[Mb-civic] Winning Back the Heartland

[Barbara Siomos]

    Winning Back the Heartland 
    By Scott Galindez
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective 
    Friday 5 November 2004
 
    Let's face it, the Republicans won this election in middle
America. They won this election in churches and diners in rural America.
The Democrats have to work very hard over the next four years to make in
roads in small towns in the Midwest and the South.
 
    What people in rural America said was that they liked George
Bush's morals.
 
    The Challenge over the next four years will be to paint many
Republican policies as immoral and against the interests of rural
America. It is not time as some suggest to move to the right, that has
been tried and has been a failure. What is needed is a concerted effort
to communicate to people that liberal policies are in their interest.
Democrats must stop running away from the word liberal and instead make
it a good word again.
 
    Democrats must stand up and say that universal health care,
a living wage, protecting the environment, and protecting social
security are liberal values and they are in the interest of rural
America.
 
    Democrats can not wait until the next round of elections to
make the case - a massive rural outreach campaign must start now.
Congressional elections are only two years away. An effort must be made
to recruit candidates who will make the case that Democratic Party
values are American values and the Republican party does not have rural
America's best interests at heart.
 
    Those who argue that a move to the right is needed should
look at the results of the Senate elections this time. Brad Carson,
Erskin Bowles, and others ran on conservative platforms against weak
candidates and still lost. When Democrats try to run as conservatives,
the voters choose the real Republican not the Democrat trying to act
like one.
 
    It is time to look at people like Senator Tom Harkin and
realize that he is a populist liberal and is able to win in Iowa. It is
time to stop trying to mold candidates for the electorate they are
facing and run candidates that will move the electorate.
 
    Instead of running from the liberal label, it is time to
make the electorate liberal again. There is nothing wrong with being
liberal, the problem is that liberals, instead of making the case for
liberalism being right, have instead tried to make the case that they
are not as liberal as their opponent claims. This is a formula for
disaster, since the voter is going to choose the real conservative in a
race where both candidates are trying to run as conservatives.
 
    America is a liberal country. The Republican Party has done
a great job of marketing conservatism, while the Democrats have not
defended liberalism.
 
    The time has come to make conservative a bad word.

    Scott Galindez is the Managing Editor of truthout.org.