George Bush's Democrats (Page 2)

The heart and soul of this conservative bipartisan coalition is the South, though by no means do all white Southerners regard themselves as part of it. Most Southern Democratic elected officials would be Republicans above the Mason-Dixon line, and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine, for example, could not be elected south of the Mason-Dixon line in either party. She would be seen as too liberal, and her views would be considered traitorous to Southern heritage, traditions and values.

More than half of all African-Americans still live in the former Confederacy, and nationally they voted 92 percent for Gore. Yet the entire body of Democratic leadership in the House and Senate are all white men. While Bush got only 8 percent of the African-American vote, Democrats have no visible elected African-American Congressional leaders who compare to the Republican exceptions of Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice or Representative J.C. Watts of Oklahoma.

This system is what President Lyndon Johnson understood on August 6, 1965, when he signed the Voting Rights Act and afterward said privately that national Democrats had probably lost the South for at least a quarter-century. He understood the system that produced Southern politics and the bipartisan white coalition that drove it. His insight has now come home to roost big-time in the 2000 election. Bush won the old Confederacy and the rural states of the West, which have a similar political philosophy--plus Indiana, Ohio and New Hampshire. Gore won the old Union states of the North and Northeast, plus New Mexico, California, Oregon and Washington, which are more in harmony with national Democratic policies.

This system of bipartisan cooperation, social and economic conservatism, and individualistic, personalistic and pietistic religion is rooted in a region that imposes the highest number of death penalties and has the highest crime in the country, the poorest schools, the worst healthcare and housing, the greatest environmental degradation and the greatest poverty--and this conservative Southern system sustains it and is increasingly leading and influencing the nation. As State Representative Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat, said, "Even if something is bipartisan, it still often doesn't solve the problems of certain groups of people in Texas. They would be people who don't have health insurance, working families, the vulnerable in our society."

The South, and America, need a progressive bipartisan economic coalition to fight for better jobs and job training, healthcare, affordable housing and a good educational system--for all Americans. However, that is not the agenda of Bush and his Democrats.

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