Democratic Comeback: What--and Who--Could Beat a Republican in a Rural District

Yes, Greg Walden can be Defeated.

Can Democrats win Rural Areas?    Maybe the right Democrat can.

Greg Walden Town Hall Yesterday

(Explanation to readers around the country:  Greg Walden is a Republican incumbent congressman from an archetypal "red state" rural and agricultural part of Oregon.  He was Chair of the GOP committee to elect Republicans to Congress and his reward by GOP leadership was to make him Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.   He has a safe seat, or thinks he does, measured by the fact that Democratic opponents have won about 30% of the vote in their token opposition to him.   He has a big rural district, invaded by enclaves of city folks in upscale resort and medical centers and college towns including Bend, Medford, and Ashland.)

The Washington Post has an article saying it is pretty much hopeless for Democrats.   In the Senate Idaho and Wyoming have just as many votes as do California and New York.  In the House Democrats are strongest in compact districts--cities--where they can easily be gerrymandered into "wasted" votes.

Click Here for the Washington Post article

Democrats have become an urban party of knowledge workers.   That is a problem for them. The archetypal--and therefore caricature--Democrat is a professional woman who went to an elite college and lives in a big city or college town and has a desk job with a multinational company.  She hates guns, she likes mass transit, she drinks expensive coffees, buys food she think is "organic", she reads the NY Times, listens to NPR, watches Rachel Maddow, and she doesn't know anyone who listens to Country music or watches Fox News.   There are not enough of these people to win national elections and there are nowhere enough of them in about 250 of the 435 congressional districts.

The Washington Post is right if the notion of being a Democrat does not change.  But it can change.    If the kinds of policies Democrats stand for are purely defined by a primary electorate that accepts only certain values as "pure enough to be a real Democrat" then Democrats are doomed to lose.  The Party cannot just be the party of Cambridge, Mass. and Silicon Valley.

Democrats need to open up themselves to a little more diversity, and this does not mean racial and religious diversity.  It means diversity of culture and economic backgrounds. Listen to a little Country music.  Lighten up on hating guns.  Communicate more respect for religion.  Embrace patriotism as a value.  Find candidates who get their hands dirty.  Embrace plain talk as a style.

Democrats need to re-orient their thinking if they are going to surprise the Greg Waldens of the US House.   Surprises do happen and can happen as voters react in 2018.  Supposedly secure incumbents lose sometimes when there is a groundswell of angry people and they encounter a challenger running against a person who was solidly and securely in the former establishment.  Those incumbents sometimes fail to note the political ground has shifted.

What kind of Democrat can win?  A progressive populist.

Montana Senator

1.  One who looks like he belongs in the district.  Jon Tester of Montana looks like a farmer.   You don't have to look like this but it would help.  An ideal candidate will look like he or she spends some time outdoors working.  Remember “Joe the Plumber” from nine years ago? He was an early warning signal to Democrats that the Obama coalition was losing those kind of people.

2.  One who is openly and genuinely patriotic.  Patriotism is a moral value.  It has been used to enable aggressive empire building (Napoleon's army) and acts of great humanity, courage,  and sacrifice (Peace Corps, civil defense).  It is a non-partisan value but Democrats have let Republicans act as if they had a monopoly on it.  Donald Trump said his sacrifice for his country was to dodge the draft and invest the family money.  Democrats can do better than that. Democrats can reclaim the flag as a symbol and celebrate the service of people who work to make this country a better, safer, more perfect union.

Democrats should let it go.  Americans like guns.

3.  Quit trying to take away guns.  Democrats like Hillary Clinton think of guns and they think of the Sandy Hook murder of school children.   Democrats need to recognize that lots of people in rural areas fish, hunt, and are part of a gun culture that is harmless. They don’t think “street criminals” when they think of guns. They think of family outings and self defense.   Democrats need to internalize in their heads that when they talk about restricting or banning guns it is understood to be an attack by a clueless outsider.  Imagine a rural congressman who urged that subways, taxi's, and Uber be banned because they are unsafely forcing people who do not know each other into close proximity. The fact that the rural congressman is sincere and passionate only makes things worse. The urbanite would understand that the rural congressman is totally out of touch with how people live in cities.  Urban Democrats need to have some empathy and understand it from the rural point of view.     

But what about the tragic, senseless killings with guns?   Yes, and what about the tragic, senseless deaths and attacks in subway cars, in taxi accidents, and by stoned Uber drivers?    
Rural people think that shootings by deranged young men are rare tragic events and are the random misfortunes of life, rather in the way urban people understand train de-railments and taxi accidents are the rare misfortune of city life.  Democrats who cannot empathize with rural people on gun culture should just let it go and accept it.  Rural Americans like their guns.

Trickle Down is unpopular

4. Criticize establishment Republicans for the unpopular parts of their agenda. Establishment Republicans are inevitably close to the PAC funders in Wall Street, in drug companies, on K Street generally.   Trump showed that distrust of them is bi-partisan.  Republicans have been the money-party.   The Trump tax plan will be some version of trickle down and tax cuts for the wealthy.   Establishment Republicans are sure this is good for America.   The public doesn't agree.   

The public wants Obamacare repealed and replaced with something really great.   The Republican Congress will come up with a plan that will have many, vocal, sympathetic critics.  Greg Walden and his colleagues will inevitably fail at pleasing people with the replacement.  Loud people are ready to point out how the GOP lied and betrayed them,  saying the replacement is an utter disaster.  There will be horror stories.  If it is good it will be expensive.  If it is affordable it will be complicated, just like Obamacare.   If something really great for American health care were easy it would have been done already.  

5. Get government out of our bedrooms.  Describe reproductive freedom as an attack on government meddling and invasion of privacy.  I think the most appealing message is: government should mind its own business.  Greg Walden and Mitch McConnell and the bedroom snoops in Congress know nothing about my family's health and my family's most private reproductive decisions.  How dare meddle in our bedroom?  Oregon just elected a Republican Secretary of State, Dennis Richardson, who has nine children.  I don't meddle in his private decisions.  Republican congressmen should stay out of mine.

6. Stick up for our team.  Do not define "our" team as white people or black people--or for that matter people of any ethnicity.  Ethnic coalitions are divisive and they are a trap that both Hillary and Trump fell into and from which Trump profited.  Define "our" team as regular people getting screwed by the incumbent establishment people who have been in office for a decade while they curry favor with the special interests.  Congress has a favorability rating of about 16%, which is amazing.  Are there really 16% of the people who think Congress is doing a good job?  The Democrat needs to ally him or her self in the fight against an enemy.  Who is that enemy?  Establishment congressmen who have failed us.   Eric Cantor's defeat sent a message to his fellow Republican congressmen.   Leadership doesn't help you.  Now maybe it is Walden's turn to be a cautionary example.

Remember, the rule of thumb:  Your strength is your weakness.  Greg Walden is a GOP leader.  His story is that it makes him a powerful asset for Oregon. The opposite side of that coin is that Greg Walden is chest deep in the swamp.  Cleaning the swamp is a bipartisan issue.   The more powerful Walden is, the worse for him if he fails.  

Greg Walden

7. Stand up for an aroused citizenry.   Donald Trump caught a mood when he projected his populist anger against entrenched bipartisan establishment.   Greg Walden and Hillary Clinton were not truly opposites, from the populist viewpoint.  To a great many people they were both establishment players in a system that is hurting regular Americans.  

A progressive populist does not need to be racist, nor xenophobic, nor illiberal.  They do have to ally themselves with anti-establishment anger, Indivisible and Tea Party both.  Trump showed that there was bipartisan frustration with the establishment.  Trump--and Hillary-hatred--brought Republicans back home to Trump by election day.   Democrats must not run a Hillary-type Democrat against him.  Run a Joe-the-plumber Democrat against him, famed as a people's revolt against the failed swamp dwellers.  Will Republicans still vote their party?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Greg Walden is stuck with the job he sought..  He is busy stalling and urging patience on Town Hall callers, and earnestly promising that if we wait we will be thrilled.  Give us time, he says.   

Notice to Walden:  Nothing will thrill Americans except excellent healthcare.  For free.

Republicans over-promised.

A warning to GOP incumbents

Walden's race could be nationalized.  Democrats and the aroused grassroots of Indivisible want a symbol of GOP inability to govern and failure to fulfill the Obamacare replacement promise.  A credible candidate might elicit crowdsource-type grass root money in big dollars, with Walden as the poster target of GOP failure.  The route would need to start with a credible candidate, $100,000 of quick local money raised, then national visibility. Indivisible may want to make an example out of Walden. If Greg Walden is at risk then everyone is at risk.  Democrats don't need to win the House.  They just need to scare House Republicans with a trophy of the consequences of failure.  The vote would be a referendum on Walden and the GOP establishment.

This potential route starts with a premise: the various interests within the GOP will not allow a dramatic and popular solution to Obamacare replacement.  Republicans will tinker.  People will laugh at its complexity, be disappointed, then get angry.