Where Does the Democratic Party Stand?

Eleanor Roosevelt often said that every week you should do something that frightens you. 44 years ago, I was unaware of the quote. I would accompany my late mother-in-law when she shopped at Dayton’s Department Store in downtown Minneapolis. The car park was approached via a spiral ramp. Going up was bad enough but coming down at 25 mph scarred me for life. If only I could have asked Mrs. Roosevelt to sit in the front passenger seat in my place!

What has this to do with an exploration of the Democratic Party? Simply this. Minnesota Governor, Mark Dayton, is the scion of the Dayton family. He is the great-grandson of the founder of Dayton’s which is now better known as Target. I have no idea how many billions of dollars belong to the Governor but I’d guess he might make the Trump alleged billions look like chump change.

Dayton has had quite an up and down political career. In 1992, he ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate. Six years later he ran for Governor and lost. But Dayton has stickability, or what we Brits would call tenacity. From 1991-1995, he was Minnesota State Auditor. In 2001, he was elected as US State Senator but lost his seat in 2007. Four years later, he was elected Governor. It was a bit of a poisoned chalice. He inherited a $6.2 billion budget deficit and a 7% unemployment rate.

During his first four years in office, Dayton raised the state income tax from 7.85% to 9.85% on individuals earning over $150,000and on couples earning over $250,000 when filing jointly. The tax take was $2.1 billion. He approved the Minnesota’s minimum wage increase to $9.50 an hour by 2018 and a state law guaranteeing equal pay for women. Republicans warned against Dayton’s tax increases, saying, “The job creators, the big corporations, the small corporations, they will leave. It’s all dollars and cents to them.” Only a few left. The nay-sayers were wrong.

Between 2011 and 2015, 172,000 new jobs were added to Minnesota’s economy. Even though Minnesota’s top income tax rate is the fourth highest in the country, it has the fifth lowest unemployment rate in the country. By late 2013, Minnesota’s private sector job growth exceeded pre-recession levels and the state’s economy was the fifth fastest-growing in the United States. Despite the fearmongering over businesses fleeing from Dayton’s tax regime, 6,230 more Minnesotans filed in the top income tax bracket in 2013. As of January 2015, Minnesota has a $1 billion budget surplus, and Dayton has pledged to reinvest more than one third of that money into public schools. And according to Gallup, Minnesota’s economic confidence is higher than any other state.

The reason Dayton was able to radically transform Minnesota’s economy into one of the best in the nation is simple maths. Raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more turns a deficit into a surplus. Raising the minimum wage will increase the median income. And in a state where education is a budget priority and economic growth is one of the highest in the nation, it makes perfect sense that more businesses would stay. So, it’s official: trickle-down economics is bunk. Minnesota has proven it once and for all.

Despite his immense wealth, Dayton lives modestly. He is a recovering alcoholic and has been treated for mild depression. He revealed this information on his own initiative, saying he felt "people have the right to know." Whether Dayton will return to the national stage is an unknown. He is no orator and does not possess a JFK-like personality. However, his politics are evidence that sound, centrist Democratic policies work.

What of the larger picture? What is happening to the Democratic Party? Last weekend, the Democratic Socialists of America failed in obtaining a resolution to break away from the Democratic Party. Representative Tim Ryan, (D-Ohio) said the Party has become a toxic brand and a failed party. “Why should DSA tie themselves to a sinking ship?”

Are the Democrats truly in disarray? Public disagreements over abortion rights, the decision of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice to abandon the Democrats for the Republicans, while embracing Donald Trump into the bargain, the endorsement of a $15 per hour minimum wage and a $1trillion budget deficit proposal all make one question: will this brand of politics attract moderate Democratic and Republican voters?

What of its national leaders? Bernie Sanders seems to have evolved into a Jeremy Corbyn figure, or maybe vice-versa. Both stand for socialist principles and currently enjoy a standing in the respective parties and nations, higher than would be expected had there been strong, acceptable alternatives. Chuck Schumer in the US Senate and Nancy Pelosi in the House are old guard leaders, people whose sell-by date has passed but who retain a mirage of power. Their cause is helped because the Republican majority in Congress is in such disarray.

Is this the moment for the Democratic Party to seize the initiative and regain control of both Houses of Congress in the 2018 mid-terms? History seems to say “no.” A recent Quinnipac poll showed that only 40% of Democrats had heard of their party’s new platform, “The Better Deal”, which itself seems to change from week to week. Going back a decade, in 2006, Democrats unveiled their new agenda less than four months before the mid-term elections. In 1994 and 2010, Republicans did not release their platforms until just a few weeks before mid-terms. In all three elections the House majority changed hands, and in two of them the Senate changed majority.

Today’s Democrats have decided to move very early, unveiling portions of their “Better Deal” agenda last week. The pressure point seems to be crafting an agenda that balances the needs of energizing anti-Trump liberal activists without driving away centrist voters and Republicans disillusioned both with Trump and the lack of results coming from the Republican-led Congress. Would they not have been better advised to keep their powder dry on new policy while attacking Republican Congressional failures?

Without winning a significant bloc of Republican voters in next year’s Senate races, Democrats will likely fall deeper into the minority. It is no better in the House, where Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats for the majority and there are 23 districts held by Republicans that Trump lost in 2016. The Democratic path to a House majority requires big gains in several dozen districts that supported Trump.

Perhaps it is time for Democrats to trumpet successes like Governor Dayton in Minnesota and adopt some of his policies nationwide as they seek a new set of young, centrist leaders like the new US Senator for California, Kamala Harris to energise party members and voters alike.

 

I intended to post this blog last week but six days in hospital intervened. I’m fine but I have decided to take a leaf of out Congress’s book and take a holiday. Back next month.