Poor Losers
The Prairie Progressive:  A Newsletter for Iowa's Democratic Left
 - Iowa's best political newsletter since 1986.
It hurts a lot more to lose than it feels good to win.
- Bruce Hurst, former Boston Red Sox pitcher
 
by Prairie Dog

The sinking feeling in the delegate’s gut got deeper each night of the Democratic National Convention. Seated twenty feet in front of the Fleet Center stage alongside his fellow Iowa delegates, his view was all too clear as the generals, the veterans, and the bands of brothers marched across the stage with increasing frequency.

When John Kerry took the stage on the final night, saluted smartly, and announced that he was ‘reporting for duty,’ the mob of delegates cheered and waved American flags dispensed to them moments before. The caucus candidate who was said to be the ‘only one who could go toe-to-toe with Bush’ on military and foreign policy issues was now the party’s nominee.

Some of the delegates looked at each other and shrugged sheepishly as they cheered. Polls had shown that nearly 90% of them opposed the war. Many of them wore bright-red ‘Out of Iraq Now’ stickers. Most of them had leaped to their feet during Al Sharpton’s denunciation of George Bush’s presidency. But they all understood that the strategy had been set, the dice had been rolled.

A few feet away, Barney Frank sat cross-legged in the aisle between the Iowa and Massachusetts delegations, somewhat to the annoyance of the throng of photographers jostling for position. Barney, himself doing some positioning for Kerry’s US Senate seat, worked his way onto the stage within minutes of Kerry’s concluding remarks. As the balloons poured down upon the generals and the brothers, could our country’s first openly gay congressman have possibly anticipated that three months later his fellow Democrats would blame Kerry’s defeat on anti-gay backlash?

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  The e-mail message arrived early in the morning after Election Day, from a Democratic staffer in California:

“Gay marriage hurt. Republican turnout was high, but it was especially so in states with same-sex marriage amendments on the ballot. This is still a BAD issue. Thank you bigotry, and thank you Gavin Newsom…he is 2004's Nader. “

A minute later, from an Iowa City attorney: The Dems have lost the culture war. Period.

Next came the exit polls, pinpointing ‘moral values’ as the most important issue for 22% of voters. The verdict was in, and the scapegoat had been determined. For many Democrats, stricken by defeat and unwilling to look in the mirror, the victims had become the villains.

It’s bad enough that self-serving Republicans, religious fanatics, and herd journalists exploit gay-marriage amendments as the crucial factor in Bush’s victory. For Democrats – the champions of civil rights – to do so is shameful.  
    
 ~ Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, despite LBJ’s forecast that it would cost the party a generation of Southern voters. He was wrong. It cost the party at least three generations. No doubt the Dems would now control all three branches of government if Rosa Parks had gone to the back of that damn bus.
 
 ~ The broad category of ‘moral values’ covers a myriad of issues, from abortion to R-rated movies. Its 22% exit poll response was much lower than the total of 34% scored by Iraq and terrorism. The economy, jobs, and taxes totaled 25%.
 
 ~ Anti-gay marriage referendums in 11 states did not dramatically energize turnout. Bush’s increase in votes over 2000 was less in those 11 states than in the 39 states without referendums.
 
 ~ Bush became the first Republican presidential candidate since 1984 to win Iowa, a state that did not have a gay marriage referendum.
 
 ~ Kerry won Oregon and Michigan, states with referendums on the ballot.
     
 ~ The number of American daily newspapers that print same-sex wedding announcements increased from zero in 1990 to 504 in 2004.
     
 ~ Bettendorf recently became the sixth Iowa city to add sexual orientation to its civil rights ordinance. Burlington, Decorah, Waterloo, Sioux City, and Dubuque have inched closer. Maybe the road to equality for gays and lesbians will be town by town – painstaking as it is – instead of state by state or at the national level.
 
Backlash to social change usually indicates that progress is being made. Anyone who thinks that momentum has now swung toward cultural conservatism hasn’t studied much history.
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Those of us who love our Iowa caucuses are also experiencing that sinking feeling. Do we still deserve first-in-the-nation status?

In years gone by, most Democrats voted for whom they wanted to represent their party: Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson, Paul Simon, Tom Harkin. The caucus season was a time to influence the debate, to drive issues forward, to determine the direction of the party. This year we became pragmatic experts, prematurely calculating who was most ‘presidential’ and ‘electable.’

To speculate that any candidate would have fared better than Kerry against Bush is futile, but the lemming-like rush to ‘electability’ still rankles. Nothing’s worse than losing…except losing for the wrong reasons.

 
Co-editors of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.  Mr. Leshtz is a former staffer for Dean for America.  Subscriptions are $12 for 4 issues/year in old-fashioned hard copies; checks to Prairie Progressive, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.