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National Defense & Version of this
Homeland Security DLC | Blueprint Magazine | December 13, 2004 Article

Foreign Policy Heartland Strategy Send this Article

Democrats can't be a national party if they cede all to a Friend
Economic & Fiscal
Policy
of red America to the GOP. They must compete in the
heartland. Here's how they can do it.
Trade & Global Markets
Energy & Environment By Will Marshall

Health Care

Technology & Poring over the 2004 electoral

Innovation map has been a deflating
The New Economy experience for Democrats, what
Work, Family &
with all that red splashed across
Community the nation's vast interior. But
cartography need not be destiny --
National Service & Civic
Enterprise not if Democrats finally get serious
about rolling back the GOP's
Quality of Life
scarlet tide in America's heartland.
Crime & Public Safety
Political Reform Just as Republicans pursued a
Southern strategy in the late
The Parties
1960s, Democrats should craft a
News Table of Contents
heartland strategy that targets
The Vital Center
winnable states in the South, the lower Midwest, and the
Congress
Rocky Mountain West. At the very least, a heartland strategy
Interest Groups would wreak havoc behind enemy lines. Done right, it could
Campaign Finance help end the Democrats' cultural estrangement from their
Polls natural constituency -- the working middle class -- and start
America by the bringing them back home.
Numbers
Talking Points A Democratic heartland strategy would build on the Kerry
Education campaign's big advantages on economic and domestic
issues like health care; tap growing public discontent with a
big-spending, debt-laden federal government controlled
entirely by Republicans; offer a distinctly Democratic
alternative on national security; and challenge the GOP's
claim to be the party of moral and family values.

Some Democrats have called for a less ambitious strategy

that writes off large chunks of red America, specifically the

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South and the Great Plains. They would concentrate instead

on the Southwest, with its large Latino population and
burgeoning metropolitan centers. Their electoral math works,
but just barely.

For example, if Democrats spot their opponents the 11 states

of the old Confederacy, they'd have to win 70 percent of the
nation's remaining electoral votes to capture the White
House. That leaves an awfully thin margin of error. And
given that one-third of the nation's voters live in the South, it
means Democrats would be likely to lose the popular vote
even if they eked out a victory in the Electoral College, not to
mention ceding the Republicans permanent control of
Congress.

There's just no way around it: Democrats have to be

competitive in every region of the country to be a true
national party, and they have to win more states to have any
hope of consolidating a durable governing majority in the
future.

The heartland strategy begins by choosing likely targets for

Democratic gains. Let's go to the map:

President Bush won 31 states, 14 of them with 60 percent of

the vote or more. Take those 14 crimson states off the table.
Of his remaining 17 states, Bush won nine by single-digit
margins. These include three Southern states (Florida,
Arkansas, and, surprisingly, Virginia), three Midwestern
states (Ohio, Iowa, and Missouri) and three Rocky Mountain
states (New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado). Altogether,
those nine states have 103 electoral votes. To win the next
presidential election, assuming no further erosion in the blue
states, a Democratic candidate would have to win about 20
percent of those votes. And by targeting these states and

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contesting them vigorously, Democrats would enhance the

prospects of boosting their popular vote and sweeping more
Senate and House candidates into office.

Drawing on the same deep-pocketed investors who fueled

the spending of "527" groups, the party should launch a
concerted, four-year push to recruit and support strong
candidates for statewide and federal office in those states. It
should pump resources into state parties and concentrate
advertising and voter registration efforts there. And to craft
messages with proven heartland appeal, the party should
pay special attention to the Democratic governors who have
thrived in several target states: Mark Warner of Virginia, Tom
Vilsack of Iowa, and Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

But more than anything else, a heartland strategy must

grapple with the two biggest obstacles to Democratic
success in the red states: doubts about the party's stances
on national security and moral and cultural values.

National security gap. From beginning to end, national

security was the overriding issue in the 2004 elections. It
furnished Bush with his strongest argument for re-election,
and it was why the Democrats turned to Sen. John Kerry, a
decorated Vietnam veteran and senator with deep
experience in foreign affairs, rather than the anti-war
candidate, Howard Dean. Concerns about terrorism and war
undoubtedly contributed to Bush's sharp gains among
women, especially a 10-point swing among white working
women. It wasn't just "moral moms," but also "martial moms,"
that pushed Bush over the top.

While Bush ran mainly on his reputation for steadfast

leadership in the war on terror, Kerry hammered away at the
administration's costly blunders in Iraq. In the end, however,
Democrats failed to make the race a referendum on Iraq.
Exit polls showed that the voters ranked Iraq fourth in
importance, after moral values, the economy and jobs, and
terrorism. While most voters agreed that things were going
badly in Iraq, they still approved the decision to go to war by
a 51-45 margin. Nor were they convinced by the Democrats'
claim that Iraq was a sideshow; by 13 points, voters said Iraq
was part of the larger war on terror.

In fairness to Kerry, it's unlikely that any Democrat could

have overcome two huge advantages Bush enjoyed on the
security front. First, his party was united on Iraq, while
Democrats, and especially independents, were divided.
Second, the 9/11 attacks transformed Bush's presidency,
enabling him to bank an immense sum of political credit for
directing America's response to al Qaeda. By an 18-point
margin, voters said they trusted Bush more than Kerry to
handle the war on terrorism.

Fortunately for Democrats, the next GOP presidential

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contender won't have these historic advantages. But since

the wildfire of jihadist terrorism isn't likely to be extinguished
anytime soon, Democrats need to work hard over the next
four years to close the confidence gap between the two
parties on security.

In keeping such a tight focus on Iraq, the Kerry campaign

missed an opportunity to offer voters a broader, distinctly
Democratic vision for victory over Islamic fanaticism. The
party needs more than a critique, it needs a credible
alternative to Bush's belligerent unilateralism. It needs an
updated version of the Kennedy-Truman tradition of
muscular internationalism, which combined military strength
and the will to use it with an equally strong commitment to
collective security.

Let's face facts: America is at war, and the public isn't yet
convinced that Democrats have the stomach for the fight.
Democrats themselves seem unsure of their true identity:
Are they the anti-war party or the party of tough-minded
liberals, the party of Gov. Howard Dean or the party of Sen.
Joe Biden? Resolving this ambivalence is essential to
making headway in the heartland states.

Like the liberal hawks who fashioned America's winning Cold

War strategy, today's Democrats must demonstrate that they
are tough enough to wage an aggressive war on Muslim
extremism, and smart enough to enlist influential allies and
international institutions in that fight. Annual surveys by the
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations make clear that most
Americans are instinctive internationalists. They agree with
Democratic arguments that the United States should lead
the wider democratic community and not go it alone in the
world.

But Democrats must also recognize the limits of

multilateralism. The quest for consensus often dilutes the
international community's will to act, as we've seen in the
Darfur region of Sudan. While Kerry was certainly right in
pledging to rebuild America's strategic alliances, Democrats
shouldn't just plead with our allies to support us on Iraq.
They should also challenge our allies to join the United
States in creating more effective ways to stop terrorism and
proliferation -- for example, by creating a new anti-terror
NATO focused on the greater Middle East, toughening their
stance on Iran's nuclear ambitions, and launching a major
trade initiative to bring the economically isolated and
stagnant Middle East into the global economy.

Having alienated our natural partners and much of world

opinion, Bush and the Republicans can't lead the democratic
nations in building a new collective security system for the
age of terror. Democrats can.

They can also reclaim their historic role as the party that

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stands up for individual liberty, human rights, and democracy

around the world. It's true that Bush has made democracy
his mantra for the Middle East, much as he has prescribed
tax cuts as the remedy for whatever ails the U.S. economy.
But it would be a huge political mistake, as well as a
monstrous irony, for Democrats to cede Bush the high
ground of liberal values in foreign policy. After all, he only
stumbled on the democracy rationale belatedly, after
weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize in Iraq.
Now he risks discrediting democracy by offering it as a
panacea for the region's ills, and by linking it with his
administration's overreliance on military force to achieve its
security goals, as well as its close ties to Saudi Arabia and
other autocratic regimes.

Democrats understand that spreading economic and political

freedom in the greater Middle East is essential to breaking
the deadly nexus between corrupt, repressive governments
and Islamic extremism. Unlike the Bush administration,
however, they can offer resources rather than slogans, win
the cooperation of allies and international institutions that
can add legitimacy to such efforts, and apply a single
standard for democracy and human rights throughout the
region.

The right security policies, however, can only take

Democrats so far. Heartland voters want to know what's in
their hearts, not just in their heads. For them, patriotism and
national pride are core cultural values -- and they associate
those values more with Republicans than Democrats.

Most rank-and-file Democrats, of course, are just as patriotic

and zealous about vindicating our national honor as any
Republican. But let's be honest: Cultural elites with influence
in the party often give off more than a whiff of fashionable
anti-Americanism. They tend to equate patriotism with
jingoism, see America more as a global bully than as a victim
of a terrorist conspiracy, haul out the tired Vietnam metaphor
anytime U.S. troops encounter difficulty abroad, and are as
hypercritical of America's faults as they are forgiving of those
of our adversaries.

Take Iraq. It's one thing to say, as many thoughtful

Democrats do, that the war in Iraq was a mistake. But it's
quite another to depict it as the expression of a new U.S.
imperialism, or as a Bush family vendetta, or as a plot to
grab Middle East oil, or, most ludicrously of all, as a pretext
to enrich Halliburton. What leftish elites smugly imagine is a
sophisticated view of their country's flaws strikes much of
America as a false and malicious cartoon. And while
heartland voters may be too reluctant to hear reasoned
criticism of U.S. policies, they are essentially right in
believing that America has mostly been an indispensable
force for good in the world. So let the glitterati in Hollywood
and Cannes fawn over Michael Moore; Democrats should

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have no truck with the rancid anti-Americanism of the

conspiracy-mongering left.

Values voters. It's not enough to convince working

families that Democrats will make them safer and take
America's side in overseas conflicts. A winning heartland
strategy must also reassure them that Democrats share their
values.

It's too much to say the 2004 election was won in America's
churches, but "values voters" did turn out in strength on Nov.
2, sharply boosting GOP turnout in key battleground states
like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Almost one-quarter of
the electorate said moral values were their top concern, and
80 percent of those voted for Bush. The Republicans made
gay marriage their wedge issue of choice and apparently
used it effectively to mobilize Protestant evangelicals. But
Bush also carried the Catholic vote (against a Catholic
opponent) and made inroads among orthodox Jews,
although that may also have reflected his staunch support of
Israel.

The electorate divided along the same cultural fault lines as

in 2000, as white men, the devoutly religious, and married
families with children voted Republican, while secular and
unmarried voters and minorities voted Democratic. The
trouble is, there are more voters on the GOP side than the
Democratic side of those divides. If they want to avoid
getting blanked again in red America four years from now,
Democrats had better devise a strategy for narrowing these
cultural gaps.

There are two things, however, that Democrats shouldn't do.

The first is to embrace culturally conservative positions. On
the contrary, Democrats should continue to press for stem
cell research, block any Bush administration attempt to pack
the Supreme Court with anti-abortion judges, and, in
general, stand up to a dogmatic and intolerant strain of
religion that seeks to impose its moral vision on the rest of
us. Democrats should keep in mind that Bill Clinton won a
dozen red states in 1992 and 1996, with essentially the
same positions as John Kerry. But Clinton's humble origins,
overt religiosity, and cultural empathy with working families
allowed him to bond with middle America in a way the
Massachusetts senator couldn't.

The other pitfall Democrats should avoid is trying to trump

cultural populism with economic populism. It drives liberals
crazy that downscale voters who don't benefit much from
GOP economic policies nonetheless backed Bush on cultural
grounds. But since most voters don't neatly
compartmentalize their ethical and economic concerns,
simply turning up the volume on anti-business and class
warfare themes isn't likely to change their minds. And
heartland voters aren't likely to miss the unflattering

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implication that they're too dim to realize where their best

interests lie.

Instead, Democrats should do

a better job of linking their
economic interests and moral
outlook. In his 1992 campaign,
Clinton wove personal
responsibility and middle-class
opportunity into a single
narrative that promised to
reward families that "work hard and play by the rules" and to
oppose policies that entrench unearned privilege. He spoke
of honoring work and family by ending welfare as a way of
life and supplementing the wages of low-income workers.
He called for national service as a way to balance the rights
and duties of citizenship, and to replace the politics of
entitlement with a new ethic of reciprocal responsibility. Four
years later, Clinton's proposals for school uniforms and
television V-chips struck a resonant chord with middleclass
families trying to shield their kids from pop culture.

Since then, Democrats have had little success in challenging

the GOP's claim to be the party of "family values" and its
hold on married families with children. A heartland strategy
should include a new progressive family policy that
addresses both the economic and cultural strains on
American parents. For example, to help parents juggle the
demands of work and raising their kids, Democrats ought to
champion paid parental leave policies as well as flextime
arrangements with employers. But they should also talk
more about reducing teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock
births, which have led to an expansion of single-parent
families beset by poverty, welfare dependence, and other
social ills.

And there's no reason why Democrats should be apologists

for or defenders of a consumer culture that targets kids with
insidious advertising campaigns and deluges popular
entertainment with sex and violence. Why is it that
progressives are willing to go after corporate cupidity
everywhere but in the entertainment industry?

People of faith. To speak to the heartland, Democrats

also must be comfortable using the language of faith.
Religious Americans believe, with good reason, that
bicoastal elites look down on them as Bible-thumping
primitives. Yet Democrats ought to be able to oppose the
political agenda of religious conservatives -- on abortion, on
school prayer, on homosexuality -- without dismissing people
of faith in general as hopelessly "retro." They ought to be
able to defend the establishment clause and religious liberty
without getting in bed with the secular absolutists of the
ACLU. It makes little sense for Democrats to be estranged
from people of faith when their "base" consists of so many of

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them -- including many African Americans, Latinos, Jews,

members of mainline Protestant congregations, and, yes,
even some "freestyle evangelicals."

Just as religious advocates of the "Social Gospel" infused

early 20th century progressivism with moral fervor,
Democrats should couch their social initiatives in the
language of faith and morality. The sad truth is that since
Clinton's departure, Democrats have had little to say about
growing poverty and inequality in America. Surely, they are
moral issues no less than abortion and gay marriage, and
they give Democrats an opportunity to speak unambiguously
of right and wrong.

Democrats should invoke biblical authority in challenging

religious conservatives to support initiatives to aid the
working poor and protect the earth's environment. Following
Sen. Joe Lieberman's lead, the party also should back a
progressive faith-based initiative -- a real partnership
between government and religious groups to tackle urgent
social problems, not the Bush administration's cynical effort
to steer government subsidies to religious congregations and
skirt constitutional prohibitions on government funding for
religion.

Finally, Democrats should give the culture warriors of the

right and left a wide berth and instead adopt a stance of
"values centrism." Again, Clinton offers instructive lessons.
Rather than adopt a strident "us versus them" posture on
cultural issues, he always sought common ground. While
resolutely pro-choice, he recognized the genuine moral
complexities surrounding abortion when he called for making
it "safe, legal, and rare." His "mend it, don't end it" stance on
affirmative action acknowledged real flaws in preference
policies, instead of labeling their critics as racists.

Closing cultural gaps. Public opinion on cultural issues

isn't rigid and monolithic any more than on other issues.
Most gun owners do not belong to the NRA, and many
routinely vote for Democrats. Most Christians are not right-
wing ideologues or homophobes. And white males may be a
tough nut for Democrats to crack, but they aren't genetically
predisposed to vote for Republicans. The party can close
cultural gaps by targeting cultural swing voters with a
message that affirms common values before plumbing policy
differences, by being willing to engage people on the other
side of our cultural divides, and by sticking to its bedrock
cultural values of tolerance, social inclusion and equal
opportunity, and liberty of conscience.

Above all, Democrats' heartland strategy should be

calculated to confound red America's stereotypical views of
the party. This won't be easy, as those views are deeply
held, but Democrats have everything to gain and nothing to
lose by trying.

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Bush's 2004 victory marked the second straight national

election, after 2002, in which the GOP has won an ever-so-
slight majority of the popular vote. His political guru, Karl
Rove, says this "rolling realignment" is ending the long
partisan stalemate in Washington and tipping the balance of
political power in the GOP's favor.

He may be right. Bush and his party consolidated their hold

on the red states, flipped New Mexico and Iowa, and made
inroads into many blue states. But now Democrats should
fight back with a realignment strategy of their own. They
need to raid the red states, picking off enough to stop the
Republican realignment dead in its tracks, and start building
a new progressive majority.
Blueprint Keywords: Extra Strategy

Will Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

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