Instead, the Democrats should build on their historical roots to develop a 21^st Century version of liberal populism. The party should become again the welcoming political home of the individual, not just favored groups and their 'sacred cows.'

            Democrats, through the natural progress of their late 20^th Century policies and programs, have become fixed in position, with automatic responses to the demands of certain groups. Unions are a perfect example.

            Originally, most unions backed the Democrats because it was the Democratic Party whose populist policies provided the most benefit to their individual members. But over the years the unions became more entrenched and conservative, and began dictating policy to the political party in return for group support instead of giving support to the party solely because it would help them and their members in the long run. Now they  expect consultation and the exercise of influence over various elements of party policy.

            But while the unions still have power, it is foolish to think they can any longer guarantee a block vote. An example is the 70% voter support for English Immersion, a ballot question in Massachusetts in the recent elections. And this overwhelming defeat of bilingual education took place in a state that pioneered implementation of the concept.  Not unexpectedly, Massachusetts Democrats were tied to support of this increasingly unpopular issue because the teacher's unions were adamantly determined to retain the structure and convenience of the program. The state GOP had a free ride on this issue.

            The Mass. Teachers Association and its various local school-system offshoots strongly opposed the English Immersion question, and they made it clear they expected Democratic Party support. Yet many teachers were either ambivalent or completely out of touch with their union’s position. One teacher in a Cape Cod school system was heard on election night complaining that when she asked “my colleagues” about Ballot Question 2, prior to the November 5^th elections, many of them were not even familiar with the fact it was on the ballot, or that it meant the potential end of this special program.

            The chief concern of the teacher’s unions, and so many other unions, has become first and last and always, salaries. Other issues no longer bring union voters together as a block that can be guaranteed and brokered.

            Moving away from reliance upon groups and supposedly guaranteed blocks of voters should not be limited, however, and Democrats must include a willingness to frankly question politically correct positions in their current reevaluation of political policies. To do otherwise is to blindly fly in the face of those who do vote; contrary to many public prognostications from conservatives there is now a vastly literate and increasingly well educated electorate. People do understand contradictions.

            Certainly there are many liberal, middle-of-the-road and conservative Democrats who cringe at the politically correct nonsense that some people stand upon while calling themselves Democrats.

            Here in Massachusetts, during our recent gubernatorial debates pitting Republican Mitt Romney (of Utah Olympics fame) against former state treasurer, Shannon O’Brien, Romney told O’Brien her actions were “unbecoming.” This generated a firestorm of feminist outrage, based on the claim that Romney was really implying O’Brien was “unladylike,” an antique term weighted with early 20^th Century misogyny. This furor went on in the news columns and on TV for several days before petering out, but it was excruciatingly embarrassing to mainstream Democrats. It was the height of nonsense.

            And it took away from the seriousness of the Democratic Party and its candidate. The Democratic Party led the way for women in politics, yet here an extreme, arbitrary and nitpicking  viewpoint is given prominence in the debate because the people making the remarks are standing on the virtue of political correctness. Democratic leaders have to break this hold on the party. Shannon O’Brien should have put a quick stop to it by laughing at it, but she didn’t, at least publicly. Advisors and pollsters probably told her not to act, just to ride it out, especially since the PC ire was directed at Republican Romney. But it's a boomerang.

            Those who have tied their views to Politically Correct politics have to be treated casually; otherwise they will justify their zeal and actually gain power through a vigorous policing of the words and ideas of others. Politically Correct politics are divisive and self-righteous, and have a disquieting tone of authoritarianism about them; there is no room for debate, only compliance.

            The Democrats must push away if not completely turn away from the mavens of Political Correctness if they are to avoid losing at the polls. Many Americans clearly understand that public policies based on PC values are aggressive, and they feel helpless in finding a political middle ground when confronted with the righteousness of PC practitioners, who are often extremely vocal and polished.

            “The Democrats are the party of the government while the Republicans are the party of the private sector – everyone acknowledges that; but it goes much further,” pundit William Tucker recently stated, adding that, “Democrats want to use government to control everything else as well.”

That isn’t, of course, the perfect truth, but by giving solid and mostly unquestioning support to PC causes, the Democrats make it seem like Tucker’s point has more validity than it does, since such party actions support the values of small groups at the expense of great numbers of individuals. That this continues to happen is shown in the polls, and Republicans love it because it makes the Democrats look soft, weak and silly, and worst of all, hypocritical in the rigid, authoritarian application of certain values at all costs while simultaneously portraying themselves as open-minded.

Social engineering through legislation has made many average Americans skeptical of Democratic politics, and while the GOP has its own dramatic, collective and sweeping conservative social agenda, ranging from abortion rights to school prayer, it isn’t the Republicans telling individuals they can’t smoke in a public place, or drive without a seat belt. Nor is it the GOP that asserts any woman’s claim against a lover or husband for spousal abuse is de facto proof of guilt until it can be proven otherwise, usually after the husband has either been arbitrarily arrested or at the least been turned out of his home and possessions and left to struggle to get a court hearing. 

There have to be equitable solutions to such issues; where everyone’s interests are protected. But PC solutions don’t try to be fair, they land on one side or the other. The Democratic Party can no longer afford to pass off such issues, but must instead dig into the hard work of finding a way, for example, to protect a woman while assuring that the male she is involved with is not unfairly punished and/or unilaterally displaced. And this hard work applies across the board, but the rewards would be great since no one denies the basic issues that are at the root of current PC solutions.

            Some of those PC factors probably did contribute to the beating that O’Brien took at the polls in the great liberal Commonwealth of Massachusetts, although despite all the local Democratic breast-beating and finger pointing over a plethora of issues, it is likely that a larger percentage of Democrats and Independents voted for Romney because they remember what happened to the state when Democrat Michael Dukakis was in the governor’s office and, just like today, a Democratic controlled legislature was in power on Beacon Hill.

 Romney, wittingly or unwittingly, played upon that fear by constantly referring to O’Brien as a Boston political insider and talking about the Democratic legislature. There is little doubt that many Massachusetts voters recall the disaster that Mr. Dukakis worked upon the state.

            Yet this is only to point out some of the anomalies of Bay State politics. The real issue before the Democrats nationally involves breaking the shackles of knee-jerk responses that serve to make the party such an easy target for GOP conservatives, and loses so many individual voters who would otherwise gladly be or remain Democrats.

            A classic case in point is the now infamous gun debate. Not too many years ago there were more Democratic voters who were hunters and shooters than there were Republicans; hunting is, after all, largely dominated by working men and women. But the Democratic Party became so captivated by the gun debate and the apparent power of anti-gun organizations, and their threat to withhold blocks of support if their views weren’t incorporated in the Democrats agenda, that now the overwhelming number of hunters that are queried call themselves Republicans.

            Here too is an area that the Democratic Party could and should address. What is needed is a clear platform where it doesn’t appear that the underlying goal of ‘gun control’ is the disarming of Americans. Why should the Democrats give up on the vast number of sportsmen and recreational shooters in this country? Why should the Democrats push these people into the arms of the opposition?

            The spirit of self-reliance, which includes the ability to own weapons as well as a distaste for government help and especially government intervention, is a deep part of the makeup of many Americans, and unless the party leaders really do want to disarm everyone, there is no good reason why the field, so to speak, should be left to the GOP.

            The gun issue is part and parcel of why the Democrats are now stuck in the big cities and the most populated coasts - the urban and heavily suburban areas – and dread campaigning elsewhere. But this also relates to social issues. What the electorate of New York or Detroit expects for services and will tolerate in terms of intrusiveness is entirely different than what Northerners, Southerners, Mid-Westerners and Westerners want or will tolerate. Diversity in the cities is offset by inclusiveness in rural America, and the Democratic Party’s umbrella no longer covers both effectively.

The party is consistently losing ground in the suburbs as well, and that shouldn’t be too surprising either. There has been a vast increase in the small and mid-range investor class of stockholders, therefore programs with strong left leaning social agendas or even agendas with traditional populist goals fall short. The family with a growing stock portfolio doesn’t quickly relate to the old “us versus them” arguments; these people see their interests lining up with those of business. But they might well respond to an “us versus brokered or entrenched corporate power,” since such corruption spells financial gains for the few stockholders at the expense of the many.

There is room for a new, 21^st Century populist agenda, one that would be inclusive for individuals over groups, and this is where the Democrats should move, and the party should do so with a clear, well modulated voice of moderation, not the shrill cry of hard left politics.                                                                                                 MB