"I don't know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together."
- Sean O'Casey (1880-1964), Irish playwright
Karl Zinsmeister says the two U.S. political parties have changed, no longer fitting the stereotypes of the past:
"Democrats: the party of the little guy. Republicans: the party of the wealthy. Those images of America's two major political wings have been frozen for generations.
No more. Starting in the 1960s and '70s, whole blocs of 'little guys'--ethnics, rural residents, evangelicals, cops, construction workers, homemakers, military veterans--began moving into the Republican column. And big chunks of America's rich elite--financiers, academics, heiresses, media barons, software millionaires, entertainers--drifted into the Democratic Party."
He supports his premise with data from polls of those who voted in the 2000 election: only 7% of voters in pro-Bush counties earned at least $100,000 while in pro-Gore counties 14% were at that level of income. In those same counties 38% of Bush voters earned less than $38,000 compared to 29% of Gore supporters below that figure.
Zinsmeister points out that contributors to the Democratic Party are increasingly the well-to-do:
"The financial pillars for Democrats are now super-rich trial lawyers, Hollywood entertainment executives and megabuck financiers. Both parties have their fat cats, obviously, but Federal Election Commission data show that many of the very wealthiest political players are now in the Democratic column."
He tells us that lawyers are by far the largest donors to the party of the common man, contributing 71% of their money to Dems and 29% to Republicans, and that ultra-wealthy brokers and bankers are not far behind the lawyers in their generosity to theDemocrats.
Zinsmeister says that John Kerry "is a perfect embodiment of the takeover of the Democratic Party bywealthy elites":
"If elected, he would become the richest man ever to sit in the White House...And there are now many Democrats like Mr. Kerry--from Sen. Jon Corzine to Sen. Jay Rockefeller--who are simultaneously top of the heap in wealth and on the left in politics.
Migration of the rich and powerful to the Democrats has been so pronounced, John Kerry has actually pulled in much more money than President Bush this spring and summer. Mr. Kerry's fund-raising totals have routinely doubled or even tripled Mr. Bush's sums. And while Mr. Bush has relied heavily on flocks of small donors, the money on the Kerry side has come much more from well-heeled individuals like the Hamptons beach-house owners who handed him $3 million in one day at the end of August."
How will this shift impact the Democrats' chances of capturing the White House this fall? Mr. Zinsmeister feels it will have a negative effect:
"From Andrew Jackson to George Bush the elder, U.S. politicians have known that leaders who put on airs or otherwise separate themselves from ordinary Americans will be penalized by the electorate."
Who can really say? Zinsmeister may be right, but I don't think the statistics he uses to support his view make a strong enough case that the "common man" has deserted the party of FDR and the rich have replaced him. I do believe, based on what I see around me, that there are many more lower and middle-income Americans who support the Republican Party today than there were when I was a young man. Conversely, there also seem to be many more Americans in the top-income brackets who've thrown their support to the Democrats.
No doubt, both parties find themselves with a different mix of constituents than the ones who were party faithfuls 10, 20 or 30 years ago. This can't help having an impact on their policies as they attempt to address the concerns of these voters. Capturing seats in Congress, winning governorships, or taking the White House will require strategies that would never have worked when, as Zinsmeister said, the Democrats were the party of the little guy and the Republicans catered to the rich.
3 comments:
Funny thing about numbers. The last numbers I saw had some awfully big fat cats(energy,drug,etc)still funding Pres. Bush with the Trial Lawyers actually tossing him something like $104 million along with throwing $103 million to Kerry. Seems like they want to butter both sides of their toast. The answer to all this business is to get involved and active on the local level. People just don't seem to realize how important this is. It is still a democratic republic here. We can't afford to give up our power of our vote or we will be at the mercy of those with the pursestrings.
What she said. Mrs. L
I checked Zinmeister's numbers for lawyer and law firm contributions at OpenSecrets.org and found the $112 million total for 2004 to be correct, as he reported in his article. There's a breakdown there as well, showing $81 million going to Democrats and $31 million to Republicans: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=K01. OpenSecrets' numbers came from those reported to the Federal Elections Commission.
I couldn't agree with you and Mrs. L. more. Any of us who care about our country and want to be sure our views are represented should get involved in some way or another. This could be merely exercising our right to vote or jumping into the fray by becoming a more active participant in local, county, state or even national politics. Those of us who won't do this really don't have much room to complain about what gets foisted upon us by those who do get involved.
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