Two recent events signal a new
development in Western politics. The first is New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson’s call for a Western primary in the mountain
states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
Utah and Wyoming.
The second is the launching of a
“Democrats for the West” initiative by leading Democrats from those
same eight states, plus Alaska.
Richardson’s call
for a regional primary fits with his charge last fall to the
Western Governors’ Association, which he now chairs, to make
the West “a force on policy and politics.” Richardson argues that
if we unite on issues, the West acquires more clout. There are pros
and cons to a regional primary, but to the extent that it
encourages the Mountain West to think and act like a region, it
deserves careful consideration.
The fact is, though, that
many Western Democrats are nervous about any attempt to give the
West more clout. When most people think of an empowered West, they
can only think of the Republican West they have come to know and
fear. Empowering this West is not very appealing, and some of them
wonder why Richardson or anyone else would want to move in that
direction.
The answer from Democrats for the West is that
it has no intention of letting the West remain a thoroughly
Republican region. The group’s objective, as expressed in an
open letter, is “to build long-term, governing majorities across
the region.” To do that, they would need to help Western Democrats
break out of a particularly vicious cycle.
The cycle
starts with the nervousness of many Democrats with anything that
sounds too “Western.” Democrats have been aggressive and often
successful at appealing to various categories of identity,
including ethnic identities, but they have generally been hesitant
to appeal to Western identity.
It has sometimes seemed as
if Democrats view “Westernness” as an essentially regressive trait.
And too many Westerners sense this. This has played into relentless
and often successful Republican efforts to brand Democrats with
being against Western interests, if not against the West itself.
So effective has this branding of Democrats been, that
many Western Democratic candidates move into the second phase of
the vicious cycle. It’s bad enough that some Democrats are
nervous about being Westerners, but far worse that many Democrats
are nervous about being Democrats.
It is now not at all
uncommon to see Western Democratic candidates, especially those
with substantial rural constituencies, being selective about using
the Democratic label at all. Given the negative branding of that
Democratic label across much of the West, this nervousness is not
surprising, but it is almost impossible to imagine Democrats
building sustainable majorities across the region if leading
Democrats feel that they have to run away from, rather than running
proudly under, the Democratic banner.
Democrats for the
West has taken a big step toward breaking out of this vicious
cycle. Simply having Democratic giants such as Stewart Udall and
Cecil Andrus raising the Democrats for the West banner reminds
Democrats that they once were proud both of being Westerners and of
being Democrats. As a step toward restoring that tradition,
Democrats for the West have declared their intention to take back
from Republicans and from non-Westerners the job of defining what
the “D” after a Western candidate’s name stands for.
In order to be meaningful and lasting, and more than a
matter of spin, this redefinition will take hard work and extended
discussion on the part of Democrats across the region. The elders
who launched Democrats for the West have encouraged their fellow
Western Democrats to engage in “an open, vigorous discussion about
Western solutions to Western issues among Western Democrats in
every available forum,” including “state party platforms and in
campaigns for offices from county commissioner to president.”
If this grassroots redefinition of what the “D” stands
for in the West is undertaken seriously, it should make it steadily
easier for candidates to associate themselves openly, even proudly,
with that Western Democratic banner. It would also enable Western
Democrats to speak with a credible, unified voice in suggesting to
John Kerry how he can earn Western votes. He will earn them
primarily by proving that he, too, is “for the West.” Both Gov.
Richardson and the Democrats for the West have taken important
steps toward that result. They have done it by saying, “We’re
proud to be Westerners and proud to be Democrats.”
It
will be a new day in the West when “Proud to be a Western Democrat”
bumper stickers start showing up on pickups from Alaska to Arizona.
Daniel Kemmis is a contributor to Writers on
the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is former
mayor of Missoula, Montana, and also served as Democratic minority
leader and speaker of the Montana House of Representatives. He is
the author of This Sovereign Land: A New Vision for Governing the
West.
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