Lots of conservative pundits have tried to spin their defeat by claiming that many of the newly elected Democrats that are soon to take office on capital hill are conservatives, or that they at least ran as conservatives. However, their claim is at best half correct. While it may be true that many of our newly elected Democratic members of Congress are moderate to conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage, most of them are staunchly populist when it comes to economic issues. Most of our newly elected members of Congress make no bones about differentiating themselves from the GOP on key issues such as unfair trade agreements, the minimum wage, the ever growing gap between the haves and have nots in this nation, and tax breaks for super rich corporate executives.
More below the fold . . .
For further examination of the idealogy held by our newly elected members of Congress, lets examine our six newly elected Senators. First of all, it should be noted that at least two and perhaps three of the six newly elected Senators would be considered both social and economic liberals. Certainly Sheldon Whitehouse and Sherrod Brown fall in this camp, and Clair McCaskill arguably falls within this camp as well. The fact that Sherrod Brown won as a liberal by a comfortable double digit margin in the critical swing state of Ohio should scare the hell out of GOP strategists!
While it is true that John Tester, Bob Casey, and Jim Webb could all be considered moderate to conservative when it comes to social issues, the same can not be said of them when it comes to economic issues. All three of these candidates ran as economic liberals. All three of these candidates oppose unfair trade agreements that hurt American workers. All three of these candidates favor a long overdue increase in the minimum wage. All three of these candidates favor repealing at least some portion of the tax breaks that Bush has passed for his millionaire buddies. Finally, all three of these candidates highlighted the growing disparity in wealth as well as the shrinking middle class as one of the major problems facing this nation. In short, while these candidates were certainly not running as liberals, they were not running as corporate DLC style Democrats either.
Compare these six success stories to the unsuccessful campaign of Harold Ford Jr., who I actively campaigned for. Although Harold Ford Jr. held many of the same views as Tester, Webb, and Casey highlighted above, he did not emphasize economic populism or the plight of the middle class and poor in his campaign. Instead he focused on his "values" as a conservative Christian democrat. He did talk some about raising the minimum wage and making college more accessible, but he didn't talk at all about fair trade practices, the shrinking middle class, and the growing disparity in wealth. Rather than emphasizing the fact that we stand for the working class America while the GOP stands for corporate America as these other candidates did, he largely bought into the GOP's framework and tried to portray himself as a full blown Conservative so as to minimize the differences between him and Bob Corker on issues. He then tried to win the election by claiming that he was more competent than Bob Corker, by highlighting the thousands of unanswered 911 calls while Corker was mayor, the fact that Bob Corker hired illegal immigrants to work for his company, the fact that Bob Corker engaged in corrupt land deals made by, and the fact that Bob Corker served in Governor Don Sundquist's cabinet. (Don Sundquist was a very unpopular Republican Governor who left office with an approval rating of less than 20% in 2002; he was succeeded by Governor Phil Bredesen).
While I agree that Harold Ford had to run as a social moderate/conservative to win in Tennessee, I don't think that he had to run as an economic moderate. He should have done more to differentiate himself from Bob Corker on economic issues, just like Tester, Webb, and McCaskill did. If he could have convinced enough Tennesseans that he would stand up for working class Tennesseans and that his opponent Bob Corker would only stand up for corporate Tennessee, he could have probably won this state.
So what does all of this mean? The key to victory for Democrats in elections to come including the upcoming 2008 Presidential election, is tapping into the economic populism that is brewing out in the heartland of this great nation! We may have to downplay our differences on social issues such as gun control, abortion, the death penalty, and gay marriage in order to win national elections and/or elections in red states. However, under no circumstances do we have any excuse for downplaying our differences on economic issues. Instead we must emphasize our differences with the GOP in this area. Personally I think that it is time to implement New Deal 2.0!