Ann replied:
And I don’t know about LA County, but out here in the Big Orange the folks with the fake Calvin’s defiling something, isn’t limited to “The redneck truck-driving, Kid Rock-listening, reality-TV-watching guy.”
And that Ashcroft guy who’s all bashful about the partially nude statutes? Yeah, I’m sure his party is rather attractive to “The redneck truck-driving, Kid Rock-listening, reality-TV-watching guy.”
And, I could be wrong here, but the Labor folks, they pretty much uniformly vote Democratic and I think quite a few of them are “The redneck truck-driving, Kid Rock-listening, reality-TV-watching guy [or gal],” and we’ve reached them rather well. (Although we had to suffer a big spanking awhile back to get the picture.)
And don’t talk to me about military or veterans. No one in my party called multiple amputee Sen. Max Cleland unpatriotic.
Ann, lets take a look at the numbers.
The Times had a great graphic yesterday (not available on the web, dammit) showing the counties in CA and how they broke out for Davis/Simon.
In Southern CA, it was LA and Imperial for Davis. That was it.
All the commuter ring counties, all the places where the blue and pink collar workers who are getting screwed by GOP tax and labor policies?? They went for Simon.
Ask yourself why.
Nixons political masterstroke was to have split the rank-and-file union members off from the union leadership, using race and culture as a lever. A lot has been done to try and bridge that split, but its still wide and deep.
Now on the face of it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for the union folks to go GOP. They are facing huge structural economic problems, and it may not look that way from where you and I live
but Ill tell you that the crisis of the middle manager forced to downsize his lifestyle isnt anything compared to the crisis of the help-desk worker whose job is going to Ireland or the machinist who cant afford to send his kid to U.C.
So while the culture clash is there
think ice sculptures and SkyBoxes
there are real issues there too.
And Im staying the hell out of the Burton/Acidman fight. But you cant paper over the clash of cultures we have within our country with that one.
You saw this email, right?:
From: Peter Kirstein
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2002 1:46 PM
To: Kurpiel Robert C4C CS26
Subject: Re: Academy Assembly
You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honour.
No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra.
You are unworthy of my support.
Peter N. Kirstein
Professor of History
Saint Xavier University.
Ann, if you dont think there is a cultural chasm in this country, (and this email shows is loud and clear) and that the core constituencies of the Democratic party arent sitting on one side of it, youre just not looking.
And while I think the Dems core issues … for justice, for the little guy, for the powerless
should be objectively in the interests of and dammit, they ought to buy us some respect in RedNeck Town, the cultural baggage were carrying
and what was expressed by Jef Malett and echoed by you
shuts us Right Out.
And as part of creating the New Model Democrats that I want to join up with, and that I think can win, we are going to have to find a way across that cultural chasm.
The Times had a great graphic yesterday (not available on the web, dammit) showing the counties in CA and how they broke out for Davis/Simon.
In Southern CA, it was LA and Imperial for Davis. That was it.
All the commuter ring counties, all the places where the blue and pink collar workers who are getting screwed by GOP tax and labor policies?? They went for Simon.
But that’s a trend that’s been building for quite some time – suburbs tend to be more conservative than more urban neighborhoods. And it’s most obvious in metro areas like LA, SD, and (my town) Sacramento, where most new housing developments are of the ‘spread ’em far & wide’ tract mansion type. Blue collar/white collar – it’s not the type of work that matters, but the income level relative to it.
But I’m probably stating the obvious again. And, granted, I’m not too familiar with SoCal political geography beyond ‘urban LA core’ & ‘wealthy valley/OC suburbs’. But the voting breakout you mentioned jibes pretty well with the voting trends I see up here.
Well, in a brilliant maneuver, the Democratic Party has now really shot itself in the foot by making Pelosi House Minority leader.
“Company! Left FACE! To the rear, HARCH!”
Methinks California will have a Republican governor next time around.
That cultural chasm is the defining factor for many voters, including me.
Check out what Washington State’s top Democrat said before the 2001 election:
“[W]hen all those gun nuts and religious nuts from Spokane, Yakima and Moses Lake pile off those buses, we will win in Edmonds and Lynnwood for sure .. If I had your typical Republican activist from Spokane or Vancouver showing up on my doorstep, that would be pretty scary. They’re probably packing heat or the Bible.”
This was followed by a lame apology: “Should I have said it? No. And I apologize if I offended anyone.”
As the (liberal) Seattle P-I put it: If? IF?
Why, exactly, am I supposed to vote for people who hate me so much they feel no hesitation in talking about me that way? This guy still has his job as state Dem. Chairman–and I won’t be voting for Democrats until he’s replaced (no promises after that, either).
Devra:
True, but…those voters ought to be the core Democratic constituency. We traded them for the African-American and university vote in a swap that didn’t have to happen.
Until we can get those voters back, and more importantly — until we have policies that make sense to those voters — we’re SOL.
A.L.
If the Dems wanted union votes, maybe they could actually do something for unions. The DLC (the Dems ruling council) is decidedly anti-union.
Did any national Dem speak out when Bush threatened Taft-Hartley on the longshoremen? No. Now they whine that unions didn’t vote for them?
Pelosi will give the Dems a message. Right now ANY message from the Dems would be an improvement as they haven’t got one now.
Armed Liberal — For what it’s worth, I’ve written a couple of old columns about the divide you’re talking about, here and here.
I think the map you mention may be this one:
http://vote2002.ss.ca.gov/Returns/gov/mapB.htm
What struck me about this was the percentages reported for each candidate as ‘lead vote getter’ in each county. No clear mandate here, so far as I can tell.
Alameda and Contra Costa and San Mateo counties surely are ‘ring’counties – and all 3 went for Davis.
About 40% of union members routinely vote Repoublican. Which is why that Union advantage isn’t as overwhelming as it seems like it should be.
So why would Union members vote Republican:
First and foremost, because many are pro-life. An awful lot of them strongly so.
Second, because a whole hell of a lot of them are gun owners.
Third, because many have no respect for gays or gay rights.
Fourth, because a lot of them go to church and favor things like school prayer, “One Nation Under God,” and “In God We Trust.”
Fifth, because at least some of them aren’t particularly anti-free-trade. (Just ask the Teamsters. Or the NEA, for that matter.)
Sixth: Because a majority of them support the death penalty.
Seventh: Because a lot of them are completely gung-ho on the war and are more likely to punch you in the mouth than vote for you if you sugges that America is an “imperialist” country.
If you don’t get all that, then you don’t understand why Michael Moore is never going to be anything other than a political gadfly, and you don’t get why countless Union voters don’t vote Democratic.
The fact that a lot of ’em resent the taxes they pay, and don’t trust the Democrats’ record on delivering those to them. Why should they?
Here’s the real truth: most working men are FREAKING CONSERVATIVE and can’t stand most so-called “liberals.” Many of them are loyal Democrats because the Democrats support unions–but a lot of those hold their noses when they vote Democrat, and a lot of others just refuse to vote Democrat because they are pro-life, pro-gun, pro-school-prayer, or pro-whatever-else-the-left-hates.
Some of them might even watch The 700 Club, and enjoy it.
The problem here is the assumption that, somehow, making you a Union Member makes you down with the rest of the Democratic Party’s agenda, or the Green agenda, or whatever. Nothing could be further from the truth.
John:
Alameda County (Berkeley and Oakland);
Contra Costa County (Walnut Creek, Orinda, Concord);
San Mateo County (Palo Alto, Mountain View, Woodside);
…are all firmly within the urbanized Bay Area (check demographics and housing prices as a good indicator). You have to go out to Solano or the next further counties to get into the blue & pink-collar suburbs.
A.L.
Did any national Dem speak out when Bush threatened Taft-Hartley on the longshoremen? No. Now they whine that unions didn’t vote for them?
It’s a good thing that they didn’t. I live in a Union Mecca.
Contrary to popular belief, the Detroit Metro area cheered when Bush came out with Taft-Hartley.
Why?
The action of the Longshoreman was threatening union households with long lay-offs. The holiday season would have been a bust and the economy would have tanked further.
I know it seems hard to believe but us blue-collar union people aren’t stupid. We saw that Bush’s action was for the greater good.
Regarding Pelosi: She will drive the Dems further to the Maxine Waters left and if that happens – more americans will feel abandoned by the Dems. They will keep losing seats…
Harold Ford, Jr. is your only hope.