There has been a lot of debate here, and throughout the progressive blogosphere about the kinds of issues Democrats can champion that both play well with swing voters in red states, and are true to our core progressive values.
David Sirota has written extensively about a need for a return to the kinds of economic populism that served our party well from Andrew Jackson to George McGovern.
In a recent post, he noted that GOP leadership in the House has again delayed implementation of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) which would require meatpackers to note where the meat they sell was raised.
Republicans oppose it because the multinational meatpackers that
fund their campaigns want the ability to import cheap beef from foreign countries. Survey data has shown that if given the choice, American consumers will support American producers and the resulting demand for American beef could drive up the prices they're forced to pay American ranchers.
Clearly, this benefits ranchers and the rural communities that rely on agriculture for their economic security. But it's also good for consumers, letting people know if their beef comes from US producers, if it's from places that have been exposed to Mad Cow Disease, or if its from a country that engages in deforestation to make room for cattle. It puts transparency in the market and empowers consumers to make their own decisions.
Obviously, this idea comes from the "Made in the USA" label program pushed by the labor movement.
Ranchers have been hit fairly hard in recent years, and they are a constituency ripe for our message. They face market forces that put them at odds with some of the largest, powerful and well connected multinational corporations in the world. They get screwed by forward contracts and collusion among four meatpackers that control 80% of the market. And the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt's rugged individualism has been replaced by the Republican party of Enron, Haliburton and Corporate Greed. Ranchers don't like big government. But they like big business even less. And the Republican party has been brutal to ranchers in recent years. After facing record droughts, the Bush Administration denied emergency relief. Bush has enraged rancher by reopening the Canadian border to beef cattle imports and potentially exposing the domestic beef supply to Mad Cow Disease infected cattle. And they've refused to enforce the antitrust laws against the colluding big meat packers.
COOL has, as you can imagine, a tremendous amount of support in the parts of the country - South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Colorado - where Democrats have won Congressional, Senate, even Governor's races, but where our Presidential candidates have struggled to gain traction. Brian Schweitzer, the newly elected Democratic Governor of Montana, passed a state version of it earlier this year. It's been a big part of the Schweitzer, Herseth, Pomeroy and Salazar brother wins - which were some of the biggest wins for Democrats in an otherwise bleak 2004. And Western Republicans like John Thune, Conrad Burns and Tom Osborne are big supporters of the issue. They like to say that it's a regional bipartisan issue; that it's a "city vs. country" issue.
But that's really not true.
But Bush, Hastert, and the Republican Leadership is very much opposed to COOL because their multinational corporate friends are opposed. Most voters in urban and suburban areas would have no problem with their meat being labeled. In fact, surveys show that consumers want to know where their meat comes from, and if given the choice, they want the opportunity to buy American. Meat labeling is an issue that urban and suburban Democrats can support that helps us in the red states without compromising any of our progressive values. And, importantly, it makes it very clear to a lot of families who have been left behind by the Republican party that their interests would be better served by the Democratic Party. Besides being good public policy, it has the potential to help us keep our seats in North Dakota, South Dakota and Colorado, and help us make Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon more competitive.