Posted on 04/14/2003 6:58:46 AM PDT by Between the Lines
An uncivil war has erupted in the state Democratic Party over Gov. Sonny Perdue's proposed referendum on the state flag, a family feud that could be a boon for Republicans.
Conservative white Democrats parted from black lawmakers on the high-profile state flag vote last week, splitting the black-white alliance that in recent decades has formed Democrats' power base in Georgia and other Southern states.
"We asked a lot of our white Democratic colleagues if they could help us on the flag vote and they said, 'No, we've got to worry about the people back home,' " said state Rep. Barbara Mobley (D-Decatur). "We've looked it up, and a lot of them are in strong African-American districts.
"We are putting them on notice."
Mobley was one of the black members of the state House who addressed the chamber last week as lawmakers voted 111-67 for a new state flag. If voters fail to approve that banner, which closely resembles the pre-1956 state flag, they would then have an opportunity to vote to return the state to the post-1956 flag. All three flags incorporate a Confederate banner, which many blacks find offensive.
"It has the potential of really hurting the state Democratic Party," said Emory University political scientist Merle Black. "It underscores a party where a strong urban-rural split is paralleled by a racial split."
The black-white Democratic coalition has always been a "high-maintenance alliance," Black said. Volatile issues like the state flag can create new fractures that are difficult to overcome, especially in a state trending Republican, he said. Republicans control the congressional delegation, the governor's office and the state Senate. Democrats still control the state House.
Tuesday night, conservative white Democrats in the House, under pressure from their rural constituents who back the flag referendum, sided with Republicans to pass the measure despite the pleas of their black colleagues during an emotional six-hour debate.
There were 106 Democrats who voted. All 39 black Democrats voted no. And 26 white Democrats also voted no, virtually all of them from metro Atlanta.
But 41 white Democrats voted yes -- almost all from small towns or rural Georgia. And 69 of the 71 Republicans who voted -- none of them black -- voted also yes.
For white lawmakers from rural Georgia, like House Majority Leader Jimmy Skipper (D-Americus) and Speaker Terry Coleman (D-Eastman), the split is a no-win situation.
"We'd like to see it solved so that it pleases everybody, but that's not in the cards right now," Coleman said. "Some people will feel hurt a long time about this, whatever happens."
Rural white Democrats depend on support from blacks and whites -- constituencies on opposite sides of the flag issue. There's no middle ground.
"That kind of rural politician just wants to avoid the issue," said Michael Binford, a political scientist at Georgia State University. "They can't win no matter what they do."
Blacks blame both Skipper, who voted for the flag referendum, and Coleman, who as speaker does not vote but allowed it to come up for a vote.
"I think the white Democrats are giving the governor exactly what he wants," said Rep. Douglas Dean (D-Atlanta), an African-American. "You might as well just say the Republicans run the state."
Jo Ann McClinton (D-Atlanta) wore a large black ribbon on her lapel Friday to "mourn" the Democratic breakdown on the flag vote. "The Democratic leadership has deserted those of us of color in the state," she said.
Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus), an African-American who chairs the state Democratic Party, planned to spend the weekend trying to bring the two sides together. Smyre said he has scheduled meetings between some of the 38 black House members and white House leaders.
"Right now there is a lot of frustration and people are on edge," Smyre said. "My job is now to bring some closure."
In political parlance, the flag controversy is called a "wedge" issue because it divides a normally cohesive political alliance.
Rep. Tom Bordeaux (D-Savannah) said Republicans are using the flag issue for long-term political gains. "I originally thought the governor stumbled into the election and has fumbled his way through this session," said Bordeaux, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. "But I've come to believe his purpose . . . is to drive a wedge . . . through different arms of the Democratic Party."
Bordeaux, one of the two dozen white lawmakers to side with blacks on the flag vote, said the strategy is effective. "It splits the state politically, racially, philosophically into a thousand splinters," he said. "Who's ultimately the victor? The Republicans. But at what price?"
...as opposed to the alternative desired and enacted by the North, that being a political slavery of the entire population resting upon the doctrine of the sword...
"The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general --- not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man --- although that was not the motive of the war --- as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle --- but only of degree --- between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree." - Lysander Spooner, 1870
Precisely. A clear set of ideological realignments took place between the Republican and Democrat Parties in the late 19th and early 20th century. Up through the presidency of Grover Cleveland, the "king of the veto," Democrats came from a generally Jeffersonian background of strict constructionism and limited government. This was clearly the case prior to the Civil War on most economic policy issues. Prior to the war, the Democrats consistently opposed tax hikes (the tariff), pushed through tax reductions, and espoused free trade. They opposed government handouts, subsidies, and economic management as unconstitutional and wasteful (For example, Andrew Jackson fought the National Bank and Franklin Pierce vetoed and blocked several handout-style expenditures). The Democrats campaigned against redistributionary policies, such as protectionism, as well as the Homestead Act, which they viewed as a violation of states rights and as a welfare handout scheme of Republicans to buy votes from the poor in exchange for free land.
By contrast, the 19th century Republicans, and their predecessors the Whigs and Federalists, favored a stronger national government and a looser construction of the Constitution. Their 1860 platform was loaded with clauses advocating economic intervention, spending projects, and higher taxes.
The first realignments started emerging around the 1896 election when the Democratic Party completed its move from social and economic conservatism to a mix of social conservatism and economic liberalism under William Jennings Bryan-style populism. At the same time, the GOP adopted an increasingly hawkish foreign policy that in many ways reflects conservative foreign policy approaches today. This was under McKinley and the first Roosevelt. The GOP finished picking up the banner of economic conservatism in the 1920's with another realignment under Coolidge. Within a few years of that, the Dems had completely abandoned practically all elements of economic conservatism for economic liberalism - a trend signified in the differences between Al Smith's candidacy of 1928 and FDR's in 1932. Though encroachments on Democrat social conservatism were made throughout the 30's and 40's, remnants of that conservatism continued to linger into the 1950's. It went completely out the door in the party's 1960's radicalization period, and was picked up by the GOP, which has carried it ever since.
In short, the two parties essentially flipped their politics. They also flipped regionally as this change occurred, and in concurrence with it. The GOP used to be a northeastern urban party while the Dems used to be a southern and western rural party. Now the GOP dominates the south and west, while the Dems dominate yankeeland.
Do you really want a legislature that is loaded down with a combination of gerrymander-protected yellow dogs and urban ghetto poverty pimps to get to work "solving problems" for you?
Cause normally when Democrats tell you they are "solving problems," it means my taxes are going to go up soon.
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