I had a good long argument yesterday. (This is a 1944 Chuck Jones propaganda cartoon for FDR, which I found at Hoffmania. The conclusion is at the bottom of this post.)
A young man came to canvass the neighborhood. It’s the fourth time in four years. A different young person each time. This was a Georgia Tech student. He was selling the Georgia Democratic Party.
I wasn’t buying. As you have gathered from my coverage over at Voic.Us, I consider the Georgia Democratic Party to be a joke for one very simple reason.
They don’t stand for anything.
Georgia Democrats lost the state in 2002, and since have been divided into three distinct groups. The only thing they have in common is that they don’t like Republicans, but some can’t explain why:
- Regular Democrats remember having power, when they ruled by muddying differences with the GOP. I consider them a "yeah, but" party.
- Black Democrats have some power, because Republican redistricting assures them some seats. Where their voting power is concentrated, as in Atlanta, DeKalb County and Clayton County, they turn out to be no less corrupt than Republicans.
- Netroots Democrats are thin on the ground. They are spread throughout the Atlanta metro area, and you’ll find pockets in Athens and elsewhere. They believe in something but they are a minority within their own party, thus powerless.
Divide and conquer has long been the Republican strategy of choice, and it works a treat throughout the Deep South. Isolate blacks and give them enough power so the wackos can act with impunity, then use that against the regulars. Brand the Netroots as commies or nigger-lovers. Watch some of the regulars come over and you can disregard the rest.
In Georgia a very nice, very bland gentleman named Jim Martin was flown in at the last minute to be the sacrificial lamb against Sen. Saxby Chambliss, but he’s having a tough time against Vernon Jones, the CEO of DeKalb County. The Emperor Jones’ misrule has been so misogynistic that rich whites are taking an out the GOP gave them a few years ago, creating their own cities and leaving the rest of DeKalb to rot. Jones’ nomination, in other words, threatens any chance Barack Obama might have to win the state.
But this matters little to me, because Martin doesn’t believe in anything. He won’t call idiots like Eric Johnson racists to their face. He won’t directly attack the sprawl politics that are choking Atlanta’s growth. He’ll stand against Iraq now, now that it’s no longer an issue, but he won’t attack the basis of GOP power, and he won’t deliver an alternate vision.
My young friend argued that Roy Barnes, who did challenge the GOP hegemony when he was Governor at the turn of the century, was hammered down for it. But you can’t organize a bottom-up movement unless you’re organizing on behalf of something, I replied, and Georgia Democrats won’t offer any.
There are Southern Democratic Parties which stand for something and succeed. North Carolina Democrats stand for something. Virginia Democrats stand for something. Sometimes even Florida Democrats and Kentucky Democrats stand for something. They don’t run away from their party, they embrace it. They embrace what it stands for, in bad times as well as good. The test, I added, is embracing principles in the bad times, because that’s where real unity comes from.
My young friend didn’t buy it. I hope he has a nice life, in another state. I’d hate to see him beat his head against the wall here.
What can Georgia Democrats stand for?
- Obamaism — For the first time you have a popular Presidential candidate. Stick to him like glue.
- Urban policy — High gas prices are teaching Georgians the hard
lesson of sprawl. They have broken the back of the real estate power,
from which the GOP gets its funding. Now is the time to strike, especially in the suburbs, where people are suddenly realizing they live in an urban place, too. - Water policy — The current drought is demonstrating just how
brain dead our water policies have been for years. We shouldn’t have a
shortage when the region gets 30 inches of rain in a bad year. We don’t
take care of our watersheds. Most of us don’t even know where they are. - Trains — The argument for trains is that they carry more people
and goods with less fuel than cars. Period. Fuel efficiency is national
security. Anyone who stands for sprawl stands for the terrorists. - Technology — Georgia’s technology infrastructure has grown on
the backs of outsiders, people who mainly got their primary education
elsewhere (like my young friend). Our racist education system means a
minority of whites get world class education and the rest drop out.
Like political power, technology must come from the bottom-up. - Ethics — Be ready to attack, and take down, any officeholder of
any party, and any race, who puts an ethical foot wrong. Those out of
power must be the party of reform, and must walk the walk. This also
gives you credibility to go after the other side, which buys power in
plain sight.
You’re supposed to have a $2,300 contribution limit for all races. But
when powerful state legislators get single contributions of $2,300 for a non-existent primary,
and $2,300 for the general, then have a contributor’s family members do
the same, and all a contributor’s corporate shells, it’s easy to get a
$500,000 war chest even when you don’t face opposition for a seat with 100,000 citizens in it. Time to use
that against them.
There is enormous potential for the Georgia Democratic Party. But it
has to stand for something. It has to get its own house in order. It
has to inspire people with local issues, and small contributions. And
it needs to go on the offensive.
That’s not going to happen in 2008. Republicans have nothing to fear
this year, despite the national trends. So racism will grow, both overt
and covert. Corruption will flourish. Sprawl will continue. The air will
continue to get worse, the water worse, transport worse, the economy
worse. We can hope that a Democratic victory in the nation will cut off their water flowing from Washington, but that’s about all.
All because the Georgia Democratic Party stands for nothing. When you stand for nothing you’ll stand for anything.
