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Inside Politics
Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator.

Friendly advice for Democrats


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George W. Bush
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Grover Cleveland

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- Years ago, before I began writing a column, one of the nation's great columnists gave me some wise advice.

You want your reader to have one of two reactions to the column you write. Either, "Gee, I never knew that" -- when you report some fresh information or facts -- or, "Hey, I never thought of that way" -- when you present information already mostly known in a way that leads to a different conclusion.

For all those still-grieving Democrats, now being bombarded with unsolicited advice concerning their party's "problem," my contribution to the Public Intervention follows.

Since the beginning of the Civil War and the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln -- with the exception of the sainted Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- only two Democratic presidents have won a majority of the nation's popular vote, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and Jimmy Carter in 1976.

That's right. Elected Democratic presidents Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton all failed to win a majority of the popular vote.

By contrast, in the same span, Republican chief executives have 17 times been elected with a majority of all votes cast.

The GOP majority list: Lincoln, Ulysses Grant (twice), William McKinley (twice), Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower (twice), Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan (twice), George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Bluntly put, Democrats are historically not the natural majority party in the United States -- Republicans are.

That means the most totally efficient get-out-the-vote campaign of all Democratic voters won't, by itself, ever be enough for the party of Jefferson to recapture the White House.

Other than waiting for another Great Depression like that which first elected FDR, or your opponents' nominating an ideologically unelectable candidate like Barry Goldwater, or a constitutional crisis like Watergate when an un-elected Republican president pays a huge political price for pardoning his resigned predecessor, or the good fortune of a self-financed, third-party maverick challenger like Ross Perot, whose strong support comes disproportionately from Republicans, Democrats have no choice but to conclude that -- in spite of their obvious charm, intelligence and high-mindedness -- they need to make some changes.

Here are a couple of ideas.

Americans voters choose leaders based on their values, not just on their own pocketbooks. A respected pollster urged Democrats to pay real attention to the 40 percent of voters who go to church every week, explaining that "President Bush time and again brings everything back to faith. Democrats were never able, as Bush was, to connect with people's core values."

Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Illinois, a former Clinton White House aide, observed that "Both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter got elected because they were comfortable with their faith, which enabled them to reach voters of faith."

Bush defeated John Kerry among churchgoers on November 2 by 20 percent. Do the math: 20 percent of 40 percent amounts to 8 percent of the total. If Kerry had lost churchgoers by just 10 percent, he would have won the popular vote.

Don't be afraid to be a rhetorical grave robber.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could not exist if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." Those are the words of Abraham Lincoln.

George W. Bush pledges to remove taxes on capital (interest and dividends) and, thus, to pay for what we collectively undertake as a nation by taxes on income or labor.

Former Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm once leveled a similar proposal: "It's not fair to say that people who work with their head or with their hands ought to pay taxes, but people who earn their living with capital ought not to."

Do not be afraid to speak about the obligation of citizenship. The obligation to work, the obligation -- as we today enjoy the benefits of the investments so generously and wisely made by earlier American -- to invest in the future.

Let us know that with the right to create our own businesses comes the obligation to support the communities in which our enterprises prosper.

Remember what FDR taught: "The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether we provide enough for those who have too little."


Click here for more from Creators Syndicate.

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