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Emerging Democrat Minority II
By Horace Cooper
November 21, 2003

It's been a year since the November 2002 midterm elections.

At this time last year, the serious erosion of the Democrats' national political support was obvious for all to see. The 2002 election was an almost across-the-board loss for them, leading some to suggest the results be taken as a wake-up call, an indication of the need to recalibrate the party's philosophy and message.

Relying on indicia such as predicted demographic changes in the U.S. in the 21st century; the Washington and New York media expert view that America is a 50/50 nation evenly divided; aggressive internet activity and fundraising by leftist organizations such as Moveon.org; and a nascent anti-war movement; Democratic leaders have determined that no course correction is necessary.

And many have argued that they are in fact winning. As Texan Dick Armey would say, "You can't be this wrong by accident."

The 2002 midterm elections revealed a 53-47 national preference for Republicans over Democrats. A crushing blow, it resulted in the GOP retaking control of the U.S. Senate, maintaining and increasing their control of the U.S. House and taking control of a majority of statehouses and maintaining a majority of governorships.

What's changed since then? The GOP has added three governorships to its majority -- in California, Kentucky, and Mississippi. Going in to the 2004 election close to 60 percent of Americans now reside in states with Republican governors, including the four largest -- California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Sadly, the nation's oldest political party's prospects look more like the short-lived Whigs of the 19th century than that of a thriving national organization capable of governing a nation.

A "values gap" that aids the GOP and hinders the Democrats has accelerated the decline of the venerable party of Jackson and FDR.

Some centrist Democrats and party elders including retiring Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., have sounded an alarum, but time is quickly running out. Like the Whigs, the disparate groups that make up the Democratic Party -- union leaders, racial group activists, environmentalists, feminists, economic populists, etc -- find cohabitation with moderate and centrist Democratic Leadership Council types unpalatable and dissolution seems inevitable.

For the better part of three decades, the Democrats have faced a structural disadvantage in the Electoral College, the so-called "GOP electoral lock" made up of states in the South and Southwest that traditionally tilt towards the GOP. Although Democrat's were able to pick the electoral lock three times - once with southerner Jimmy Carter, and twice with Southerner Bill Clinton - they've only received a majority of votes nationwide twice in 30 years - in 1976 with winning Democrat Jimmy Carter and in 2000 with losing Democrat Al Gore. On the other hand, during that same period the GOP has prevailed five times and did so with a majority, four times.

Furthermore the GOP's late 20th century "electoral lock" is becoming nearly impregnable and the troublesome trend for Democrats is that it is expanding to lower ballot offices, starting with the U.S. Senate and spreading to state and local elections.

Just 20 years ago -- even in the wake of losing national presidential elections -- Democrats controlled outright 32 state legislatures and Republicans 11. The ominous winds of change have been blowing ever since. Today Republicans control 21 legislatures outright and Democrats 16, exactly half the number they once did. And the gap looks likely to expand rather than contract.

Rather than acknowledge the structural political disadvantage they face, the Democrats seemed poised to pursue even more insularity and division. In less than six months the Democrats are likely to exacerbate the developing split within their party when its dominant liberal/leftist wing flexes its muscle and selects one of their own as a nominee.

This impresario will likely run on a campaign of revulsion for our nation's mainstream anti-terrorism policies and adopt an enthusiastic embrace of the left's divisive secularist liberal social agenda. If 1994 was America's temper tantrum, 2004 is gearing up to be America's drive-by. Woe unto other Democrats running at the local and state level, because they'll likely get taken out as collateral damage.

The Republicans have a much easier time selling lower taxes, individual responsibility, traditional values and a strong national defense to the typical voter than Democrats have explaining a strident secularism, social schemes that cater to minorities at the expense of equal opportunity, counter-cultural codes of conduct and a remarkable unwillingness to promote America's national security interests.

But the headwind that the Democrats faced in the mid-term elections may seem like a tsunami if trends continue.

The South, once a stronghold for the party of Jackson and FDR, is fast becoming a killing field for Democrats. Today Republicans hold nearly two-thirds of southern House and Senate Seats. In 2004 Senate seats held by Democrats in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia are in danger of flipping to the Republicans.

Due to population growth and related demographic changes, the 12 Southern states including Tennessee that denied Gore a stay at the White House will be worth more -- 168 electoral votes this time -- and will take Bush three-fifth's of the way to re-election, all before winning a single non-Southern state. In Texas alone, the new GOP-controlled Legislature's redistricting plan will likely extend the GOP margin in the House of Representatives.

Things are not much better elsewhere. The Democrats may have established a new stronghold of their own in the Northeast, but it is a poor trade. Recent GOP gubernatorial victories in Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire show that even here the extremism endemic to the Democratic Party can be a big loser.

Rather than respond to the alarm, some suggest this is the low-water mark for Democrats and they are about to start the climb back up. In fact, things can get a lot worse and it looks like they may.

As a brand, the Grand Old Party is proving far more popular in the 21st century than in the 20th. Even as President Ronald Reagan was winning 49 out of 50 states in 1984, he was unable to translate his landslide electoral support to the GOP. That has changed dramatically today. According to a recent Pew Research Center report fewer and fewer people wish to associate with the Democrats. Once the overwhelmingly dominant political party in the U.S., only 31% of Americans now see themselves as Democrats, the weakest position of the party since the dawn of the New

Deal. A national Harvard University survey found that 61 percent of college students - normally a liberal leaning bloc - support Bush and the GOP.

And many of these former Democrats have become Republicans. More troublesome still, these switches have taken place in key swing states that will likely turn an electoral squeaker into an electoral nightmare. Consider: in Minnesota where Democrats traditionally outnumber GOPers, now Republicans have a 3-point registration advantage. In Michigan what was formerly a 7-point Democrat registration advantage has turned into a 3-point preference for the GOP. Similar changes have occurred in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Florida. Except for Florida, these are all states that Bush lost in 2000 in his successful presidential race. And recall that in 2002 Republican Governor Jeb Bush was re-elected in Florida with a 13 point margin and that Republicans control both chambers of the legislature and are poised to pick-up retiring Democratic Senator Bob Graham's seat.

In November 2003 in nearly two-thirds of the country - the areas that some Democrats deride as "flyover land" - Democrats face significant political turbulence that will be nearly impossible to overcome. A victory plan in 2004 predicated on an agenda of pacifism, tax hikes, and counter-cultural liberalism sets up all the needed elements for a perfect storm. Yet Democrats continue to console themselves with the Pollyannaish notion that America is still a 50-50 nation.

Wanting to be the political party for "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" won't fix the problem. Intense preening to ever smaller and more irrelevant special interest groups won't help either. Just as studies of the decline of the Whig Party and such leaders as Henry Clay, William Seward, Daniel Webster, and Horace Greeley reveal dissimilar policies of the party from one state to another and significant differences in character, beliefs, and actions among Whig leaders, the Democrats find themselves increasingly experiencing their own version of political cognitive dissonance. And like the Whigs of the 19th century, who in their quest to maintain relevance by trying to be all things to all people ultimately forfeited any relevance, the Democrats may also be headed to their own political graveyard. On Tuesday November 2, 2004, schadenfreude may be the emotion du jour for many a Republican.

Editor's Note: The first article in this series, "Emerging Democrat minority", written in 2002 can be found by clicking here.

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Horace Cooper , a nationally syndicated columnist is a senior fellow with the Centre for New Black Leadership. He was praised as a key Republican strategist in Elizabeth Drew's New York Times bestseller "Showdown: The Struggle Between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House" and extolled as a "poster conservative" by Michele Mitchell in "A New Kind of Party Animal."