Andrew Warner

The Democratic Party is involved in what we can safely call an identity crisis. As a blogger, and a reader of as many blogs as possible, it is evident the Democratic blogosphere, as well as the individual Democratic blogger, is conflicted by a strange mixture of party criticism and dangerous, blind party loyalty. A discussion has developed over at the Buckeye State Blog that exemplifies the point:

The idiotic mayors need to ask themselves a simple question. When was the last time the big cities delivered a statewide victory for a Democrat in Ohio ? The route to winning statewide in Ohio is no longer through the cities, it's through suburban and rural Ohio. If these mayors think a big tax and spend city platform is going to help deliver suburban and rural Ohio they need more medication.

We aren't going to win general assembly seats in the legislature with a big city platform. We already have those seats. We need policies that work for the rest of Ohioans too. These Mayors are either too blind or too self serving to realize this.

Their threats are empty. Do they honestly think Democrats, black or white are going to cross the isle for someone as radical as Blackwell because Strickland hasn't kissed enough ass ? Not kissing their asses is probably worth more rural and suburban votes than these jokers can deliver in the cities.

If they were genuine they would be working with Strickland constructively instead of running to the papers whining and bitching and issuing veiled threats. Typical loser Democrat mentality.

"Staff" at BSB is a confusing figure. When I first started reading him he was mercilessly criticizing party leadership for supporting Sherrod Brown as opposed to the more colorful Paul Hackett. Here we find him at the throats of mayors who are questioning the out of touch party leadership, the same way he did in his rebellious months, in order to look after the needs of those who put them into office.

What gives?

The beef seems to ultimately come down to a struggle between the interests of the cities versus the interests of the suburbs (where white people hide from minorities).

What is the Democratic Party? Can anyone answer this question any more? Howard Dean himself has struggled through this answer sitting in the hot seat at the Jon Stewart show. It was my understanding that the Democratic Party is the party who looks out for minorities, blue collar workers, labor unions, peace, small businesses, the environment, social justice, and of course, democracy. Though I, as well as anyone who is paying attention, would admit that the party has abandoned these ideas and left fledgling parties and Ralph Nader behind to fight the battle on their own.

Obviously the list above is more likely to coincide with a "big city platform." The city is a hotbed for the groups of people that depend on the representation of Democrats in our broken government. "Staff," who like many Democrats seems more concerned with electability then principle, wants the party to worry less about those who live such lavish lives in the city and instead start looking after the defenseless citizens who reside in the suburbs (I grew up in the suburbs, I know how hard they have it and how much they need the government to save them -- believe me).

What concessions shall the party make? With Strickland you've already given a mandate for the removal of gun control (don't forget he received an A from the NRA), not exactly an urban-friendly move due to the fact that an overwhelming majority of gun deaths happen in the city. Strickland also voted no on raising CAFE standards, a simple measure to improve the environment and air quality. Since the environment is merely a "big government" regulation that puts a heavy strain on the already overwhelmed middle class, there's no need to worry about those ghetto kids choking on their freshly developed asthma.

Aside from Strickland, the party in general has crippled labor, perhaps the most traditionally Democratic voting population, with free-trade agreements and fed into the middle-class hysteria over the "welfare queen" by "reforming" welfare. Any white woman in the suburbs looks towards the black mother who pops out children to increase her welfare checks as the anti-Christ (no matter the fact that that image is a sociological urban legend). No need to go after the welfare kings who get millions in subsidies on the tax payer's tab as long as you can swing a few votes in middle America.


Ted Strickland, the archetype of the Democratic Party's move towards the right, is a lukewarm candidate who wavers back and forth across the center line, whichever way the political winds happen to be blowing that day. At least Republican voters know what they're buying when they cast a vote for J. Kenneth Blackwell: A theocratic crook who denies gays their rights because they live in sin. Ted Strickland on the other hand would respond with something like this: "Gays should be able to get married... I mean have civil unions... I mean, that's okay with you right?"

100 years ago there was hardly such a thing as a "suburb" and this argument wouldn't have existed (perhaps the growing divide between urban and suburban Democrats will insure Republican victories for years to come). As crime, intolerance, and a grab bag of problems continued to grow, white America picked up and abandoned our cities, leaving our urban areas and the problems they helped create behind. Now suburbanites and farmers want to leave those unable, whether by means or by choice, to leave the city behind.... Not just geographically, but politically.

This weak, losing mentality that advocates compromising values to win elections has disconnected the progressive base from the floundering Democratic Party and left our citizens with a strong conservative movement and a watered down group of wanna-be conservatives masquerading as a "third way."

The Mayors of Ohio's cities, of course with the exception of Mr. Go Along to get Along Mark Mallory, are right to try to pull the Democratic Party back to the people it belongs to... Even if those people can't cut fat checks like the "struggling" families of suburban America.

Posted by Andrew Warner on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 11:30 PM | Permalink