St. Louis Model for Democrats
Essay by Umar Lee
Excerpt:
These are lessons the City Democrats Party knows well. You cannot get construction workers in Dogtown to the polls by telling them you will ban trans fats and tax cigarettes, and you cannot get Democrats of St. Louis Hills to vote for you by going to war with the Catholic Church on issues such as abortion and gay-rights; because these are working people and they need to hear about issues that will make the lives of their families better and the Democrats who serve them have learned that lesson a long time ago (even if they have not been successful in their representation)
I guess Umar thinks African-Americans have more in common with the "white traditionalists" (labor and Catholics) than the "progressive bobos" (yuppies, liberals and gays).
Posted by Brian on Tue., Nov 21, 2006 at 2:08 PMThere's a larger problem of identifying the cities that have become Republican. New York has elected a Republican Mayor, but it's hardly Republican and those two both had to accept GLBT rights, be pro-choice, and be strongly for gun control.
So I'm not sure how St. Louis is terribly different from any other city or what cities Umar is referring to.
Worse, though, is that he identifies every issue that Republicans try and tar the Democrats with. Democratic candidates overwhelmingly oppose same sex marriage, but many do support majority opinions on matters such as civil unions and other rights for partners as well as adding GLBT as a suspect classification under civil rights laws.
This also calls into question how he has defined St. Louis since the vast majority of Alderman support the city offering benefits to same sex partners and civil rights.
I'm not sure what he means by referring to Webb and Tester. Tester is conservative on one issue. Guns. He's against same-sex marriage, but for equal rights and he's pro-choice. Same for Webb.
Furthermore, when have Democrats run "Manhattan Liberals" in Virginia and Montana?
Posted by archpundit on Tue., Nov 21, 2006 at 2:29 PM
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