A return to the Heartland

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

Look at the Electoral map. Look at the states that have gone Republican, from Virginia through to Texas, across the plains, including my home state of Nebraska, into the Rocky Mountains.

Why are these states voting Republican?
Why is my home state voting Republican?

It sure isn't for Republican programs in those states. If you want to know what Republicans do to Nebraska, check out Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha during the mating season.

But Democratic parties within those states are getting very little backup from the DNC. They are left a day late and dollar short and when the National Party does pitch in, they send some one from Copely Square, Central Park West or Castro Street to talk down to the "socially inferior Middle Americans and Southerners" (This was actually told to me at the DNC by a delegate from San Francisco, "Midwesterners are socially inferior in my view, that is why they vote Republican.")

The Democratic Party has become bicoastal and arrogant. It forgets that progressivism isn't some California trend or some Madison Ave fad. IT WAS BORN AND BRED ON THE PLAINS!

It is time for the Democratic Party to reclaim the frontier. Mary Ellen Lease and Bob LaFollette are looking down on us and shaking their heads right now in disbelief at how we've given the heartland of our country to the robber barons of this new age.

"Our great party needs a program that appeals to the broad electorate without sacrificing the things that make us Democrats-concern for the little guy and respect for everybody's civil rights.

For starters, we can actually start standing up for them. We can't roll over on every action. Plus, we have start calling a spade a spade here. We are the party of the New Deal. We are party of Rural Electrification. We are the party of the TVA. We are the party that built a set of systems that brought about the greatest economic engine in the history of mankind. We need to fuse that with being the party that also did these things and balanced the books in this country after a decade of GOP deficits. We know it, because we've done it. The problem is, WE DON'T SELL IT!

Instead of pointing these facts out. We get bogged down in Gay Marriage, Gun Rights and Abortion. The Republicans are mounting their class warfare and we go along fighting skirmishes that keep our eyes off the prize.

Retro vs. Metro is the game they play. We need to fuse Metro issues and Retro issues, for they are fused, especially in the heartland.

When the farm economy is depressed it hits all of us, even in the cities. When Big Agribusiness wants to push out the family farmer, push out the organic farmer and fast-track genetically altered foods, that effect us in every city and every trendy bistro from Boston to L.A.

When we Leave Every Child Behind, the rural child gets hit just as hard as the child in the urban housing project. If you don't believe me, come with me to Western Nebraska, or the small towns in Connecticut, where I live now. The school face the same problems, same limited resources same unfunding.

When we engage in the military agenda of the Project for the New American Century, it involves our young people. Look at who are soldiers, sailors and airmen. They come from places like Itta Bena, Pulaski, and Beaver Crossing in numbers just a great as they do from Chicago, Brooklyn or Watts.

A century or more ago, the robber barons where beaten because we fused the factory worker, with the farmer, with the anti-lynch leaguers, with the women's sufferagettes. The process began when we found common ground, and the only way we will beat the neoconservatives robber barons today is with the same approach.

Howard Dean wasn't wrong when he said, "I need that white southerner with a confederate flag on his pickup truck." (And I'm a black man saying this.)

I need that man!
Because that man or woman is the person who finding his or her job outsourced. That man or woman is finding the school that the kid go to is underfunded but mandated to do thing under NCLB that they cannot afford to do because the dollars are not there.

The problem is, people engage in the wrong order. Forget about the flag, talk about the green. Talk about the jobs, and the economic development. Engage about where the tax cut really went, and the risk that their children or their neighbor will face in preemptive military adventures. Engage them on the real of the Grover Norquist Playbook for America, and reengage on what our party has done and will continue to do.
We do that, and get it to stick (and it will stick because the conservative agenda can't beat us in a fair fight, they never have!), then we can work on the "flag thing", and this method works. I've seen it. We play the game this way, we can start the Second American Revolution and that can drive a stake through the heart of the neoconservative alliance.

What is means is. We have roll up the sleeve and invade the South and Midwest. We have to come not as missionaries, but emissaries. We have to come to learn as well as teach.
It going to mean we have to hit the Sunday Service. We have to be there. Yeah, it may mean we have to go to gun show, and that NASCAR race, and the chili feed, and whatever.

Some of the posts I've read here have disturbed me as far as the matter of "Christians" and that "Religion sucks."

I am a foot-washin', bible totin', saved by the blood of Jesus Christ BELIEVER! I am also a Democratic voter and the two are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. In fact, one supports the other.

Whether you believe or not, we're not going to get anywhere by such statements. We have to engage, especially those of us who are believers. The "fundamentalist" Christians have forgotten the fundamentals of Christianity.

Those fundamentals involve faith, and action. They involve a concern for the least of these, as the scriptures tells us:

"Matthew 25:42
"For I hungry and you gave Me no food. I was thirsty and you gave Me no
drink; I was a stranger and you did Not take me in."

Matthew 25:44
"Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or
sick in prison, and did not minister to You."
Matthew 25:45
"Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the
lease of these, you did not do it to Me."

Democrats, we have lost an election. It is painful. Myself, I've been crying a little this morning. It hurts to lose, and this one really hurts because when you look at our product compared to theirs ours is better.

But we cannot do that by just hoping win just enough to get 270 Electoral Votes. We need to become a national party again. We need to repudiate the agenda of the neoconservatives from Maine to Maui. It is unamerican to the core of its beliefs, and the numbers prove it, the history proves it. We need to put blue on the map in every regions.
If the democratic party continues to believe that we can put blue in corners and the cities and let the rest of America go red, we can get used to feeling like this every two to four years.

Flyover country WON this election for George W. Bush because they held a referendum of the bicoastal arrogance of the Democratic Party, period.

It's time for our Party to go from the mentality of "Flyover Country" and into the mentality of "Drop Zone Country".

It's time to return to America's Heartland.

[Romulus]

1. great post!

Like I was telling someone this morning, as long as the Dem party is seen as Feinstein/Kennedy/Schumer all the time, every time, people outside of CA/MA/NY/IL are going to have a knee-jerk reaction against the national Dem party.

We need a return to populism and being party of the little guy. Look at how much Mikulski won in MD - 75% of the vote, and Kerry only got 55% of MD's vote. The paper this morning had interviews with Repubs who voted Mikulski *because* she was "for the little guy." Look at how much of the country voted for Big Dog Clinton - the ultimate "little guy" who did good.

[NYCGirl]

2. Bravo. You get it.

[wakfs]

3. Awesome post!

You are dead on. The Democrats need to redefine themselves in a way that appeals to all Americans.

I believe it can be done, but not with the current leadership of the Democratic party.

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

5. Its not a matter of redefinition

It is going back to what we've always been. It is about defending what we've always fought for, and doing it in every region of this country.

Look at those red states. Many of them are under the budget crunch. Many of them have some of the poorest pockets in our country.

6 of the poorest 40 counties in the USA are in my Nebraska. Why did they vote 80-85% Republican.

Mississippi is our union's poorest state and it voted overwhelmingly Republican.

Look at West Virginia and Ohio. Hard hit by the Grover Norquist "Reccession By Design/Deficit By Design" program. Both of them went Republican.

Why? Becuase we've allowed the Republican party to miscast themselves in the role that we Democrats have always played.

We've allowed them to define us as a party not for the average American, and the sad thing is we've helped them do it.

People vote again their interests, because they don't realize it. And we haven't done the job of making the case.

[MuseRider]

4. Nice.

I don't believe I have had the pleasure so welcome to DU. I am in Kansas. There were quite a few of us who spoke to these issues during the primaries and just after but it really went nowhere. I agree with most of what you are saying but for right now I have no wish to engage with the christians. I am one but I feel like they have engaged us far too much. When I stop feeling assaulted by the "whack job christians" I may be able to feel somewhat more apt to engage with the others but for now it is not something I am willing to do. I truly fear theocracy.

To be clear, I am not calling you or most of you "whack job christians" but they are out there and are in your face. Those are the ones I fear. It is not emotionally possible for me right now to engage in anything religious outside of my own personal thoughts.

[Kimber Scott]

6. Great post, but you're talking issues and this election was not won on

issues. It was won on "values." So, do we take a pro-life, fundamentalist, anti-gay position? Is this what we have to do to win?

People aren't voting on the fact their jobs have been sent overseas. People aren't voting on their farms being forced into bankruptcy.
People aren't voting on the fact there is not money behind "No Child Left Behind," or the fact the "Clear Skies Initiative" is nothing more than a free ride for polluters.
People aren't voting on the fact over 1200 of our children have been sent to their deaths for a lie.
People aren't voting on the fact there are more weapons of mass destruction around the world today, than there were four years ago.
People aren't voting on the cost of a loaf of bread, or a gallon of gas, is becoming increasingly more prohibitive.
People aren't voting because Social Security is on the verge of collapse, or because millions upon millions of Americans have to choose between food and medicine and millions die for lack of preventative health care because of no health insurance.
People aren't voting because other people from around the world are getting their heads sawed off with steak knives because we are trying to steal the head-sawers country.

Nope. People are voting on the fact they have to watch men and women kiss each other on the news and that some poor woman somewhere might get an abortion.

How can we fight that? Maybe, the only way to turn a red state blue, is for us to move into it.

[ChipperbackDemocrat]

7. We're not making the case

The election become a "values" debate because in most of RedAmerica, the Republicans are the only people at the microphone.

It is time for our party to reengage in the south and the midwest. The locals are pinned down and need reinforcement from a national effort, and we are all that effort from the leadership down.

Kimber, that is how we fight it. 1. WE HAVE TO BE THERE 2. WE HAVE TO SELL WHO WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN, WHAT WE'VE DONE, AND WHAT WE BELIEVE, PERIOD.

Its not a "pro-life, fundamentalist, anti-gay position."
Its about pro-jobs, pro-education, anti-poverty, anti-ignorance, positive world leadership, anti-discrimination position.

That is who we are. That is who we've always been. Its time to be that again.

[Kimber Scott]

12. Well, I live in a Red state and I got the message.

I understand the pro-jobs, pro-education, anti-poverty, anti-ignorance, positive world leadership, anti-discrimination message. Why did my neighbors get the gay marriage and abortion message?

My son's co-worker got mad at him when he said he was voting for Kerry. He told my son Kerry only went to Vietnam for two weeks and then lied to get a Purple Heart.

My future daughter-in-law's entire family went to the polls to vote for Bush because Kerry is pro-abortion and gay marriage. (They're Mormons, so I must assume this is the directive put out by the church.)

My classmates at ASU said they were voting for Bush because Kerry is a flip-flopper.

My parent's long-time friends voted for Bush because he is the only one who can protect us from the terrorists.

My husband didn't vote for president, (my husband's black, too), because Kerry is too "liberal" and if he voted for Bush I might have left him. (I wouldn't, but I sure thought about it. Not because of Bush, but because it would prove a huge gap in our thought processes, values and ideology.)

So, here's what I believe. I believe we have the message. We have the right platform. We have the TRUTH! We've been talking about it until we're blue in the face but nobody hears it over the din of wedge issues being flung out across the Plains by the corporate media and the Republican lying machine.

Bush himself made this an "us versus them" proposition. We didn't do it. Bush made this a city versus country fight - a Hollywood versus Cornville fight. Our entire convention was based on inclusiveness. Theirs was based on hate and divisiveness. Hate is the most powerful emotion in the world. Maybe, we just didn't hate Bush as much as the Midwest hates gay people? And now we're doomed to another four years, at least, of having a president who only serves part of our America - rich, white-bread America. He doesn't care about poor, in-bred America (his base), or any of the rest of us.

How do you fight the lie?

[SaintLouisBlues]

11. I agree it was the values

The gay issue is bigotry that can be spoke of. The racism looms even larger.

Open racists here call the Democratic Party the *igger party.

Watching the movie Mississippi Burning recently one line really struck me. The Yankee FBI agent (Willem Dafoe) wondered why the poor whites hated Blacks so much. The good-old-boy FBI agent (Gene Hackman)
says: "If you aren't better than the *iggers, who are you better than?

[Cat Atomic]

8. The "heartland" votes conservative because it's full of bigots.

That's why. It's full of people who hate gays more than they love their job. People that hate blacks more than they love the Constitution. That's why they vote conservative.

The only thing that's going to wake them up is another Great Depression. And that's exactly what they're going to get. When the pain in their empty gut is louder than the hate in their empty heads, they'll stop voting conservative.

[madrchsod]

9. you are right

but nothing will be done about it....

[madrchsod]

10. every little town out here is with in the range

of a right wing radio broadcast-24 hours a day -7 days a week and they listen to nothing but right wing dogma. there is nothing that can be done about this. cracker america is being bled dry by the thieves in the whitehouse-"rain on the scarecrow-blood on the plow"

[Kimber Scott]

13. Kick