anti abortion and pro gun.
Look at Gore and Kerry to see what these blue dogs will be in a decade.
Regards, Ivan
I don't know.
I remember the Dixiecrats - they were dems, they were southern and they hated liberals. Most of them wound up as Republicans.
Do the Blue dogs, by any stretch, outnumber the Liberals?
They will give Pelosi everything she wants, and more.
Bush will definitely be impeached in the House now. No doubt about it.
Pelosi will use that issue to dominate the headlines so that the Blue Dogs don't have to make any hard choices.
And even if they do, there are enough pro-abort, pro-gay RINOs in our caucus to make up for Demo defections. Now that the Dems are controlling the agenda, and wear the rings that will need to be kissed, most RINOs will shed what little loyalty they had to the GOP and start voting like Pelosi.
Bush basically threw in the towel this afternoon. He might as well resign, take Cheney with him, and let a Democrat take the White House now. He will bear all of the blame and get none of the credit the next two years. Yet he will enact their agenda, so it will be a Republican who gives us the goofy liberal agenda.
And then, since the GOP will be angering the base even further, he is setting us back a generation.
Don't you guys realize that this is really gonna be tuff for the Dems. They rode to power on the Christian, pro2nd, prolife, etc., etc. candidates. We have seen this happen before. When Pelosi puts the arm on these people they will just switch parties. Pelosi and Schumer have a hell of a job in front of them. If they don't give their ground troops what they want (gun control, impeachment, income redistribution, etc., etc.) they run the risk of these folks forming and working with a third party to the left of the remaining Dems. If they lean on these new folks they will jump.
We, however, have been able to get rid of a couple of RINOs, not all but a couple. This is going to be very interesting.
The only Democrat that I can remember voting for the Republican speaker was Ralph Hall of TX and he finally became a Republican.
I still think we should offer Lieberman head of Armed Services and oust Warner and get Lieberman to caucus with us.
You better get ready for our Senator-for-Life Bobby Casey. The press will cover for this dolt no matter what he does. In fact, the Democrats will probably encourage him to stay at home and stay hidden and they will call him when it's time to silently cast a needed vote. He'll probably have a record that looks like Teddy Kennedy has two votes at the end of 6 yrs. The brain dead PA voters will never hear a thing about how he votes and he'll turn into another Byrd!
Ford did run as a conservative. Unfortunately for him, he had a decade of liberal votes to contradict his campaign.
Further irony: the Northeast was once upon a time the very heart of rock-ribbed conservative Republicanism (ie, Maine and Vermont).
I miss Parker Fennelley in those Pepp'ridge Fa'hm commercials!
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