11-09-06, 9:28 am
After the Democratic congressional landslide of 2006, Republican pundits, including the president, have begun to spin their interpretation of the results wildly. The election was no repudiation of Republican ideology and policies, they claim. The results, they say, show that voters were simply disenchanted with the actions of a few individuals and with setbacks in some policies that couldn't be controlled. In the end, GOP talking heads insist, the people still favor right-wing values.
Is this conclusion borne out by the data being parsed, analyzed and hacked to death by pollsters and politicos? Early analysis indicates that, at worst, ideological ramifications are mixed. But there are several bright spots for a progressive agenda and hints that an ideological sea-change can be won with continued struggle. Here are a few examples:
Voters in Arizona dumped hard-right demagogue J.D. Hayworth whose anti-government rhetorical flourishes, unstinting 'stay the course' Iraq line, and virulent anti-immigrant sentiment were personal trademarks. As they bid Hayworth goodbye, Arizona voters also passed two anti-immigrant referenda, rejected a ban on gay marriage, and agreed to raise the minimum wage, suggesting a mixed view of key elements of the Republican Party's divisive and anti-worker platform.
South Dakota voters fell hard for Bush in 2004, but rejected a Republican-sponsored ballot initiative that would have banned most abortions in that state. Still, they passed a ban on gay marriage.
Californians reelected Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had more or less adopted liberal positions on environmental and health care policies, but rejected a Republican Party sponsored parental notification for abortion. They also dumped hard-right Republican ideologue Richard Pombo whose ties to big oil personified everything wrong with Republican ideas and policies on the environment and campaign finance reform.
In the red state of Colorado, voters said no to extremist Bob Beauprez for governor and agreed to raise the state’s minimum wage. At the same time, they adopted a ban on gay marriage, rejected the legal recognition of domestic partnerships (regarded as targeting gay couples), and returned Rep. Tom Tancredo, the spokesperson for the extremist xenophobic arm of the Republican Party, to the House of Representatives.
On the other hand, six red states voted to raise their minimum wage, opposition to which is a major element of Republican economic doctrine. The overwhelming popular support for raising the minimum wage, artificially held in check by the Republican-controlled Congress since 1997, has caused the new Democratic majority to add a federal rate increase to its agenda for the January session.
In blue-leaning Michigan, voters soundly rejected billionaire Republican Dick DeVos. In a tough climate of a declining auto industry hard hit by outsourcing, voters identified economic hardships with Bush policies. By a large majority, they accepted Governor Jennifer Granholm as fighting hard for job creation, health care reform, and strengthening Michigan’s education system in the face of an obstinate, partisan Republican state legislature. Despite Granholm’s close identification with the campaign to oppose a ban on affirmative action, however, Michigan voters passed a constitutional ban on the state’s inclusive policies. Right-wing racial attitudes and xenophobia were offered as bait by Republican candidates and campaigns, but instead of bringing victory for the GOP, they produced only a split in voter support for progressive candidates and right-wing cultural initiatives. The rejection of DeVos is widely seen as a referendum on free trade policies and outsourcing, as DeVos couldn’t escape his record of having profited by moving jobs from his Michigan-based Amway facilities overseas.
Other results were also mixed. Blue state Oregon voters rejected a parental notification ballot initiative, while red state Missouri voters squeaked through a proposal to overturn a state ban on stem cell research. Both issues are high priorities for the religious right. The Republican stronghold in the South turned in its own batch of mixed results, with a close loss for Harold Ford Jr and a slim victory for Jim Webb. A couple of other notables: Katherine Harris' defeat for Senate in Florida, Florida Governor-elect Charlie Crist's refusal to appear with President Bush prior to the election, Heath Shuler's Democratic victory in North Carolina, and some House seat-flipping in Kentucky and Georgia. Results like these suggest major weaknesses in the Republican domination of the South fueled mainly by a working-class rejection of Republican economic theory (low-wages, free trade, and anti-Social Security). Look for Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia to ascend to 'swing-state' status in the run-up to 2008.
The Republicans' stated goal of weakening the labor movement to the point of electoral ineffectiveness has also failed. Since 2002, the labor union vote has turned in increasing vote totals for Democratic candidates. According to polling done for the AFL-CIO, union members favored House Democratic candidates by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, four points higher than 2004 and six points higher than 2002. In fact, of all organizations, the labor movement provided the largest margin of victory for the Democrats. Through its non-member affiliate, Working America, the AFL-CIO mobilized thousands of voters who did not vote in the 2002 election to turn out this year. All told, union families may have comprised as much as 1/4 of Democratic votes.
Union members cited the war, the economy and jobs, health care, and Social Security as their top concerns and expressed deep disapproval of President Bush's handling of those issues. They closely identified congressional Republicans with Bush and saw them as being a corrupt rubber-stamp for Bush, while favoring policies that hurt working families. By rates of more than 9 out of 10, union voters told pollsters that protecting workers, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, reforming free trade agreements, health care reform, protecting the right to organize unions, raising the minimum wage, and protecting Social Security were the issues they plan to pressure the Democratic majority to address.
While bans on gay marriage or civil unions were passed in seven states (six red states), opposition to them grew in 2006 over 2004. In addition to Arizona’s rejection of the ban, South Dakota opponents of a ban on civil unions registered a 48 percent 'no' vote. Voters in three additional states opposed bans on marriage equality or civil unions by more than 40 percent as well. By contrast, only two states compiled opposition to bans on marriage equality of 40 percent or more in 2004. The defeat of Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, with his obsessive and extreme views on gay people, was regarded as a major victory for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters. LGBT activists view the (re)election of gay-friendly Democratic governors in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Oregon as important victories as well.
On one final note, we might ask did the election see the demise of Karl Rove-type election tactics? Many critics and supporters credited Rove with fine-tuning the tactic of putting divisive referenda on ballots in key battleground states. The aim of this tactic is to push a radical right cultural agenda (opposition to gay marriage, abortion, affirmative action, and separation of church and state) and energize core party supporters to get out and vote. This type of campaign attacks Democratic candidates for their failure to support this radical right agenda and the debate is shifted from pressing national issues like the economy, the war, or corruption to divisive issues like anti-gay or anti-immigrant sentiment. It worked in 2004.
But the data suggests the Rovian-maneuver failed to overwhelm a spectacular display of the people's demand for a new direction. The electoral fraud and vote suppression ordered by Rove and implemented by former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio that accompanied divisive tactics failed to launch Blackwell into a governor’s seat marred by Republican corruption. While Rove had reached near legendary status among pundits and Washington insiders, he has been put in his place by the American people. The only question left now is how long will it take for Rove to dump Bush too and look for work in the lucrative lobbying industry. Is it a matter of hours, days or weeks?
A progressive agenda that unites a broad coalition of African American and Latino people, working families, anti-Iraq war voters, women, LGBT people, environmental friendly people, and youth and seniors behind the new Democratic-led Congress can set the stage for completing the victory launched by the 2006 election. An agenda that fights to protect affirmative action, reproductive choice, worker protections, Social Security and pensions, to reduce costs of and expands access to health care, makes prescription drug programs work for seniors, subsidizes clean energy alternatives to fossil fuels, legalizes immigrant workers with a real path to citizenship, in conjunction with broad pro-civil rights policies (including for LGBT people) can unite and energize the coalition needed to win another people’s victory in 2008. Join us in making this happen.
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at
