OK, ONE MORE TIME ON THIS ONE. There is clearly a developing narrative -- let�s call it the Casey-Webb-Shuler narrative -- which suggests that Democratic victories this year are somehow the result of Democrats �running as conservatives.� Republicans, and conservative Republicans in particular, have an obvious stake in perpetuating such a narrative. But it is patently untrue. Pull back the lens and what appears to be happening this year is a regional-ideological partisan correction in which Rockefeller-Ford Republicans are purged from the NE/NW Rust Belt, and prairie progressives pick off selected seats in the Far West. The regional realignment over the past 40 years, which slowly converted Dixiecrats into Republicans, has now entered its final stage, as voters north of the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Mississippi provide a countervailing response to the southern-led Republican majority. This transformation is occurring at the Senate, House, and gubernatorial levels. Indeed, because Rust Belt Republicans will be replaced by progressive Democrats, regardless of the final 2006 results, both chambers of the 110th Congress will become more progressive among the growing shares of Democrats and more conservative among the shrinking ranks of Republicans. Some factoids and trends to consider:
- In a Rust Belt realignment, NE/MW districts alone provided a sufficient number of Democratic seats to give Pelosi a new majority. CT, NY, PA and NH provided 9 flipped seats; OH, IN, IA, KS, MN and MN added another 9 to that total. Most of these are not conservative Democrats unseating arch-conservative Republicans, but progressive Democrats knocking out moderate Republicans. Of 96 GOP-held seats in the NE/MW, the capture of (at least) 18 seats produces a turnover rate of 18%.
- Though there are exceptional cases like NC�s Heath Shuler, the vast majority of House Democratic nominees are pro-choice progressives running on anti-war, anti-Bush themes. Of the Democratic nominees in the 58 most-competitive House seats, only nine were self-described pro-lifers, according to research compiled by Media Matters. All supported embryonic stem cell research, all supported increasing the minimum wage, and all opposed privatizing Social Security.
- For the first time in 52 years in the House, and only the second time in 52 years in the Senate (presuming Tester and Webb hold), the party with a minority of southern seats in that chamber nevertheless holds the majority party chamberwide. House Democrats flipped just 5 of 91 GOP-held seats in the 11 Confederate states plus KY, OK; that�s a flip rate of just 5%. If Harry Reid gets his coveted sixth seat in VA, Reid�s 50-plus-Sanders majority will be 90 percent non-southern senators (45 to 5). These are distinctly non-southern caucuses, especially since many of the returning southern House Democrats come from majority-minority districts.
Though it is sometimes worth reporting counter-trend and unusual stories, such as those of winning pro-life Democrats like Casey or Shuler, anecdotal exceptions and man-bites-dog storylines misrepresent the larger picture. Any suggestion that Democrats are winning by acting like conservatives or �Republican lite� candidates is simply false. Indeed, the big irony of this election is that the more conservative elements of the Republican congressional caucuses will survive, while GOP moderates pay for their party�s rightward shift.
--Tom Schaller