Red vs. Blue, and Maybe a Success For The DLC Formula

If you look at a map of the electoral vote for the 1900 U.S. Presidential election, and compare it to a 2000 electoral-vote map, a striking jiu-jitsu flip reversal becomes apparent. In the 1900 election, Republicans took the Northeast, the West Coast and the Northern Plains, and the Democrats the South and Rocky Mountain states, and in the 2000 election, the pattern is close to the mirror opposite. The two parties spent the entire century opportunistically encroaching on each other's turf: sort-of like Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy.

The opportunistic attacks continue every day, of course, as the new century grinds on.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC: from which Bill Clinton emerged) favored catering to business interests, in the hope of breaking the Republican advantage on corporate and small business campaign donations. Liberals have been exasperated by this strategy, because it has prevented Democrats from creating a coherent political message, to clarify the political contrast with the Republican Party. Still, the DLC approach always had some potential, usually unrealized, but generally only if the Republicans actively blundered, and started promoting business-hostile politics.

This election cycle, many Republicans have favored a focus on illegal immigration. In a post 9/11 environment, it looks to many Republicans like a winning issue. A battle against illegal immigration can energize the Republican faithful, and it's also pertinent, with a large influx of illegals into the U.S., particularly Mexicans, and particularly in the South. I was reading somewhere that Mexicans compose about 30% (!!!) of the current population of rebuilding New Orleans.

But it's also a very dangerous issue for Republicans, because Americans are so, so, so hypocritical about illegal immigration. Closed-border ideologues seem to have no qualms at all about hiring illegals to prune the shrubbery. The reigning attitude, when hiring any Mexican is: 'don't ask, don't tell.'

So, I was struck by this story in today's Sacramento Bee regarding landscape contractors in Washington. To me, the DLC's vision, often unrealized, might actually work this election cycle. But it only works because Republicans are actively blundering - just like Spy-vs.-Spy!:

Ten California landscape business owners met with legislators this month in Washington, and three of them - all Republican voters - said Wednesday they were surprised that the lawmakers were not more sympathetic.

"I was most shocked at the Republican Party being against small business," said Cynthia Smallwood, who runs Diversified Landscape Management in Mission Viejo.

"They don't get that there is a labor shortage," she said, explaining that even with wages running up to $35 an hour for public contract work, she can't attract a lot of U.S. citizens.

Cathy Gurney, owner of Sierra Landscape and Maintenance, also complained of being snubbed by Republicans. "I can't believe I put this party in power," she said. "The Democrats get it. They took time with us."

Peter Dufau, who runs an Oxnard landscaping business, said he believes congressional representatives in his party aren't listening to businesses.

"It seems they are listening to a bunch of people who have the time to go out and sit in the desert, like the, quote, unquote, Minutemen," Dufau said, referring to a group that conducts self-styled patrols on the U.S.-Mexico border.