Republicans have been embarrassed by scandal after scandal,
there’s no end in sight in Iraq, and the president’s poll numbers
are so bad that even the unpopular Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t
be seen with him a few weeks ago.
Republicans have been embarrassed by scandal after scandal, there’s no end in sight in Iraq, and the president’s poll numbers are so bad that even the unpopular Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t be seen with him a few weeks ago.
Does the GOP have the Democrats right where they want them?
Maybe. With the mid-term elections 11 months away, Democrats have done little to dampen hopes of significant electoral gains, despite a gerrymandered electoral map that, at a glance, holds little prospect for success. They are in danger of losing the battle of expectations before the first campaign shots are even fired.
In an op/ed piece in The Hill newspaper Wednesday, Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean stated categorically: “In 2006, Democrats will take back the House and the Senate.” He wrote energetically about the Democratic values he believed would deliver that victory, but offered no actual plan to see it through.
The begged question might be: Is there an existing blueprint for that success? Or put another way: Where are those values actually working?
According to last Sunday’s New York Times (“Out West, Democrats Roam Free”), such a blueprint may well be found in the interior West, where being a Democrat is now “in vogue.”
Increasingly, Democrats are donning bolo ties and looking to the region for clues on how to win elsewhere. The numbers tell a large part of the story.
In 2004 Democrats made their most impressive gains in the West. Brian Schweitzer became the first Democratic governor of Montana in 20 years, and Montana was not even the tip of the Democratic spear. That distinction went to Colorado, where Attorney General Ken Salazar wrested away a previously Republican U.S. Senate seat by beating well-known Pete Coors.
For good measure, Colorado Democrats also grabbed a congressional seat and took over the state House and Senate as well.
Polls since show the West continuing to trend Democratic.
In New Mexico, which Bush won narrowly in 2004, the president’s approval rate is only 40 percent, compared to 63 percent for governor and potential 2008 presidential candidate Bill Richardson.
In Dick Cheney’s home state of Wyoming, Democratic governor Dave Freudenthal’s approval rating comes in at 64 percent, 11 points higher than the president and nine points higher than Cheney.
But the darling of Western Democrats is clearly Schweitzer, a pro-choice, pro-hunting Democrat who currently sports a 68 percent approval rating. That’s nine points higher than President Bush got in the state in 2004, and 25 points higher than Bush has there today.
It’s also, by the by, the highest approval rate in the country among Democrats governors in states that went for Bush in 2004 – higher even than Virginia’s Mark Warner (another likely presidential candidate), where Bush’s margin of victory in 2004 was 12 points narrower (eight points v. 20 points) than in Montana.
Schweitzer’s popularity is evidence that programs that put people first work politically.
His administration is pursing ambitious energy plans to promote wind power, biodiesel and clean coal, as well as a health insurance program that pays 50 percent of the costs for small businesses.
Schweitzer also created a quintessentially Western program to protect the vulnerable during Montana’s brutal winters. “Warm Hearts for Warm Homes” has spurred weatherizing of homes and set up a neighborhood monitoring system. “We have neighbors calling on neighbors,” he told Democrats in neighboring Idaho Tuesday night. “We will not leave anyone behind.”
Convinced that Democrats can unite around, and win with, the principles that underpin such policy choices, Schweitzer told the Idaho Dems that the Republican lock on values can be broken. “I have a philosophy about elections,” he said. “I believe issues divide and values unite.”
What do these plain speakin’, cowboy boot-wearin’, gun totin’, G-droppin’ populists know that Democrats elsewhere can learn? It starts with mutual respect. In the West, where stridency doesn’t pay, no one expects you to abandon your beliefs. But when issues such as gay marriage and abortion come up, you state your piece and move on.
The West is proof that the values Democrats hold most dear – fairness, equity in education and health care, respect for the environment – have allies in unlikely places. When they lose the effete bi-coastal image and learn the robust lessons of Western life – when they speak more like Will Rogers and less like Michael Moore – they win.
John Yewell is a syndicated columnist who lives in Hollister. E-mail him at [email protected].
