Oklahoma Democrats and Schwarzennegger Republicans

Napoleon once said that one should never correct one’s enemy when he is in the process of making a mistake. I suppose, therefore, that I should not write anything about the wildly mistaken ideas that loads of media and top-level Democrats have been inflicting on the public since the presidential and national elections of a few weeks ago. But two things impel me to go on: the first is that I do not consider Democrats to be my enemies; the second is that if the media and political elites among the Democrats would only stop their yammering and start listening, they might start formulating real ideas and producing real candidates, and everyone in this country (except perhaps doctrinaire Republicans) would benefit.

I think it time first to clear away the rot that has been talked on this subject. We should start with a saying by one famous Oklahoma Democrat, Will Rogers: “It’s not so much what one don’t know that hurts a feller, but what one does know that ain’t so.” Accordingly, urban Democrats should get it out of their heads that the elections were lost because of evangelical Christians, or because of a concern for moral values, or because Kerry was perceived as a flip-flopper. Those prize cabbages came from the same exit polls that indicated (in the morning of the election) that Kerry would win by a landslide. One really should consider the source before one starts actually believing such things.

In fact, the “moral values” crowd was less than twenty-two percent of those who came out of the exit polls, and it appears that the evangelicals voted in the same proportion that they did in the previous election. So much, then, for Bob Jones III, and so much the better; even us Republicans aren’t too fond of that particular chucklehead, or the school he rode in on. As for Kerry, his frequent changes of mind at least reassured us that he had one, which is more than most of us could say for his wife.

So please, media Democrats, don’t go on with the belief that you have to pretend to some sort of values or faith that you may not necessarily have. At the very least, it would spare us from having to watch the likes of Teddy Kennedy or Sen. Hillary Clinton dress up for an ice-cream social or go to meetin’ and pretend to like it. While James Carville or former President Clinton could carry it off, it would be with a wink and a suspicion that their hip flasks had plenty of Jack Daniel’s best to carry them through it.

And one other suggestion: could we all please stop with such pleasantries as “Jesusland” and using such names as “fascist”, “racist”, “low-IQ”, “redneck”, and “stupid”, as reasons why fifty one percent of the American voting population acted as it did. For one thing, it appears to be contrary to plain fact. For another, even if it were true, calling people by such names would be less than effective in convincing them that they were mistaken, or to otherwise make friends and influence people. I am reminded of the movie, Young Frankenstein, at the scene where Dr. Frankenstein is calling the Monster “stupid, stupid stupid!”, and the Monster is understandably getting annoyed, breaking its chains in the process. Igor (played by the late Marty Feldman) then gives the good Doctor advice we should all follow: “Ixnay on the upidstay!”

I believe that there are two reasons why Kerry failed to win: Oklahoma Democrats and Schwarzennegger Republicans. As to Oklahoma Democrats, they could with equal truth be called Georgia Democrats, or New Mexico Democrats, or Kansas Democrats, for they can be found in most of the states of this country. I happen to call them Oklahoma Democrats because my family, and I, come from Oklahoma, and I know the breed well. My uncle Joe is one who best exemplifies the type.

Joe is both a good old boy, and as shrewd and honest a man as the day is long. After a hitch in the Navy and a few unfortunate years in California, he moved back to Oklahoma, took a number of business and accounting classes, and started looking for work. One day in Tulsa, he happened in a back alley to find a bank bag containing about forty-five thousand dollars, which accidentally fell out of a bank truck, and which he promptly turned in to the bank. For this, he got ridicule from some of his friends, the respect of his family (myself included), three write-ups in the local papers, and a job offer from Phillips Petroleum as accountant.

Over thirty years, Joe managed to parlay that particular good deed, together with a lot of hard work, into a twenty room house on a lake in rural Oklahoma, a summer condominium in Oregon, and a comfortable enough retirement to allow him to travel between the two, and throughout most of the country, with his wife Betty. He sometimes comes to visit his sister, my mother, in Los Angeles, and the whole family here enjoys it when he does. As an Oklahoma Catholic, Flannery O’Connor has nothing on him for the stories he can tell, or the perspective he has in telling them.

Joe and Betty came to visit last January, for the wake of my father, who died full of years at the age of 82. (But that is another story. . .) There were some tears then, but much more laughter and happiness. In the course of those three or four days, the talk was of cabbages and kings, and eventually turned to politics. I asked Joe then if there were any Democratic candidates whom he would consider worth voting for. He got a sour look on his face, and told me that as far as he was concerned, none of them was worth the powder to blow them up. “I really liked Clinton, but you know,” he said, “if the party doesn’t start getting candidates who don’t have their heads stuck in the East Coast, I’m going to have to vote for Bush. And Kerry, he really frightens me.”

When I heard that from Joe, I knew that there was something that the Democratic party needed to know, which it apparently didn’t and still doesn’t get. Basically, party leaders (and many urban Democrats) had and have lost touch with what the rest of the country’s Democrats were thinking and feeling. If they continue acting this way, they will only continue losing the ear and the confidence of the people.

As for Schwarzennegger Republicans, there were a lot of snickers from the Los Angeles Times when he ran for Governor in the recall election last year. There were a lot less when he won. The Times was on the point of saying that he stole the election, and they even ran a poll to prove it. What that poll proved, however, was that if there had been an election between the former governor and Arnold, Arnold would have won by a 70% to 30% margin.

Schwarzennegger, through his bodybuilding, acting, motion picture producing, and finally his foray into politics, has not only managed to achieve a potent name recognition in the American public, but has also become a maker of style. Singlehandedly, he made cigars, single-malt Scotch, and Humvees into stylish items. More importantly, however, he made voting and being Republican cool. MTV could “Rock the Vote”, and Puff Diddy (or whatever he is calling himself these days) could yell to the kids “Vote or Die!”, but when it came time actually to vote, a substantial number of the kids voted with and for the Governator.

In short, if urban Democrats want to know what happened this last election, and what to do about it, I suggest that they start listening to their friends and relatives in the country, and to the kids who voted in ways that they did not expect. I suggest also that they, and all of us, look not only at the map of the most recent election by county, but at a comparative map of the last three elections. If you do, you may notice that red appears to be receding. If you don’t, and don’t start learning why it is, or worse, if the Democratic leadership starts doing something really silly, like proposing Senator Clinton for President, then what you will have is a lot of us Oklahoma Democrats and Schwarzennegger Republicans buying “RUN, HILLARY, RUN” bumperstickers. And putting them on the front bumpers of our cars.