One Party Parallels between South Dakota and California?
Ronald Reagan’s son Michael recently wrote about “Destroying the California Dream” to lament that state’s political decline into a one-party system, including the social wreckage and voter apathy that comes with it. Not exactly what a wholesome democracy is all about.
Reagan argues that “Cuba is a one-party state. North Korea is a one-party state. California is a one-party state, I’m not trying to draw any false parallels. But I’ve noticed bad things happen when one political party has complete control of a government for too long, whether it’s the Communist Party that’s wrecked Cuba for 50 years or the Democrat Party that’s wrecked California for 40.”
Conversely, South Dakota has been tagged as a Republican state. Good so far. But is there an unholy parallel between the Rushmore state and California? One difficulty is that in South Dakota there’s not an easy split between conservatives and liberals.
Conservative Truman Democrats, if they exist, wear plenty of political camouflage, except during re-election campaigns. Most Democrats carry the liberal banner of the national party. Other would-be Democrats have long since been smart enough to know that election in many areas is only possible by running on the GOP ticket, thereby infusing the party with liberal blood.
The people in South Dakota tend to be conservative, but the politicians of both parties largely swing the other way, at least on social issues they can get away with. Of course, both parties are fiscal conservatives, knowing that it’s political suicide to identify too closely with the big-deficit folks in DC.
We all remember the populist Bill Janklow who could easily win election after election. Everyone liked his grit. He was a fiscal conservative, but his Board of Regents choices would have been right at home in any East or West Coast state educational system. Janklow was a businessman and lawyer, not an intellectual who would protect heritage and traditional values as such.
The Tea Party movements in all states are trying to re-assert conservative values in terms of Christianity, family, Western culture, and other beliefs now dismissed by liberals as pure nostalgia. Republicans are no longer the standard bearers it seems, confusing voters when party affiliations don’t ring true.
Michael Reagan’s comments about Republicans in California seem to apply to the two parties elsewhere: “The trouble is, the Republican Party of California is almost as much of a mess as the state. It has no leadership, no heroes, little money and no clear message. The state GOP has another big problem — Republicans have run out of courage. While the Democrats have been going nuts, Republicans have lost theirs.”
