Outside view: Emerging Democrat minority

Outside view: Emerging Democrat minority By Horace Cooper A UPI Outside view commentary Published 11/24/2002 1:52 PM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The Democrats have a real dilemma on their hands in the wake of the November midterm congressional elections. The challenge of repositioning their party so that it is more attractive to the American electorate is a difficult one. But reposition they must or they risk becoming a long-term minority party or -- even worse -- being superseded by a new upstart one.

Many analysts offer pedestrian advice to the Democrats about what they must do to increase their political appeal, including developing a more coherent message; focusing on issues important to main street America; and finding more enthusiastic and photogenic messengers. But the Nov. 5 election results demonstrate that the problem is far more serious and systemic.

The collapse of the Democratic Party's electoral majority was neither necessary nor automatic. But it has happened. And unless that fact is recognized soon this collapse may remain permanent.

Even if the Democratic nominee for president is successful in 2004, a highly unlikely prospect at present, the serious problem of the party's disintegration will likely continue.

According to United Press International, Americans voted for the GOP over the Democrats by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. A telegenic face doesn't easily undo a six-point margin.

This is the political landscape after Nov. 5: Republicans hold a majority of statehouses and a majority of governorships; they are the majority in the U.S. and the House of Representatives. As a result, the GOP has a bench from which to launch new candidates making them a viable party in races across the board.

In contrast, the Democrats find themselves increasingly taking a pass in potentially competitive races by either fielding unqualified candidates or no candidates at all as they did in several Senate and House races this year.

Having every Democrat united on one message is not going to overcome this state of affairs.

Actually it's worse than that. There are places in the country, like Texas and Virginia, where there simply are no serious Democrat challengers left who are undefeated, capable of raising a credible level of funds or likely to command at least 40 percent of the vote in the general election.

In Texas, every statewide office is held by a Republican. In Virginia, Democrats hold only two out of five, and that appears to be the upper limit. To be fair, Democrats appear to have a similar advantage in California. But the advantage is deceiving.

The Republican Party is viable in California. The GOP candidates consistently and regularly break 40 percent, significantly higher at the statewide level. Republican Bill Simon's lackluster gubernatorial bid still came within six points of upsetting incumbent Gov. Gray Davis. Repositioning the party so that it appeals to more than just beneficiaries of the social safety net as some progressives recommend won't negate this type of structural disadvantage.

Consider that among several voting groups, Nov. 5 was a walk through the electoral killing fields for the Democrats. White men nationally gave the GOP a 20-point margin and the trend looks likely to increase rather than contract.

Married women favored the Republicans by 10 points on Election Day. Rural voters in general preferred the GOP by an average of 20 points. And the former Democratic stronghold, the South, voted overwhelmingly against them, expelling several governors and at least one senator from office while handing new legislatures over to the GOP.

There is a serious values gap aiding the GOP and hindering the Democrats. Increasingly a sizeable percentage of the voting public rejects the Democratic party out of hand.

The sense that the party promotes the agendas of elite liberals, caters to minorities at the expense of equality of opportunity and fails to treat national security issues seriously undermines the electoral prospects of the party.

Heading into the 2004 campaign the Democrats face a serious headwind. For the first time in a generation Gallup polls show that the American people have a more favorable view of the GOP than the Democratic Party.

Even as President Ronald Reagan was winning 49 out of 50 states in 1984, he was unable to translate his landslide electoral support to the Republican Party itself. The GOP since then has maintained a favorable rating, meaning more people liked it than disliked it, but the Democratic Party was always more popular with the public because it was perceived as representing the interests of the average person.

That advantage no longer exists. Increasingly the public thinks of the Democrats as the party of special interests. Notwithstanding Ruy Texiera and John B. Judis' thesis that there is an "Emerging Democratic Majority," it appears not to be so unless that majority is undergoing an unusually long gestation period -- say 25 to 50 years. The untold story is how rapidly and how far the Democrats have descended from the heights of political power they once enjoyed. In less than 30 years the party has changed from having a stronghold in every area of the country to now being primarily limited to the two coasts. It has shrunk from being popular in urban and rural areas alike to dominating only in the inner city.

Did the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Towers and part of the Pentagon have an impact on this? Perhaps, but it shouldn't be overstated. The trend is the real issue. Does a wartime president like Bush, whose leadership skills shine during a crisis, provide benefits to his party? Certainly, just as a charismatic president like Reagan drew the country towards him and made being a Republican respectable for new demographic groups.

The reality is that the collapse of the Democrats is part of a nearly 40-year-long process. Since 1964 the Democratic Party, while winning the presidency four times, has received more than 50 percent of the vote in a presidential election exactly twice. In 1964 by a wide margin and in 1976, just barely.

The GOP on the other hand has won six times and received an outright majority of votes four times -- in 1972, 1980, 1984, and 1988.

In the 2000 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore won the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College, but he carried fewer than 200 congressional districts, foreshadowing the House Democrats' uphill challenge in their failure to retake the House in 2002.

What does this mean? It is possible for the Democrats to topple a GOP candidate here and there such as in Wyoming, a state Bush won by more than 40 points in 2000 but elected a Democratic governor? But the problem is those elections are anomalies rather than trends. The fact is that the so called "GOP electoral lock" at the presidential level has expanded and now in approximately two-thirds of the country the GOP candidate for state and national office starts out with an advantage that must be overcome by his Democratic rival.

The longer this trend continues the more difficult it will be to reverse. Losing replicates itself. As the backbench is depleted by losses, new challengers come in with less experience and less viability and they lose even more.

Issues such as liberal attacks on the Boy Scouts, support for needle exchange in the inner city, and a reflexive hostility to U.S. military action are part and parcel of the modern Democratic Party.

While these and similar issues are a large cause of the public's alienation with the Democratic Party, reversing course may not be the best option. Critics of the Democratic Leadership Council and other "centrists" within the party rightly charge that if given the choice between the GOP and a Democratic Party posing as a "wannabe" GOP, voters will elect the real GOP every time.

On the other hand, there needs to be a real examination among the party members as to why issues important to core Democrat constituencies prove to be losers nationally. Reversing course on issues like the death penalty and middle class tax relief may help in the short run, as they did for President Bill Clinton in 1992. But, as the Republican triumph in regaining control of the House in 1994 proved, beware the wrath of a scorned public.

The truth is that unless the party can convince the public to change its view on these issues, the decline of the party will continue.

Perhaps the bleakness of the present situation will challenge the Democratic Party sufficiently that it decides to take action now. It's more likely though that the party elders will agree that better polling, TV friendly candidates and other smoke-and-mirror approaches will solve their problems.

Even if these techniques work in the 2004 presidential election they can't sustain the party against this long-term trend. When the GOP has a majority of inner city mayoralties it will be too late.

(Outside View commentaries are written for UPI by outside writers who specialize in issues of public interest.)

That follow-up article deserves to be posted too:

Outside View: Emerging Dem. minority II

By HORACE COOPER, A UPI Outside View commentary

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- It's been a year since the November 2002 midterm elections.

At this time last year, the serious erosion of the Democrats' national political support was obvious for all to see. The 2002 election was an almost across-the-board loss for them, leading some to suggest the results be taken as a wake-up call, an indication of the need to recalibrate the party's philosophy and message.

No such action occurred and, a year later the problems are even more pronounced.

Relying on indicia such as predicted demographic changes in the United States in the 21st century, the so-called expert opinion is that America is a 50/50 nation, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, aggressive Internet activity and fundraising by leftist organizations such as MoveOn.org and a nascent anti-war movement, most party leaders have determined that no course correction is necessary.

In fact, many have argued that they are winning. As Texan and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey would say, "You can't be this wrong by accident."

The 2002 midterm elections revealed a 53-47 national preference for Republicans over Democrats. A crushing blow, it resulted in the GOP retaking control of the U.S. Senate, maintaining and increasing their control of the U.S. House and taking control of a majority of statehouses and maintaining a majority of governorships.

What's changed since then? The GOP has added three governorships to its majority -- in California, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Going in to the 2004 election close to 60 percent of Americans now reside in states with Republican governors, including the four largest -- California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Sadly, the nation's oldest political party's prospects look more like the short-lived Whigs of the 19th century than that of a thriving national organization capable of governing a nation.

A "values gap" that aids the GOP and hinders the Democrats has accelerated the decline of the venerable party of Jackson and FDR.

Some centrist Democrats and party elders including retiring Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., have sounded an alarum, time is quickly running out. Like the Whigs, the disparate groups that make up the Democratic Party -- union leaders, racial group activists, environmentalists, feminists, economic populists, etc -- find cohabitation with moderate and centrist Democratic Leadership Council types unpalatable and dissolution seems inevitable.

The party faces a Hobson's choice. It can ill-afford to reduce its political coalition to an even smaller level while it tries to remake itself into something more acceptable to the vast center.

For the better part of three decades, the Democrats have faced a structural disadvantage in the Electoral College, the so-called "GOP electoral lock" consisting of states in the South and Southwest that traditionally tilt right in presidential elections.

Although they were able to pick the electoral lock three times by running southerners at the top of the ticket -- Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 -- they've only received a majority of the popular vote for president twice in the 40 years since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Al Gore in 2000, who ran up the vote in places like California but failed to win the states he needed to create a majority in the Electoral College.

On the other hand, the GOP has prevailed six times in the same period, winning a majority of the popular vote four times.

Furthermore the GOP's late 20th century "electoral lock" is becoming nearly impregnable and the troublesome trend for Democrats is that it is expanding to lower ballot offices, starting with the U.S. Senate and spreading to state and local elections.

Just 20 years ago -- even in the wake of losing national presidential elections -- Democrats controlled outright 32 state legislatures and Republicans 11. The ominous winds of change have been blowing ever since. Today Republicans control 21 legislatures outright and Democrats 16, exactly half the number they once did. And the gap looks likely to expand rather than contract.

Rather than acknowledge the structural political disadvantage they face, the Democrats seemed poised to pursue even more insularity and division. In less than six months the Democrats are likely to exacerbate the developing split within their party when its dominant liberal/leftist wing flexes its muscle and selects one of their own as a nominee.

This impresario will likely run on a campaign of revulsion for our nation's mainstream anti-terrorism policies and adopt an enthusiastic embrace of the left's divisive secularist liberal social agenda. If 1994 was America's temper tantrum, 2004 is gearing up to be America's drive-by. Woe unto other Democrats running at the local and state level, because they'll likely get taken out as collateral damage.

The Republicans have a much easier time selling lower taxes, individual responsibility, traditional values and a strong national defense to the typical voter than Democrats have explaining a strident secularism, social schemes that cater to minorities at the expense of equal opportunity, counter-cultural value systems and a remarkable unwillingness to promote America's national security interests.

The headwind that the Democrats faced in the midterm elections may seem like a tsunami if trends continue.

The South, once a stronghold for the Democrats, is fast becoming the GOP's permanent base. Republicans now hold nearly two-thirds of southern House and Senate seats. In 2004 Senate seats held by Democrats in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia are in danger of flipping to the Republicans.

Due to population growth and related demographic changes, the 12 Southern states including Tennessee that denied Gore a stay at the White House will be worth more -- 168 electoral votes this time -- and will take Bush three-fifth's of the way to re-election, all before winning a single non-Southern state. In Texas alone, the new GOP-controlled Legislature's redistricting plan will likely extend the GOP margin in the House of Representatives.

Things are not much better elsewhere. The Democrats may have established a stronghold of their own in the Northeast, but it is a poor trade. Recent GOP gubernatorial victories in Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire show that even here the extremism endemic to the Democratic Party can be a big loser.

Rather than respond to the alarm, some suggest this is the low-water mark for Democrats and they are about to start the climb back up. In fact, things can and may get a lot worse.

According to a recent Pew Research Center report, fewer and fewer people wish to associate with the Democrats. Once the overwhelmingly dominant political party in the United States, only 31 percent of Americans now see themselves as Democrats, the weakest position of the party since the dawn of the New Deal. A national Harvard University survey found that 61 percent of college students -- normally a liberal-leaning bloc -- support Bush and the GOP.

And many of these former Democrats have become Republicans. Worst still, these switches have taken place in key swing states that will likely turn an electoral squeaker into an electoral nightmare. Consider: in Minnesota where Democrats traditionally outnumber GOPers, now Republicans have a 3-point registration advantage. In Michigan what was formerly a 7-point Democrat registration advantage has turned into a 3-point preference for the GOP. Similar changes have occurred in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Florida. Except for Florida, these are all states that Bush lost in 2000 in his successful presidential race.

In November 2003 in nearly two-thirds of the country -- the areas that some Democrats deride as "flyover land" -- Democrats face significant political headwinds that will be nearly impossible to overcome. A victory plan in 2004 predicated on an agenda of pacifism, tax hikes and counter-cultural liberalism sets up all the needed elements for a perfect storm. Yet Democrats continue to console themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that America is still a 50-50 nation.

--

(Horace Cooper, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow with the Center for New Black Leadership.)

If the decline began 40 years ago, it is only because the bargain that FDR made was, in the long run, a reward of fool's gold.

The meat of the modern Democratic Party has always been the brokering of rewards and favors to constituent groups in return for their support of the Party elite. Once, it was the Kennedys, then the Clintons. Some day it may be someone else. But power in the Democratic Party always centered around the old Eastern Establishment. Later in history, the Democrats would become controlled by the dot.com zillionaires of the New Economy and Trial Lawyers. In their turn, the party elite doled out favors to Labor, immigrants, and after 1960, blacks. What held this coalition together was the mastery of the tax code by Democrats and the mastery of the House, where spending programs began. But something happened.

Political power is all about the ability to dispense patronage to supporters and withhold it from opponents. To succeed at patronage, Democrats had to cobble together a coalition each time elections occured. When victory occured, Democrats would create pork for their constituents or long term entitlements to benefit target demographic groups (such as federal support for state welfare programs to buy off blacks, poor whites, and Hispanic immigrants).But what happened when members of the coalition began to split apart?

It was the twin occurance of the Goldwater Campaign and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that first broke the coalition.

The Goldwater Campaign, despite the feckless myopia of Barry himself, gave rise to a new generation of anticommunist Conservative activists. These people were centered around the permanent campaign of Ronald Reagan and the intellectual activists at National Review, Encounter, and the Committee for a Free World. They would eventually turn the Republican Party from a reactionary, "me too" force, into an intellectual powerhouse that not only produced ideas for governance but created in the vehicle of that party the instrument for the demise of the Soviet Communist Party. These facts alone gave rise to the new decisive actor in American politics: the Republican Conservative white southerner, who had to have something more than opposition to Civil Rights to hang his hat on. Anti-communism and an advocacy of lower taxes, smaller government, and robust national defense would replace petty racism as the driving force of the "white south".

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 became the Great Myth of the Democrats and cemented their hold on the black community. In truth, the Act would not have passed without the leadership of Everett McKinley Dirksen, Jerry Ford (then a rising young Turk in the House), and Prescott Bush, among other Republicans, who formed a coalition with Johnson and Dr. King to push for passage of the Bill. Most Democrats in the Senate opposed the bill. It was Johnson's Bill, however, and it was used as the ultimate act of patronage to hold blacks to the party. It was also the beginning of Racial Identity politics that would drive white southerners from the party in droves.

Democrats had to play favors to keep blacks and latinos loyal. For instance, a limited program to correct past slights against black contractors in Federal programs, Affirmative Action, metastasized to effect virtually every aspect of American economic life. This was done intentionally by liberals to keep their voters loyal to them, and remains a totem of loyalty in the black and latino communities, even though the importance of AA has been reduced over the past decade. Once the white ethnic voters who made up part of the Democrat's coalition began to rebel against identity politics, it was a matter of time before they were scooped up by Reagan. Remember, white ethnics were told by the ruling elite that if they paid their taxes and voted Democratic, they would be rewarded. Democrats were surprised, therefore, when their white ethnics started realizing that Democrats had created a system in which some Democrats were more equal than others. Reagan was there as an alternative; they defected to him en masse.

In return, Reagan reduced their taxes and gave them a strong national defense, and the eventual defeat of Soviet Communism! Reagan gave them what they wanted, while Democrats were figuring out how to divide a smaller piece of the pie among their angry ethnic and labor constituencies. Reagan changed things. Democrats became reactionary defenders of an old order. Only when Republicans became reactionary themeselves, in the person of George the Elder, did they lose.

Unfortunately for Democrats, the Son is no reactionary. He just gave Seniors a huge entitlement, which might lead to Republican control of the senior and older Boomer voters. This may be economically unsound, but it is electorally ingenious. This is a result of the political instincts of a Republican govenor of Texas who came of age with his fellow Republican governors in the nineties, while the Washington party was out of power.

Republicans changed; they learned how to give people what they wanted in more effective packages, while Democrats, and their base voters, remained wedded to a reactionary old order. We would not have been able to take advantage of the cleavage of the old Roosevelt Coalition had we had nothing to offer in return.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Truth has a funny way of rising to the surface, though the journey is sometimes turbulent. It is not enough for the Dems to "change their views" on some issue or another. They have, in fact, an entirely bankrupt political philosophy.

New Deal economics, spending to prosperity? A costly failure. "Urban renewal" and socialized housing? A scandalous and costly failure. Feel-good, self congratulatory pacifism? A deadly failure. Multiculturalism, all lifestyles as equally valid and moral? The freakshow of Michael Jackson is the result.

One can go on and on, but what exactly does the Democratic Party stand for? The rights of the oppressed? No! If the oppressed is not a unionized worker who happens to be a U.S. voter, let 'em starve and live in squalor. The environment? No, environmentalism in the hands of the Dems it is a ruse, hijacked by radicals who view all life on earth as more precious than what they see as illegitimate human encroachment.

Do the Dem's stand for peace? No, sadly, the Dems stand for surrender to everyone and anyone who hates the United States. In the 1970s only avowedly marxist campus radicals chanted on behalf of Fidel, the Sandinistas, the Salvadoran gueriilas, and the Ayatollah. Now, the entire Democratic party races to denounce US policy, so long as it is being run by a Republican administration.

So there it is -- the Dems have become... dictators. Seeking power merely for its own sake, for personal prestige, wealth, control, and Saddam-like glory. Clinton (or his stupid but ruthless wife) would have loved a statue of himself while he was president, and if the Dems had their way, in a few generations that would no longer shock anyone.

A party that cannot weed out of its nominating debates the joke candidates has become paralyzed by its own insincere philosphy -- one constantly chosen after poll-testing rather than driven by sound moral principles.

So, the future belongs to a healthy and vigorous debate between competing conservative approaches and flavors. The Dems will become the free-spending "compassionate conservatives" on domestic issues and leave radical politics to fringe parties and the Republicans will become even more conservative. Or the Dems will fade away.

But Americans will not long suffer a party that -- not too secretly -- celebrates American losses, tragedies and suffering for the partisan advantage it might bring if it happens on the Republicans' watch.

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