Regionalism and the Democratic Party

After the 2004 elections, the cry went forward that the Democratic Party as a majority party was dead. This echoed Zell Miller’s book, A Majority Party No More. This sentiment was somewhat furthered in an article,
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8954, by Michael Lind. Mr. Lind’s article is a brief history of political parties in the United States during the past two centuries. It offered, among other the things, that the Democratic Party needs to find a Midwestern candidate who has a connection to New England, the Pacific Northwest, and the south. He also noted that New Englanders who ran as Democrats after Kennedy have failed in their presidential bids and that Clinton and Carter, both southerners, were successful only because of Ross Perot and the fallout from Watergate respectively. He further states that Democrats should embrace a particular stand on social and economic issues that appeal to the center majority. He feels that blacks, Latinos, and gays are the heart of the democratic party in metropolitan areas joined with New England liberal types. All of his observations may be true, but I believe there is something else afoot. This post will offer a few observations in that regard.

What I offer is that there is a degree of intolerance in America’s electorate that is devoid of reason where it concerns individual choices or differences. Democrats have had the misfortune of not providing the essential message of their beliefs. Democrats believe in the rights of every individual whoever or whatever they are. They don’t pick and choose worthy people because of their region, their religion, or their beliefs about social and economic issues. If you are a human being, you belong in the Democratic Party - period. Democrats have been able to vote for Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton who won and for Stevenson, Humphrey, McGovern, Dukakis, Carter, Gore, and Kerry who lost. On the Republican side, the Republicans who won are Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. The losers were Dewey, Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, and Bush I. Bush II would have been a loser were it not for the Supreme Court’s interdiction. The New Englanders were Roosevelt, Dewey, Kennedy, Dukakis, Kerry and Bush I. The southerners were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Gore, and Bush II. The Midwesterners were Truman, Eisenhower, Stevenson, Ford, and Reagan. Goldwater and Nixon were from the West.

Candidates from all parts of the country have run either to win or lose the presidency. Thus it is that it is not the candidate’s regionalism, but rather the mood of the regionalists who vote that determines the outcome of an election. I was born a southerner and a member of the minority racially, but was educated and reached my maturity as a Midwesterner while, during my last thirty plus years, I have lived as a southerner. I believe in the principles of the Democratic Party and always will.
I chose to live in the south because of its aura and weather, not because of its politics. Southerners tend to adhere to their past and are loath to get rid of it. Southern Democrats felt betrayed by the Democratic Party because of the Civil Rights Movement and betrayed by the Republican Party because of the Civil War and its aftermath, thus they have vacillated between the two. In the end they will always go the way which they feel with best serve their traditions. Their current refuge is in the religious tradition. Simplicity with elegance is what attracts them most. The present Republican Party has crafted a party that is different from the party of Lincoln and also different from the party of Roosevelt. A political party cannot survive as a party of religion because the two simply don’t belong together. A person’s religion is with them from birth, while a political party affiliation deals with the rhetoric of the day.
Republicans of the present decry Hollywood, the mainstream media, unions, lack of family values and the host of other ideas that are not rooted in religious tradition. They espouse morally acceptable programs in the media, schools, and the general public, but in reality, Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, Desperate Housewives, and Hollywood movies are more popular in the south than anything else. Southerners know that Roosevelt’s New Deal was good for them as well as was the influx of Eastern (New England) economic ideas. That economic success allowed them to return to ideas of simplicity and elegance that existed during the ante-bellum period. They justify their nostalgia through religious dogma because it allows them their heritage of traditional values. They know that their current political ideas don’t really jibe with what is actually written in the Bible.

What the Democratic Party needs to do is to engage Southerners where they are ad where they want to be and, in that process, show them that Democrat principles allows for change where essential while maintaining a tradition which allows freedom of religion as well as social and economic success.

Organization is Key

Though it may not seem so, the democratic party in Washington County is at a crossroad. The State Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia met on May 21, 2005 in Atlanta. The outcome of the meeting and whether or not Washington County was represented is not known. The party organization here is inert. There are enough people here who are interested in democratic party principles to move forward.

Washington County only has enough registered voters to have one county delegation in the state party structure according to the Democratic Party of Georgia By-Laws. If we Washington County Democrats don't demand appropriate representation at the state level, we are going to be left out and our voices will not be heard at any level. I urge every registered Democrat in Washington County to visit

http://www.webspawner.com/users/localpol.html

and sign the guest book to begin an effective base for Democratic Party principles in Washington County. I believe that we can work with the current hierarchy to move forward. We can't just sit here and be inactive as voters lose interest in our party.

The webpage shown above is not in anyway sanctioned by any official party organization, but rather is just the genesis of a site that could provide information and direction. It, of course, can be removed and another created in its stead. We can do this if we have the will.

Parallels

Over the past few days, there have been demands from some quarters to have Jennifer Wilbanks (the runaway bride), repay the costs accrued by law enforcement for a fruitless and needless search. The mayor of Duluth, Georgia has indicated publicly that her office is considering doing just that. If it is meritorious for her to pursue such an endeavor as many have suggested, then is it meritorious for the Congress of the United States to pursue the recovery of some 300 plus billions of dollars (less costs for Afghanistan) spent on the fruitless and needless search for WMD in Iraq. The obvious purveyors of the search are: President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former National Security Advisor Condeleezza Rice and their underlings and minions.

Those in defense of Ms Wilbanks say that she did not ask law enforcement to spend any money to secure her whereabouts and that the only thing she is guilty of is giving a false report to authorities about being kidnapped. Her detractors claim that, since she is an adult, she should have been cognizant of the the outcome of her actions and should pay the costs. If the latter argument wins the day, then the aforementioned adminstrative officials ( being that they are adults and should know the consequences of their actions) should be held responsible for the costs of the fruitless and needless search for WMD incurred during the Iraqi Freedom War. Perhaps Paul Wolfowitz's elevation to the World Bank is the beginning of the payback to the U. S. Treasury especially since he said that the Iraqi oil revenues would absorb those costs. What the administration believed or knew is not the point. The point is that responsibility for costs belong to the perpetrators.

My Party

The Democratic Party in Washington County needs to get a move on. The local party's organizational structure is in disarray or nonexistent. The direction of the local party is unknown and I see no efforts to get it moving in any direction or moving at all. I have some questions:

Who are the chapter's officers?

What is our status with the state and national organizations?

When do we meet?

Where do we meet?

What are our plans for upcoming elections?

Who are the candidates we support?

What is the status of our finances?

What are our principles?

Do we have adopted and approved bylaws?

The list could go on. The point is that right now we are treading water at best and at worst we are drowning. In today's political world, a party organization must be proactive. We don't have anything going on. Anyone who would be willing to put forth an effort to strengthen our local chapter simply doesn't have a place to go or a template to follow.