Wake Up, Democratic Party! We're Not Hippies Anymore!
Written by Noel Sheppard
Monday, September 27, 2004


Close your eyes and imagine that you are a second-term Vice President running for the White House who is currently part of an administration that supposedly has created twenty plus million new jobs and has theoretically turned federal budget deficits as far as the eye can see into surpluses with similarly preposterous longevity projections. Moreover, the nation is experiencing a ''booming'' economy as well as a raging bull market, and is in the middle of the longest period of real or imagined peace in decades. Furthermore, you have been a national political figure for almost all of your life while the opposition candidate has not. Given all this, you should win in a rout, right?

Now, after defying the odds by losing what should have been a sure thing, flash forward about four years through a period of relatively poor economic growth in your opponent?s first term, a declining stock market, a return of budget deficits, an increase in unemployment, a war that likely 50% of the nation is opposed to, and a president whose job performance numbers are also hovering around a simple majority. Your opponent can?t possibly win again, can he? If so, how? Well, if you?ll dare to open your eyes now, the answer is simple ? YOUR political party is and has been GROSSLY misinterpreting the priorities of the electorate for many years.



The reality is that there was no logical reason for Gore to lose in 2000 given the condition of our economy and the world at that point in time. Conversely, considering the perception of economic difficulties today, the problems we are currently facing in Iraq, and exploding budget deficits, it is practically inconceivable that Bush even has a chance of re-election let alone appearing from almost all the recent polls to be running away with it. How can this happen two elections in a row?



Well, the Democratic Party at this stage of its existence is increasingly becoming vestigial. Now, clearly, Democrats have not yet diminished to the point of being a third party. However, their leftward movement has become so pronounced in the past few decades that they have completely lost touch with an overwhelming majority of the American people, and are quite at risk of degenerating into virtual irrelevance.



In fact, although a recent Pew Research Center poll suggested that 36% of registered voters are Democrats versus 29% Republicans, only 18% indicate a liberal leaning while 36% state that they are conservative. To be sure, this has likely flip-flopped--with apologies to Senator Kerry--in the past three decades as probably twice as many people in the 1970's considered themselves liberal as conservative.



Now, to a large extent, most political experts and historians have a tendency to pinpoint the beginnings of this demographic shift to 1972 and George McGovern. However, since he did not defeat Nixon that year, it is folly to place the burden on his shoulders. In reality, the true beginnings of the decline in the Democratic Party should be linked to Carter's victory in 1976. Why? Well, due to his success in that campaign, every subsequent Democratic Presidential candidate except for Clinton has basically run on the same playbook--focus on social programs at home while advocating a Dovish foreign policy abroad. Of course, this motif quite worked in 1976, although not for the reasons that the Democrats believed. The fact of the matter is that Carter won not for anything that he did or stood for, but because Ford became the fall guy for Nixon's transgressions.



With that as a pretext, regardless of what your views of Ronald Reagan are, the fact is that he recognized a seed change in the American population that Carter ignored, as have almost all Democrats for the past three decades. What was this change? Well, the draft-dodging, pot-smoking, bell-bottom wearing, anti-establishment Baby Boomers all got haircuts, shaves, bras, and pinstriped suits so that they could find gainful employment that would allow them to raise families, drive nice cars, and, invariably, become part of the very establishment that they had heretofore rebelled against. As a result, they became significantly more interested in saving money on their taxes than saving the whales, and grew more concerned with cleaning up their retirement portfolios than the environment. Furthermore, they no longer perceived the United States as being an imperialistic predator seeking to overthrow foreign regimes for its own financial benefit, and, instead, began viewing our military and defense complex as being an essential element of our own sovereignty and national security. As such, the brilliance and prescience of Mr. Reagan is that he realized this shift very early in the game--hence the creation of the term, ''Reagan Democrats''--and the Republican Party has been largely capitalizing on this very concept ever since. By contrast, most Democrats are still campaigning as if the Baby Boom generation is sitting on beanbags in their dormitories trying to determine whether banana peels really do have psychotropic qualities as they prepare for the next anti-War rally in Sproul Plaza.



What is truly extraordinary about the reticence on the part of the Democratic Party to cognate the facts of this demographic shift in our nation is the reality that there are currently 75 million people in our country born between the years 1946 and 1968. This group represents 26% of the population, 61% of the workforce, and likely pays 75% or more of all the personal federal and state income taxes collected with a similarly high percentage of the contributions to the Social Security and Medicare trusts. Now, Main Street and Wall Street have recognized for decades that this demographic group is a powerful economic and political force. Why haven?t the Democrats?



Oddly, both parties do realize that they need to address the senior population--a group about half the size of the Baby Boomers, mind you--by appealing to their own greed and selfishness. They accomplish this by entering into a bidding war as to which party will better protect and expand Social Security and Medicare benefits. However, for some strange reason, the Democrats view Baby Boomers as being far less concerned with material goods than their parents, and that they'd all happily cede their own financial and personal security for the supposed betterment of mankind even though they have witnessed almost three-quarters of a century of failures in this socialistic endeavor. Given this, it appears that not only are the Democratic leaders misguided about the priorities of the largest voting block in our nation today, but also they are acting as if they are smoking that which deluded many Baby Boomers to become Democrats in the first place.



Wake up, Mr. McAuliffe. We're not hippies anymore!


About the Writer: Noel is a small-business owner and part-time writer residing in Northern California. Noel receives e-mail at [email protected].

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