An Introduction: My Western Philosophy, What I'll be Writing About, etc.
To the reader,
Hi, this is Stephen Yellin, better known to some in the blogosphere as "Mr. Liberal". For those of you who don't know who I am, allow me to introduce myself. I'm a 16-year old blogger who's written for Mydd, The DailyKos and several other sites, as well as being one of thirty bloggers invited to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Oh, and I'm from New Jersey.
What's that? Why would a New Jerseyan be interested in a Western Strategy? After all, wouldn't it mean a "loss of influence" for Eastern, "Establishment" Democrats where I come from? Well, considering that we don't have much influence in the nation, period, no matter what area of America we're from, I don't see how any Democrat can be close-minded anymore. Clearly, the old method of Democratic victory-win the Northeast and Midwest plus enough Southern and Pacific states-won't cut it anymore, as the Northeast and Midwest are bleeding electoral votes and the South has largely turned into a solid block for the GOP in elections (for example, the number of Democratic Senators from the 13 "Southern" states has gone from parity in 1994 to just 4 currently-two from Arkansas and one each from Florida and Louisiana). Where do we turn next, I wondered, as I poured over the 2004 election results. I soon looked, as Horace Greeley did in the 1840's, westward.
"Go West, young man, go West!" That was the message Greeley gave to Americans during the age of the pioneers a century and a half ago. While this nation no longer has open land like we did in the 1840's, the West remains far more rural and open to development that the Eastern half of the country. Towns and cities from Las Vegas to Albuquerque and from Boise to Pueblo are growing rapidly thanks to an influx of new settlers, from across the Mississippi and from California. In fact, the West now has 143 electoral votes, up from a little over 100 just a few decades ago. Arizona, which in 1980 had six electoral votes, now has ten, and Colorado went from six to nine in the same period of time.
Who are the new Westerners? They are from every part of America-Latinos, White Evangelicals from California, Surburban Soccer Moms and Office Worker Dads from the Northeast, and plenty of young men and women looking for a fresh start in a fresh land. In general, most Westerners share a refreshing philosophy-live and let live. No need for either government or religion to intrude on their daily lives, no need for either being cared for or left alone on the economic seas-indeed, Westerners are "small l" libertarians. Fiscally conservative, Socially libertarian, they are exactly what the Democratic Party is becoming, as the GOP continues to take the authoritarian route in the South to make its gains. I say, let them.
This is not to say, "To hell with you" to the South. The idea of "Westernizing" the Democratic Party is to give it a national identity, by embracing a cultural and ecomomic philosophy that most of its supporters already have. By appealing not to the South with regional candidates, but to the West with nationally-based, moderate-to-liberal thinking on issues that most Americans can relate to, we WILL be able to take our country back.
In many ways, voters out West are slowly turning towards the Democratic Party. Montana and Colorado saw some of the most massive Democratic gains in 2004, from pickups in the Governor and Senate races in each state to complete control of the state legislatures there (although Montana may go down to just two votes in a single district in giving the GOP a 1-vote majority in its Statehouse, it's more likely the seat will flip in a recount, giving the Democrats the Speaker's chair in the state). Governor-elect Brian Schweitzer and Senator-elect Ken Salazar can tell us a thing or two about winning races in the West, along with Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Senator Max Baucus of Montana and our new Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. While John Kerry carried only the four Pacific Coast states, he tied George McGovern in the Partisan Index Meter for the entire West, which is the highest level for the Democrats since, well, McGovern.
Here is a list of ideas the Democrats need to emphasize to win in the West, and thus nationwide. Please note that these are not just regional issues, but ideological platforms that the entire nation can accept with a good national ticket:
1)Individual Liberty-It's time to embrace responsible gun ownership. The NRA won the fight over strict laws, but most Americans like having the right to have a gun if they can protect it properly. It's time to give up the idea of fear from gun owners and replace it with respect-that gun owners are not dumb, but just as responsible as bb gun owners in NYC and Philadelphia. It also allows us to continue our emphasis on individual liberty- such as freeing ourselves from the Patriot Act, embracing environmental freedom from big business polluters and deemphasizing abortion and gay marriage as state issues. This would free us from any potential hypocrisy on social issues, and put us firmly on the side of freedom on personal issues.
2)Economic Liberty-Here's where we embrace our moderate side. There's no reason why the Democratic Party should support massive governmental increases when the GOP does an excellent job already of doing that. Indeed, if Democrats can promote health care reform on the scale of public incentives and not national health care (as John Kerry did), as well as protecting through progressive, not regressive reforms of Social Security and Medicare, we will break the idea of the Democrats being the party of big government forever. Clinton got us halfway there with the elimination of the deficit and his welfare reform bill (which was badly needed)-now we have the opportunity to go all the way to economic liberties and show Westerners that we care not just for the needy, but for all hard-working Americans. We can't turn back the clock to 1925 (as the GOP would do), but we can't turn it back to 1945 either. We need to keep the clock here in the 2000's and work on a modern-day level to change the economic picture of our country.
3)Fiscal and Moral Responsibility-Westerners are no different from Easterners here. They care a great deal when their governments mess up their finances, raising property taxes in the process. They care deeply (as in Montana) when their goverments are corrupt. That's why they vote for reform-minded candidates, from Schweitzer to Richardson to Republican Dino Rossi in Washington State. They are just as offended with Tom DeLay's antics as Easterners, and are ready for some responsible leadership, from their statehouses to Washington, D.C. If Democrats can promote a solid program of fiscal and ethical responsibility, they will win in the West. No one likes having the Mommy and the Daddy fighting over values while the kids ruin the house-they would much prefer having both Parents cleaning up the mess. That's what the Democrats need to do-to show the GOP as the "kiddie party" and the Democrats as the "Adults party". People really do want responsible leaders, and so we need to show that Democrats are more than capable of cleaning up the GOP mess.
While Democrats in D.C. and the East are clueless as to what to do next, Western Democrats already know what to do. I've listed their ideas above. I'll be covering their political side-the 2006 races and the Western Democrats in D.C.- in the months to come. With Congressman Mark Udall already planning a run for Governor in Colorado, and with Bill Richardson considering a Presidential bid in 2008, the Western Democrats have a plan to take the country back for the Democrats. Let's get on board with them, and together we'll get the job done.
Tommorow I'll begin to discuss the political situation for 2006-what's up for grabs (a lot), who's in charge (you'll be suprised as to how strong we are already), and what the Democrats are doing out West (a great deal already). Until then, thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from all of you soon.
Stephen Yellin | November 26, 2004 | Comment on This Post (6 so far) |
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Comments
Hi Folks....
Kari et al....thanks for the hard work rounding up these many posts and sorting them into some sort of rational order. I'm impressed with the energy that went into this.
I come to this issue with a bias towards rural community organizing....and I do mean rural. I recently moved, following my wife's teaching career, from a community of 9 people to a community of 275 [500 if you count the whole zip code]. Similar issues though.
The rural/urban divide that we talk about here in the west is somewhat of a manufactured illusion playing on themes of culture and identity. In voting terms there are few rural westerners left whose lives are still based on isolation and natural resources. The vast majority of our crops and commodities are produced with domestic and foreign markets in mind. Our mills are driven by computers that determine what is cut on a specific day based on price and market demand. Our grain is grown to specifications posted by Japanese and Chinese ag officials. Our livestock practices are driven by Safeway, Albertsons and exporters. The cultural themes applied to our "way of life" are determined far more by Hollywood, lobbyists and politicians than they are by the reality of rural life. We might live six or ten miles from our nearest neighbor but we link to market information everyday.
Detective novels teach us to look at who benefits. Maintaining the mythology of the rural west benefits the Republican party and their corporate sponsors.
The west is growing in cities, suburbs and exurbs. Although the rural west is no losing population as is the Buffalo Commons of NoDak, SoDak and Nebraska, it is not growing at the rate of Boise, C. Springs, or Bend. The R's have been very successful in applying a number of rural themes to residents of the burbs who work at WalMart, at the new branch of the state prison or in, God help us, real estate. Selling sacks of lawn fertilizer at Wally world does not mean that you work in ag. Consider the extension service. We used to do things like advise on animal disease, timing for small woodlot harvest and getting the branch line to stay open. Now we answer questions about local birding spots, how to keep the peekapoo away from coyotes and how to keep the 4H kids off porn sites.
Ds can pick up rural western support and votes by understanding that we're not a bunch of ignorant rubes [iggi's comment on BlueOregon] but rather a small voting segment tied to natural resources, concerned with long-term conservation values and generally disatisfied with the condescention [sp?] displayed towards our lives and lifestyle.
Consider timber communities. Those of us who do the plodding groundwork have little love for Mark Rey and the Healthy Forest Initiative. Why??? We know its a scam. Close to 97% of timber in the US comes from Private, tribal and state lands. In market terms the USFS and the BLM are high cost, unreliable sources. Yeah it's nice to luck into a big sale but no one counts on those to make or break a business. The stewardship and interface sales are designed more for positive press than for any realitic effort at forest management. Market-wise we can read the trends. The Canadians haven't lost a NAFTA or WTO case and will continue to undercut our prices. Anyway, dimension and plywood prices are at an all time high and every producer is running at full capacity. Why on earth would we want to dump vast amounts of raw commodity into the market. Go ahead, lower my profit margin. The timber supply wars are cultural. Every time some nitwit named Moonbeam climbs a tree the Rs pick up another dozen votes.
Stephen is on the mark....the themes that will play well are individual and economic liberty combined with the notion that government is a tool for community betterment....health care, transportation, schools, utility regulation.
Thanks
Posted by: wharf rat | Nov 26, 2004 9:04:08 PM
Ditto on thanking Kari and company for this site- a great addition to the bsphere. And welcome to west of the Rockies Stephen!
"Western strategy" shouldn't become shorthand for supporting Bill Richardson for President. Wharf rat's analysis of resource issues equating timber issues with culture wars is dead on, and points to what we really should be talking about when we talk about a western strategy.
Like many Dems trying to find themselves post-November 2, I've read countless blog posts, newspaper articles and talked endlessly with friends about what the hell went wrong. Questions of "Is the Democratic Party dead?" or "What can we do to REFORM the Democratic Party?" are posed from the standpoints of outsiders, more committed to giving their annual membership donation to their public interest non-profit of choice rather than having to go to their monthly county central committee meetings.
Don't get me wrong, I dutifully give money and write my letters when asked by these groups. But similar to the 527s madly walking the same precincts on the same days as the Dems, and the confusion and outright hostility it caused (common anecdotes of "I already talked to you Kerry people today! Leave me alone!" from the swing states), is a perfect metaphor for the confused state of the Democratic Party today. As others have argued, if the Party is nothing more than the patched together voice of the countless liberal/progressive interest groups so many of us support, we've got nothing more than a jumbled mush of ideas to offer to average joe american voter. The western strategy should be about bridging this gap between an amalgam of interest group policy positions to a true understanding of people's daily concerns and how we as Democrats can address them.
The Democratic victories in Montana, Colorado and Nevada (remember folks, Reid SPANKED his extreme right-wing Republican opponent) are the natural outgrowth of the efforts of lonely Democrats that have been toiling away on our city councils, county commissions, state legislatures, and statewide elected offices for years. All across the Intermountain West, Democratic elected officials have been going home in the evenings to live side by side with their neighbor the rancher, their neighbor the elk hunter or their neighbor the seasonal BLM firefighter who works winters in the ski shop while collecting unemployment (and often voting Republican.) They know how to talk about the issues that concern their neighbors in settings far closer than people going home to their cul de sac'ed suburban isolations in other parts of the country can enjoy.
They, and a lot of us western Dems, know how to laugh along when wharf rat's Moonbeam climbs the tree or when the animal rights activists calls us barbarians for going hunting each fall. And yet we hold fast to our ideals- we know what an overgrazed stream looks like. We know subdivided sprawl when a rancher decides he can't afford not to sell his land anymore. We know what it's like when the crystal meth lab moves in down the street from us in our rural towns. We know what it's like to struggle with sustainable economic development when our kids would just as soon get the hell out and move onto life in the big cities.
There ARE solutions to these problems that can be sold to the most red of red staters. And western Democrats, with little support from the types of foundations and policy think tanks their counterparts on the other side of the aisle enjoy, have been scraping by to learn these lessons for years.
A Democratic Party steered by the elites of the national labor, environmental, women's movements, et. al., can only do us so much to give us new ideas and communicate our values in ways that will connect with our neighbors. Our "1964 Goldwater" strategy should be to support our farm teams. To learn and to share what it takes to elect Democrats to office in Orem, Burns, Libby, Grand Junction, Twin Falls, and Winnemucca- and to make sure these lessons permeate up to the national level. I'll still write my checks to the interest groups near and dear to me, but it's up to all of us, in the West especially, to BE Democrats- go to our county party meetings, find people to run at the local level, and support them.
Here's to this new site and to the role it can play in sharing the stories of our farm team players from all across the West.
Posted by: sagesnow | Nov 27, 2004 12:48:35 PM
I do not know much about the west, speaking as a New England-er. However, I worry that your suggested "reforms" to the Democrats-primarily the 'economic freedom' could actually be the straw the breaks the donkey's back.
The Democrats can't afford to keep moving to the right just as the GOP moves to the right. The political field needs to be opened. Yes, the Dems should focus on your 1 and 2 points--but I think that, perhaps, tackling economic issues with the language of class, and strongly supporting major economic reforms might be a better path. Capitalism in its purest form is not a pretty economic system: there are winners, and there are losers. This is becoming increasingly clear in the American economy. Perhaps the Democrats should pursue a different path: *widen* the safety net, enlarge welfare, feed the starving. Perhaps you have heard of Harry Chapin? He made the excellent point that it is neigh ridiculous to think that the wealthiest most pwoerful nation the world has ever seen can't feed its own people--even when there are warehouses bursting with food.
America has great great potential, and I believe that if the Dems strike out and take a new and unexplored economic path, it could serve to revitalize the party like we enver could have imagined.
Or this might just be my idealism speaking out.
Anyways, nice site. It has been added to my aggregator.
Posted by: Miles | Nov 27, 2004 8:51:21 PM
Hi Folks....
Miles...Like you I do not believe the future od the DP equates with moving towards the right to mimic the RP. Neither to I believe it should move to the left. Those are merely points on a one-dimensional continuum that tends to be authoritarian in policy and practice.
I'm going to fall into my own trap here and describe a western philosophy in cultural themes:
*individual liberty...not gun liberty or choice liberty or relationship liberty, etc, but liberty across the pantheon;
*respect and support for the small elements of community which then build the larger elements;
*respect and support for the binding elements of community; schools, law enforcement, emergency services, taxes, the post office, transportation. I personally include universal health care.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights derive from "we the people" [truly, I am not a miltia wingnut] with collective responsibilities assigned to institutions of government that we create and, in theory, can uncreate. Government, however, has assumed greater authority than it should have. Consider Laura Bush, a licensed Texas teacher, telling a nationwide audience that we Americans should be thankful for the rights granted to us by the government. Too many believe that to be the case.
I believe that the future path of the DP is away from authoritarian govt left or right and towards libertarian governance [I do see a distinction between government and governance].
The west is the most dynamic region of the country...culturally, economically and politically. Closed-minded societies do no prosper regardless of the number of people attracted to them. The South may well be growing in population but the cultural and political South is inward-looking and built on a rotten foundation of identity and exclusion. The Northeast is healthy but economically linked to the distressed economies of Europe and the distressed economies and culture of the Middle East and Africa.
Only the west is situated to prosperwith the growing economic and cultural clout of the Pacific.
Thanks
Posted by: wharf rat | Nov 27, 2004 10:01:22 PM
Nobody here's talking about "moving to the center"- I don't believe any discussion of western strategy requires a move to the center. What's important is being able to define our positions in ways our neighbors in the West can understand.
Besides a lightening up on guns (you know, a lot of us own guns out here) progressive issues such as a gay rights, workers rights and unions, environmental protection, etc., can be framed in such a way that Westerners can embrace. Despite the Marlboro Man mythology that people moving here from California and elsewhere want to embrace, we're a region rich in labor and civil rights history. Women's suffrage and radical union organizing- between Wyoming being the first state to extend the franchise to women and Idaho's radical mine workers' history, other regions of the country ain't got nothing on us when it comes to progressive traditions.
What's important is relearning how we talk about the issues we care about- no- what the hell we value- and what that means as far as our local politics.
As wharf rat has pointed out, people working in our region's ag/nat resource industries are on the frontlines of the global economy. "Safety net" and "enlarging welfare" may not be the best way to frame our stances- "putting America first" may be the better frame. That doesn't necessarily mean Gephardt style protectionism, but preparing our framers, ranchers, high-tech workers (SLC, Boise, Denver, even Vegas) to be able to compete in the global economy are opportunities the GOP has left to the Dems.
As for the individualism thread- there are a bunch of conservatives out here disgusted with the Bush admin's Patriot Act. Yes, these are right-wing John Birch types, but civil liberties matter out here- and is an area for Dems to make some serious inroads. I've lived here long enough to distrust "distrust of government" stereotypes, but ideas of personal privacy and what civil rights mean in the 21st century are ripe for exploration here in the Intermountain West laboratory.
Posted by: sagesnow | Nov 28, 2004 12:31:30 AM
There are alot of good points in this thread. It also gets to the heart of the problem with the Democratic Party. Miles appears to believe he's from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, but he's really from the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Other posters express the independece of the west, which I am quite familiar with, but are actually suggesting Libertarian policies.
I've been reading the varying opinions on how Democrats won in MT, CO, and some southern states. To me, it's been funny. DeFazio is my Congressman, his campaign slogan is "As Independent As Oregon". So even though he's quite liberal, he doesn't run that way. Montana, well criminey, after 12 years of Racicot & Martz, going back to a Democrat had to be an easy choice. People don't realize the strong Democratic/Progressive tradition there, Jeanette Rankin, Mike Mansfield. In addition, alot of these folks run on completely different platforms than what a national candidate can get away with. Harry Reid supported mining, that would never work nationally. Carson in OK, who nearly won, he was wild for the Iraq war. A Presidential candidate doesn't have the luxury of tailoring a message the way a local candidate does.
So how do we take this hodge podge of ideas and turn it into a national platform? Gun responsibility? How many times to national Democrats have to say they aren't gun grabbers for people in rural America to get it? And when will rural Democrats stop repeating that line of garbage? National health care?? John Kerry's plan was to simply let us buy one of the federal employees health insurance plans already available, how freakin' radical is that??? Did rural America even understand it? Did rural Democratic committees even try to explain it, or did they run from the national candidate like they always do? And how does he get criticized for national health care when Bush's plan is a government clinic in every county?
There's alot of work to be done. Facing reality, in all quarters, seems to me to be the first step.
Posted by: Sandy | Dec 13, 2004 11:45:17 AM
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(and yes, we know that sometimes they're very, very wrong. Other times, they're right on.)
