The Election: Looking Back, Looking Forward

BY BILL GREENER

The Democratic/liberal narrative for what is about to happen in the mid-term election next Tuesday is becoming clearer. 

 First, President Obama and the Democrats attempted not only to do good things, but to reach across the aisle and get Republican support for these wonderful ideas (stimulus package, healthcare reform, cap and trade, etc.).  Republicans, however,  refused to cooperate and. cynically, opposed everything.  Never mind that Democrats hardly proved themselves to be the models of cooperation when they were in the minority.  That would confuse the narrative.

 

 

Second, during the debate on their great ideas, the Democrats (starting with President Obama himself) admit to doing a poor job of “selling their views” to the public, in the face  of polling data makes it abundantly clear American opposition to the ideas themselves, much less the less than sterling results they’ve produced to date (the stimulus package was supposed to hold unemployment at eight percent).

 

Third, having fomented public anger, the Republicans are now “stealing the election” through the “infusion of massive amounts of unreported cash contributions to conservative candidates via independent expenditures ……”  Never mind that (a) Democrats spent massive sums in 2006 and 2008 from the same sorts of sources or that (b) Democrats continue to benefit from unilateral support from unions and other liberal organizations in the form of voter turnout operations, etc.  Again, all of this would confuse the narrative.

 

My sense of things is vastly different.  On consecutive days the Washington Post highlighted the efforts of Democrats and liberals to build enthusiasm and increase turnout among younger voters, minorities, and women.  An op-ed piece by Harold Meyerson described the turnout of the liberal rally in Washington (in advance of the event) as a “coalition of black, Latino, feminist, gay and lesbian civil rights groups; unions; and environmental organizations.”  Meyerson even bemoaned who would not likely show up—“the white working class from those parts of the country (the Midwest above all).”  In other words, the Democrats and liberals are exclusively appealing  to “special groups” of people.  They are free to say, as President Obama did last week, “remember who your friends are” when you vote which, unless political correctness has gotten to the point where the obvious can no longer be thought (much less said) is an assertion that self-interest for these various groups resides in giving their votes to Democrats.

 

In the meantime, what else has happened?  As Meyerson observes, the white working class is not buying into the Democratic or liberal view of the world.  In a country where a little more than 40 percent describe themselves as conservatives, about 30 percent as moderates, and no more than 20 percent as liberal, why is this such a shock.

 

 The 2006 and 2008 elections were NOT the only two elections in modern American history where voters cast informed and intentional votes.  The reality is the voters decided in 2006 that Congressional Republicans had failed to deliver on their promises of limited government and policies favorable to economic growth. 

 

The voters were disgusted with stories of Republican self-indulgence and disreputable personal behavior.  In 2008, contrary to popular belief, despite the endless gushing of the mainstream media and the endless celebration of Barack Obama as the candidate who could put us past the racial divide and bring a new era of “hope and change”,  the election was going the other way.  The statistical fact of the matter is that the weekend prior to the financial meltdown (despite everything that can be said about that election— Iraq , unpopularity of George W. Bush, etc.) it appeared that John McCain was about to win a narrow victory.  Don’t believe it?  Go back and read the opinion columns from liberals in the Washington Post.  They were about to bust at the seams screaming how Obama had not fought back strongly enough against attacks from the GOP; how McCain and/or Sarah Plain were deceiving the voters with lies, and the like.  Then came the meltdown and Obama marched to victory.  It was never the margin the mainstream media wanted to pretend it was.  In addition, there is not a shred of evidence American voters cast ballots for the sort of agenda the President and Congressional Democrats decided to pursue. 

 

Now, fast forward to this election and consider where things stand.  The Democrats, over the open objection of pluralities at worst, majorities at best, marched forward to pass (or attempt to pass) measures the public opposed.  Moreover, critics of the Democratic agenda have been called all manner of things, including racists.  So, we are at a point where independents, particularly white independents, are joining with conservatives to support Republicans.  They are sick and tired of being ignored, neglected, and treated as second class citizens.  They don’t fit into nor do they particularly identify with any of the “special groups” Meyerson identified. They see themselves among a shrinking class of people asked to finance and to support  government spending on programs they don’t want and then being told they are selfish, racist, or both if they object.

 

Here is what people ought to be worried about.  If we are thrust back into the history of our social and political progress to a time when Republicans and Democrats can once again appeal exclusively to certain segments of society, certain classes of people, then we have lost ground as Americans.  It is wrong for the President of the United States to tell certain segments of society to “remember who their friends are,” or that  anything other than a vote for Democrats would be the equivalent of “electoral suicide.”  It is a step backwards.  And it is contradiction of the speech the President gave to the Democratic National Convention in 2004 when he said this is not an America divided by race or ethnicity, but a United States of America .  Balkanizing the electorate isn’t good no matter who’s doing it to whom.  My own fervent prayer is that both sides will decide that we are, indeed, one country, that we are ALL first and foremost Americans and not to be identified by some other characteristic.

 

Where we are today is that in 2010 Democrats are largely (not exclusively to be sure) left with their base of the special interests Meyerson identified.  Republicans, while no longer only a “regional party” (South, thinly populated Midwest , and Mountain West) are regrettably almost solely a party of white voters.  None of this can be healthy over the long-term, and we need all be about the business of seeing what it is that will change the debate in a healthy direction.

 

Editor’s Note: Bill Greener is a founding partner of Greener and Hook, a communications firm specializing in work for Republican candidates and private organizations facing public policy challenges.  Formerly, he headed the political and communications divisions of the Republican National Committee, as well as serving as Convention Manager for the 1996 National Convention.  Greener also has been an executive at International Paper and Wheelabrator Technologies.