|
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AT THE CROSSROADS
by Herb Rubenstein
CEO, Herb Rubenstein Consulting
Over a hundred
years ago, the Republicans made the south very angry. For 100 years
there was a group of people called “southern democrats”
who constituted the direct political fallout of the post Civil War
Republican imposition of their will on the South.
Southern Democrats
were “conservatives.” In fact, in almost every respect
other than their name, they acted just like post 1900 Republicans
from other places in the country. Then the 100 year plague on the
Republican Party ended and southern democrats began to change parties
and call themselves “Republicans.” Southern democratic
voters began voting Republican. When the Democratic Party’s
stronghold began to unravel in the late 1960’s with the George
Wallace defection, the Nixon success in the South and the Reagan
landslide, the Democrats were on the run in the south.
Since the Democrats
were never politically strong in the mountain or southwestern states
West, losing in the South cost the Democrats dearly. They responded
in the 80’s by nominating southerners, Carter, Clinton and
Gore for the Presidency. In 1964 the Democrats nominated Johnson,
a southerner. Although Texas is more of a western state than a traditional
southern state. In fact, Texas does not fit into any geopolitical
subdivision of this country, other than its own.
The efforts
of the Democrats to hand over their party to southern governors
worked for a while to make it appear in the 1970’s, (Carter)
the 1980’s/90’s (Clinton) and 2000 (Gore) that old line
“southern democrats” were still southern democrats.
While Carter won once and Clinton won twice and Gore carried several
states in the South, the transformation of the traditional democrat
into the core of the Republican Party is now well on its way.
This puts the
Democrats and the Democratic Party at the crossroads. With no apparent
southern democratic leader of presidential caliber, the Democrats
can not go back to Minnesota (Humphrey/Mondale), can not go out
West (Davis/Feinstein/Pelosi) and may not be able to win with a
candidate from the northeast (Lieberman, Kerry) or northwest (Daschle).
While Gephardt comes from the middle of the country, he just doesn’t
play well with the remaining southern democrats or the industrialized,
urban northeast. The Democratic Party is at the crossroads.
One reason there
is no “leader” in the Democratic Party as of November
6, 2002 is that there is no longer a solid geographical foundation
upon which a Democratic leader can stand or emerge from. While we
like to believe in the “great man (person) theory,”
a real leader who rises above all olds, everyone knows that any
real leader needs a place on which to stand. Nations seek defensible
boundaries. Politicians need that as well.
Today, the Democratic
Party has few defensible
geographic boundaries. If California slides off into the Republican
ocean, and Guiliani resurfaces in
New York, there will be no doubt that the Democrats will be surrounded.
The center of the country from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan
down to Louisiana may be, in 2004, the main vein of the Democratic
Party. The Mississippi River Basin may be the new geopolitical center
for the Democrats. Yet, it is not a center it can hold unless it
can expand outward at a rapid pace.
How will the
Democrats do this? Democratic Party leaders must take the best and
brightest potential Democratic Party candidates and dispense them
– send them to Colorado, Utah, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Oklahoma,
Virginia, North Carolina and throughout the United States to sow
the seeds for the Democratic Party to take hold in these regions.
The political success of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Dole show
clearly that voters will elect “outsiders” over home
grown and home educated talent if the candidate is considered superior.
This is not a new lesson. Bobby Kennedy showed us how to do it when
he became a candidate for the U.S. Senate on September 3, 1964.
Who will lead
the Democratic Party to mount such a long range and visionary effort?
How will it be paid for? And how will aspiring Democratic candidates
take to being moved around the country. How will home grown local
Democratic Party leaders react to being faced with an outside challenger
for a nomination the local Democratic Party favorite has coveted
for years and years. This crossroads is a new one for the Democratic
Party. Is the Party a mere collection of 50 state Democratic Parties,
some so dysfunctional that it can not even get a candidate to run
for the US Senate while it holds the governorship (Virginia 2002).
If it is only 50 state parties, then the party is over. I believe
the Democratic Party is and must be a national party with strong
state affiliates.
When one comes
to such a crossroads, one does not have much time to decide which
way to go. The time is now for the Democratic Party to choose its
course, to take its aim, to clarify its message and to
build a new geopolitical base upon which to stand
tall.
back |
