Yes, Greg Walden can be Defeated.





Can Democrats win Rural Areas? Maybe the right Democrat can.





Greg Walden Town Hall Yesterday

(Explanation to readers around the country: Greg Walden is a Republican incumbent congressman from an archetypal "red state" rural and agricultural part of Oregon. He was Chair of the GOP committee to elect Republicans to Congress and his reward by GOP leadership was to make him Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He has a safe seat, or thinks he does, measured by the fact that Democratic opponents have won about 30% of the vote in their token opposition to him. He has a big rural district, invaded by enclaves of city folks in upscale resort and medical centers and college towns including Bend, Medford, and Ashland.)





The Washington Post has an article saying it is pretty much hopeless for Democrats. In the Senate Idaho and Wyoming have just as many votes as do California and New York. In the House Democrats are strongest in compact districts--cities--where they can easily be gerrymandered into "wasted" votes.





Click Here for the Washington Post article Democrats have become an urban party of knowledge workers. That is a problem for them. The archetypal--and therefore caricature--Democrat is a professional woman who went to an elite college and lives in a big city or college town and has a desk job with a multinational company. She hates guns, she likes mass transit, she drinks expensive coffees, buys food she think is "organic", she reads the NY Times, listens to NPR, watches Rachel Maddow, and she doesn't know anyone who listens to Country music or watches Fox News. There are not enough of these people to win national elections and there are nowhere enough of them in about 250 of the 435 congressional districts.





The Washington Post is right if the notion of being a Democrat does not change. But it can change. If the kinds of policies Democrats stand for are purely defined by a primary electorate that accepts only certain values as "pure enough to be a real Democrat" then Democrats are doomed to lose. The Party cannot just be the party of Cambridge, Mass. and Silicon Valley.





Democrats need to open up themselves to a little more diversity, and this does not mean racial and religious diversity. It means diversity of culture and economic backgrounds. Listen to a little Country music. Lighten up on hating guns. Communicate more respect for religion. Embrace patriotism as a value. Find candidates who get their hands dirty. Embrace plain talk as a style.





Democrats need to re-orient their thinking if they are going to surprise the Greg Waldens of the US House. Surprises do happen and can happen as voters react in 2018. Supposedly secure incumbents lose sometimes when there is a groundswell of angry people and they encounter a challenger running against a person who was solidly and securely in the former establishment. Those incumbents sometimes fail to note the political ground has shifted.





What kind of Democrat can win? A progressive populist.







Montana Senator 1. One who l ooks like he belongs in the district . Jon Tester of Montana looks like a farmer. You don't have to look like this but it would help. An ideal candidate will look like he or she spends some time outdoors working. Remember “Joe the Plumber” from nine years ago? He was an early warning signal to Democrats that the Obama coalition was losing those kind of people.





2. One who is openly and genuinely patriotic . Patriotism is a moral value. It has been used to enable aggressive empire building (Napoleon's army) and acts of great humanity, courage, and sacrifice (Peace Corps, civil defense). It is a non-partisan value but Democrats have let Republicans act as if they had a monopoly on it. Donald Trump said his sacrifice for his country was to dodge the draft and invest the family money. Democrats can do better than that. Democrats can reclaim the flag as a symbol and celebrate the service of people who work to make this country a better, safer, more perfect union.





Democrats should let it go. Americans like guns. 3. Quit trying to take away guns . Democrats like Hillary Clinton think of guns and they think of the Sandy Hook murder of school children. Democrats need to recognize that lots of people in rural areas fish, hunt, and are part of a gun culture that is harmless. They don’t think “street criminals” when they think of guns. They think of family outings and self defense. Democrats need to internalize in their heads that when they talk about restricting or banning guns it is understood to be an attack by a clueless outsider. Imagine a rural congressman who urged that subways, taxi's, and Uber be banned because they are unsafely forcing people who do not know each other into close proximity. The fact that the rural congressman is sincere and passionate only makes things worse . The urbanite would understand that the rural congressman is totally out of touch with how people live in cities. Urban Democrats need to have some empathy and understand it from the rural point of view.





But what about the tragic, senseless killings with guns? Yes, and what about the tragic, senseless deaths and attacks in subway cars, in taxi accidents, and by stoned Uber drivers?

Rural people think that shootings by deranged young men are rare tragic events and are the random misfortunes of life, rather in the way urban people understand train de-railments and taxi accidents are the rare misfortune of city life. Democrats who cannot empathize with rural people on gun culture should just let it go and accept it. Rural Americans like their guns.





Trickle Down is unpopular

