New Geography

Category: Politics

  • Election 2008: Hardcore Republican and Democratic versus Balanced Areas

    It’s interesting to look at 2000 presidential election results from some extreme counties, contrasting the most Republican and the Democratic areas, and compare them to some areas that voted 50:50 in 2004. I’ll look at 7 counties of each kind, illustrating the peculiar geography of American partisanship. The Republican and the Democratic areas will not change much, but it will be fascinating to see what happens to the even split areas of 2004. Do look them up in your road atlas and on the web for more detail!

    Ultra Republican counties
    The most extreme are all in the Great Plains or the Mountain West – not in the east. All are almost entirely white, most have more men than women (unusual in the US), have very high levels of traditional families, and most have fairly low levels of income inequality, reflective of cultural homogeneity.

    These can be grouped into three sets:

    1. Madison and Franklin, ID, and Rich, UT, (all close together);
    2. Grant, NE, and Garfield, MT; and
    3. Ochiltree, TX, and Beaver, OK, (also close to each other).

    The Idaho and Utah counties are similar in many ways, but the key characteristic is the dominance of the Mormon Church – no cultural ambiguity here! Rexburg, in Madison County, has a branch of Brigham Young University. Garfield and Grant typify the extremely low density and declining farm counties of the Plains and interior West, with a fiercely independent “western” image. Ochiltree and Beaver are in the Panhandle and also low density oil and gas and range economies. These are the rural, culturally conservative small towns that Sarah Palin would consider “real” America. Conspicuously absent are any counties that we would associate with the traditional image of rich suburbia and exurbia!

    Ultra Democratic Counties
    The extreme Democratic counties are not quite so extreme as their Republican counterparts. These counties are comprised of two somewhat distinct types – the cores of giant metropolitan areas, exemplified here by New York City, San Francisco and Washington, DC, and then the areas of very high concentrations of minorities.

    Claiborne, MS, (in the Mississippi delta) and Macon, AL (home of the Tuskegee institute), are highly Black. Menominee, WI, has a high concentration of Native American Indians, while Prince George’s County, MD, is both a large metropolitan suburban county (of Washington DC) and is majority Black. In contrast to the ultra Republican counties, these are all rather low in non-Hispanic whites, low in traditional families, but high in singles and partners. Most have high inequality, with societies bifurcated between the rich and the poor.

    The 50:50 balanced set is more complex and diverse. Some are in the South, with their fairly high minority shares balancing their likely cultural conservatism – Tensas, LA, (Mississippi delta), and Bladen, NC, (SE, food processing industry).

    Three are small city or small metropolitan Midwestern counties with diverse economies – rich agriculture, urban industry: Peoria, IL, Winneshiek, IA, and Nicollet, WI.

    Similarly, Monroe, PA, (Pocono mountains, tourism and exurban living), and Rensselaer, NY (Troy, Rust Belt, but some recovery) have both traditional conservative rural-oriented residents and liberal who have moved in from the New York Megalopolis. They tend to be intermediate between the very Republican and very Democratic areas in household structure, degree of inequality, with perhaps a little higher portion of the population engaged in manufacturing.

    These sample areas reinforce the conventional wisdom of a polarization, at the extremes, between a metropolitan Democratic base, high in minorities, and a rural-small-town Republican base of traditional “values”. The small city, small metropolitan belt, mainly across the North, is amazingly balanced, and not surprisingly, the major battleground in this election. Big cities may talk a lot about diversity, but it’s largely in these smaller towns, as well as some exurbs and suburbs, where the real political debate about our future now takes place.

    Richard Morrill is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Washington. His research interests include: political geography (voting behavior, redistricting, local governance), population/demography/settlement/migration, urban geography and planning, urban transportation (i.e., old fashioned generalist)

  • American Elections Inspire Interest in Ghana

    There’s another presidential election just around the corner here in Ghana. Current President John Kufuor is stepping down after eight years in office that has seen the gold- and cocoa-exporting West African country expand its economy and solidify its democratic credentials. Another economic stride forward is expected when Ghana begins to pump oil in 2010 or 2011.

    Many people I’ve talked to expect the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to keep a hold on the presidency here in Ghana. The street signs and billboards of NPP Presidential Candidate Nana Akufo Addo appear to significantly outnumber those of National Democratic Congress (NDC) opposition candidate Professor Atta Mills. But the election in Ghana is not the only presidential race that people here are thinking of and talking about in the city and villages.

    Accra, Aburi and Akropong are about as far away from the election day swing states in America as you can get. But America’s election is more than just another news story on the BBC. Crawling and darting through the hectic traffic of the capital city of Accra one catches an occasional glimpse of an Obama bumper sticker. Traveling with my Ghanaian hosts and meeting with people at restaurants and bars talk about the American election quickly turns to questions about the prospects of Barack Obama.

    It becomes readily apparent who is the favored choice between Obama and McCain. People react favorably and with big smiles when I tell them that Obama is leading in the polls. They ask me a second, maybe a third time if I think he will really win. At times some will repeat his name following the conversation – as some kind of hopeful confirmation.

    The interest in the US election goes beyond the Obama candidacy; this is one place where America’s status has not plummeted . Relations between the two countries are at an all-time high, with President Kufuor meeting with President Bush at least five times in the last three years. A visit by President Bush to the capital city of Accra in February of 2008 created widespread excitement, pride and goodwill as the two presidents talked about development issues, the fight against HIV/AIDS, the Africa Union, regional security, and Millennium Development Goals, humanitarian issues.

    The prospects of more international trade and investment for Ghana are certainly part of this equation. A 2007 Pew Global poll shows that, all things considered, people in 47 countries consistently endorse international trade. Favorable views are especially common in sub-Saharan Africa. In all 10 African countries included in the survey, over 80 percent said trade was having a positive impact. My conversations with businessmen and traditional leaders confirm that more trade and development cooperation with the United States is eagerly anticipated.

    Lastly, but certainly as important, the interest in the American election is a consequence of the many personal and family ties that bind Ghanaians to the United States. In conversations over the course of several days I’ve met people who have lived in the Bronx, are proud Kansas Jayhawks, or have spent time in Seattle, Atlanta and Washington DC and the suburbs of northern Virginia. Others have told me of sisters, brothers, sons and daughters who now living throughout the United States.

    No matter the eventual outcome of the election – in the US or Ghana – it is clear that the relationship between the two democracies will and should continue to flourish. Ghana, as much of Africa, faces many development challenges and there will continue to be many opportunities for the US to work together with Ghanaian businesses and leaders in continuing to take small steps and big strides forward.

    Delore Zimmerman is Publisher of NewGeography.com and President of Praxis Strategy Group, a company that works to improve the futures of communities and regions.

  • Obama’s Marketing Message

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    In less than two weeks, when Barack Obama’s lead in all the polls is likely to be confirmed in the voting booth by the American electorate, millions of words will be written about why he won and how John McCain managed to lose. Unfortunately, marketing executives and corporate leaders have ignored some of the most important lessons from the campaign.

    Obama’s success to date lies in his ability to blend his own persona as a messenger with a unifying and uplifting message that reaches the newest generation of Americans, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. His campaign has mastered marketing through social networks and other Internet-based communication technologies. This “cool” approach defeated the “hot” rhetoric that came from his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, and is likely to perform even more favorably against the more confrontational and traditional campaign of John McCain.

    But Millennials don’t just represent the key constituency behind Senator Obama’s successful campaign but also a key market opportunity for economic growth. Almost one-third of all Americans are in this generational cohort, and even though many of them are still too young to vote, almost all of them influence the daily purchases of the families of which they are a part. Until brand managers and marketing mavens master the art of reaching and attracting Millennials, consumer expenditures will continue to languish.

    CEOs need to learn how to create brands that attract Millennials with something more transcendent than their product’s functionality or characteristics. Corporations will only hit their growth targets if they are willing to change their own message, messenger and media to fit the tastes of this generation.

    A recent study by The Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit suggests this campaign lesson has not yet penetrated the thinking of many in the “C suites” of the world’s corporations. More than half of those executives said they did not currently have a strategy to target or retain this demographic group. In their report, “Maturing with the Millenials”, survey respondents acknowledged the need for new tactics to target the millennial customer, but indicated a lack of readiness to do so.

    For instance, the report found that, “While 44% indicate that communicating the right messages in the right medium and at the right time is critical to their success, the majority have yet to leverage enriched content, peer recommendations and enhanced online experiences as part of their outreach—even though they acknowledge these are among the most effective ways to communicate with Millennials.” This sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton’s advisors Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald on the eve of the Iowa caucuses when they derided the supporters of Obama as looking “like Facebook” pages. When Obama’s Facebook legions came out to vote in droves in the Iowa caucuses they dealt a fatal blow to Senator Clinton’s cause.

    Companies, fortunately, do not have to suffer the short shelf life of failed candidates. They can change their strategies in order to capture an emerging new base. We have seen this with companies that have succeeded with emerging ethnic markets at home and with whole new markets abroad.

    Even though most executives surveyed by The Economist understood that Millennials have specific consumer needs, few have tailored their marketing strategy for this generation. Four out of 10 executives in the Economist’s survey said that Web 2.0 technologies, such as webcasts and online forums, are the best way to serve Millennial customers. More than 80 percent agreed that consumer needs vary by age group, and 42 percent believed that a bigger share of investment should go towards Millennial customers. Yet remarkably, the respondents reported that telephone, e-mail and physical storefronts were the top three ways that Millennials could interact with their company currently.

    The risks companies are taking by not addressing Millennials are great. John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer for Young & Rubicam, details this argument in a new book, The Brand Bubble. His research shows that consumers’ trust in brands has declined by half in just ten years. Instead consumers increasingly turn to nontraditional sources of information, such as search engines and social networks, to determine what they should buy and from whom. That is why any good corporate CEO should check every day what customers are saying about their company on the mushrooming “Why I hate xx” websites that now exist for every major company.

    To restore their brand’s value and regain traction with the buying public, companies will need to reinvent themselves in order to engage Millennial constituencies on Millennial terms and in Millennial media. They will need to learn the art of attracting support from Millennials without appearing to be chasing after it in much the same way Obama did in his campaign.

    One leading-edge private sector example of how to pull off this Zen-like non-effort is Nike’s successful efforts to enhance its brand’s attractiveness by creating online communities of runners. By partnering with Apple it created an application for runners that transfers running time, distance and even calories burned to a Nano so that the results can be uploaded for sharing with others. By building virtual running communities, Nike gave its customers an opportunity to register their individual profiles while receiving content that they can access while running. Nike was able to create its own social network linking people with similar running habits, such as those who run with poodles, to produce a strong bond of affiliation among each member of the group, and from that experience an equally strong sense of loyalty to the Nike brand.

    In 2006, the International Television and Video Almanac pointed out that Americans were being bombarded with about “5,000 marketing messages each day, up from 3000 in 1990 and 1500 in 1960.” Nothing in the trend line for communication technologies suggests this amount of corporate generated content is likely to decrease in the coming decades. Not surprisingly, Millennials can absorb much more information at any single moment than previous generations. But this does NOT mean that they are absorbing information in the same way. To gain the attention and brand loyalty of Millennials, companies will have to turn to non-traditional, online information distribution platforms to create a new message that builds a sense of community and caring around their products.

    The best way to do that is to incorporate a cause or purpose into the reason for buying a product. It may be protecting the environment by going green, or reducing inequality in the world through acts of charity, or demonstrating a commitment to young people by investing in educational institutions, or all of the above. Regardless of the cause, not only did the era of unfettered capitalism end with this month’s financial meltdown, but so too did the days of appeals to consumers based solely on narrow self-interest or conspicuous consumption. Bling is out; doing good is in. Make that your message, and you have a story that will work effectively in the Millennial era.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics

  • Obama’s Marketing Message

    In less than two weeks, when Barack Obama’s lead in all the polls is likely to be confirmed in the voting booth by the American electorate, millions of words will be written about why he won and how John McCain managed to lose. Unfortunately, marketing executives and corporate leaders have ignored some of the most important lessons from the campaign.

    Obama’s success to date lies in his ability to blend his own persona as a messenger with a unifying and uplifting message that reaches the newest generation of Americans, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. His campaign has mastered marketing through social networks and other Internet-based communication technologies. This “cool” approach defeated the “hot” rhetoric that came from his primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, and is likely to perform even more favorably against the more confrontational and traditional campaign of John McCain.

    But Millennials don’t just represent the key constituency behind Senator Obama’s successful campaign but also a key market opportunity for economic growth. Almost one-third of all Americans are in this generational cohort, and even though many of them are still too young to vote, almost all of them influence the daily purchases of the families of which they are a part. Until brand managers and marketing mavens master the art of reaching and attracting Millennials, consumer expenditures will continue to languish.

    CEOs need to learn how to create brands that attract Millennials with something more transcendent than their product’s functionality or characteristics. Corporations will only hit their growth targets if they are willing to change their own message, messenger and media to fit the tastes of this generation.

    A recent study by The Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit suggests this campaign lesson has not yet penetrated the thinking of many in the “C suites” of the world’s corporations. More than half of those executives said they did not currently have a strategy to target or retain this demographic group. In their report, “Maturing with the Millenials”, survey respondents acknowledged the need for new tactics to target the millennial customer, but indicated a lack of readiness to do so.

    For instance, the report found that, “While 44% indicate that communicating the right messages in the right medium and at the right time is critical to their success, the majority have yet to leverage enriched content, peer recommendations and enhanced online experiences as part of their outreach—even though they acknowledge these are among the most effective ways to communicate with Millennials.” This sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton’s advisors Mark Penn and Mandy Grunwald on the eve of the Iowa caucuses when they derided the supporters of Obama as looking “like Facebook” pages. When Obama’s Facebook legions came out to vote in droves in the Iowa caucuses they dealt a fatal blow to Senator Clinton’s cause.

    Companies, fortunately, do not have to suffer the short shelf life of failed candidates. They can change their strategies in order to capture an emerging new base. We have seen this with companies that have succeeded with emerging ethnic markets at home and with whole new markets abroad.

    Even though most executives surveyed by The Economist understood that Millennials have specific consumer needs, few have tailored their marketing strategy for this generation. Four out of 10 executives in the Economist’s survey said that Web 2.0 technologies, such as webcasts and online forums, are the best way to serve Millennial customers. More than 80 percent agreed that consumer needs vary by age group, and 42 percent believed that a bigger share of investment should go towards Millennial customers. Yet remarkably, the respondents reported that telephone, e-mail and physical storefronts were the top three ways that Millennials could interact with their company currently.

    The risks companies are taking by not addressing Millennials are great. John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer for Young & Rubicam, details this argument in a new book, The Brand Bubble. His research shows that consumers’ trust in brands has declined by half in just ten years. Instead consumers increasingly turn to nontraditional sources of information, such as search engines and social networks, to determine what they should buy and from whom. That is why any good corporate CEO should check every day what customers are saying about their company on the mushrooming “Why I hate xx” websites that now exist for every major company.

    To restore their brand’s value and regain traction with the buying public, companies will need to reinvent themselves in order to engage Millennial constituencies on Millennial terms and in Millennial media. They will need to learn the art of attracting support from Millennials without appearing to be chasing after it in much the same way Obama did in his campaign.

    One leading-edge private sector example of how to pull off this Zen-like non-effort is Nike’s successful efforts to enhance its brand’s attractiveness by creating online communities of runners. By partnering with Apple it created an application for runners that transfers running time, distance and even calories burned to a Nano so that the results can be uploaded for sharing with others. By building virtual running communities, Nike gave its customers an opportunity to register their individual profiles while receiving content that they can access while running. Nike was able to create its own social network linking people with similar running habits, such as those who run with poodles, to produce a strong bond of affiliation among each member of the group, and from that experience an equally strong sense of loyalty to the Nike brand.

    In 2006, the International Television and Video Almanac pointed out that Americans were being bombarded with about “5,000 marketing messages each day, up from 3000 in 1990 and 1500 in 1960.” Nothing in the trend line for communication technologies suggests this amount of corporate generated content is likely to decrease in the coming decades. Not surprisingly, Millennials can absorb much more information at any single moment than previous generations. But this does NOT mean that they are absorbing information in the same way. To gain the attention and brand loyalty of Millennials, companies will have to turn to non-traditional, online information distribution platforms to create a new message that builds a sense of community and caring around their products.

    The best way to do that is to incorporate a cause or purpose into the reason for buying a product. It may be protecting the environment by going green, or reducing inequality in the world through acts of charity, or demonstrating a commitment to young people by investing in educational institutions, or all of the above. Regardless of the cause, not only did the era of unfettered capitalism end with this month’s financial meltdown, but so too did the days of appeals to consumers based solely on narrow self-interest or conspicuous consumption. Bling is out; doing good is in. Make that your message, and you have a story that will work effectively in the Millennial era.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press: 2008)

  • The Entrepreneur is the True Face of Capitalism in America

    “Joe the Plumber” has gotten a lot of media attention over the past week. Depending on which side of the political fence you’re on, he is either a phony who is not even a registered plumber or a symbol for the unintended consequences of wealth redistribution policies. A Rasmussen survey taken on October 19th showed “Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Democrats think [Obama] is right on [spreading the wealth], but 78% of Republicans disagree.”

    It is easy to rail against corporations like Exxon-Mobil while surging gas prices force average Americans to make tough choices with the family budget. In 2007, they reported $39.5 billion in profits which represented 11.4 percent of revenues – up 9.3 percent over 2005.

    Not surprisingly, building popular support to tax windfall profits is easy politically. So, too, is the idea that these taxes should be redistributed to working families. On the other hand, making the case that profits will spur new energy development and reward shareholders seems almost impossible.

    CEO pay, and especially bonuses, are also easy targets for populists. In 2007, major financial firms in New York paid $39 billion in bonuses to themselves. Overall, CEO bonuses increased 27.1 percent in 2006 according to Business Week. The public has trouble understanding how the CEO at Lehman Brothers can make almost $450 million since 2000 and provide millions of dollars in “golden parachutes” to executives even as the firm was failing.

    But the media and the electorate often miss a key distinction. CEOs are not entrepreneurs. They are high paid managers who run the companies that true entrepreneurs built generations ago. Many are graduates of elite business schools who have extensive networks of contacts in business, government and among the “movers and shakers” of our nation. Quite a few are from the nation’s wealthiest families.

    On the other hand, “Joe the Plumber” is a symbol of entrepreneurism – the “little guys” with big dreams. They want to be their own boss. They feed off the soft underbellies of corporations too big or too inflexible to react to changes that create opportunities. Most are hard-working and honest. They don’t have stock options, bonuses or golden parachutes at retirement. In fact, most have many payless paydays when building their businesses.

    Entrepreneurs are America’s job creators. According to the Small Business Administration, from 2003 to 2004 companies with less than 20 employees created roughly 1.6 million net new jobs. Companies with 20 to 499 employees created around 275,000 net new jobs. Meanwhile, employment at companies with more than 500 employees shrank by 214,000.

    The University of Michigan and Florida International University study entrepreneurial activity in America. The metric they use is the number of people who start new businesses or manage firms less than four years old. In 2005, they reported that 23 million people were in this category. Some of the demographics of this group are interesting:

    • 18- to 34-year-olds account for about 44 percent of new firm creations.
    • 57 percent of those starting a new business have high school education.
    • Only 23 percent have finished college.

    Entrepreneurs are the risk-takers in America who know that they are bucking long odds in pursuing their dream. In his book Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By, Professor Scott Shane compiled data tabulated by the Bureau of the Census produced for the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration and found that only 29 percent of business ventures that were started in 1992 where still around in 2002.

    The entrepreneur is the embodiment of the American spirit and validation of the American dream. Bill Gates epitomized this in the last few decades. He is now using his tremendous wealth for good by funding education and world health programs. On the foundation’s website, Gates lists 15 principals about the role of philanthropy. Principal #7 reflects Gates’s entrepreneurial roots: “We take risks, make big bets, and move with urgency. We are in it for the long haul.”

    The legacy of entrepreneurism can be seen in university buildings, hospital wings, libraries, research centers, foundations and companies that bear the names of entrepreneurs. Most started with a vision to do something new or make something better or more efficiently than ever before. Sadly, many of these institutions, particularly universities and non-profit foundations, seem committed not to fostering more entrepreneurs, but rather to teaching that capitalism is inherently unfair.

    When candidates rail against CEOs and corporate greed they need to be careful that their anger and the populist policies that grow out of it do not spill over into entrepreneurism and extinguish its flame.

    Let’s punish those whose greed for short-term profits has nearly destroyed our economy whether or not they are on Wall Street or in a corporate suite. But we must keep in mind that if we let our anger spill over to extreme new regulation and a new regime of higher taxes, we will also be targeting those “little guys and gals” who want to chart their own course to success. America needs its entrepreneurs perhaps now more than ever before in our history.

    Dennis M. Powell is president and CEO of Massey Powell an issues management consulting company located in Plymouth Meeting, PA.

  • The biggest issue remains undecided

    Unless something completely unexpected occurs, the presidential election has been settled, with Barack Obama the clear winner. Yet, except for the Republican Party’s demise, the most important issue of this era — the future of the middle class — remains largely unaddressed.

    Indeed, even as social polarization has diminished — a change that is reflected in Obama’s electoral success — economic polarization has intensified. Globalization and the securitization of almost everything have created arguably the greatest concentration of wealth since before the Great Depression.

    During much of the 20th century, the middle class was on a roll, with strong income gains and increasing rates of homeownership. But in the past few decades, while returns to capital and to certain elite occupations grew rapidly, wages for lower-income and middle-class workers have stagnated.

    To date, neither Obama nor John McCain has articulated a clear message of how to restore the path to upward mobility. Recent proposals from both candidates have been distinctly ad hoc and have had a short-term orientation — not surprising, given the severity of the crisis and the brief period left before the election.

    Yet over time, how the next president, presumably Obama, addresses the problems of middle-class Americans will determine the future of American politics. The party that captures the loyalty of that class — as Republicans did in the early 20th century; Democrats, from the 1930s to the 1960s; and Republicans, again after that — will dominate the nation’s politics in the coming decade.

    The political future may lie with a party that embraces a growth-oriented economic strategy that focuses on the creation of higher-income productive jobs for both younger and older workers. But it’s far from clear that the Democrats under Obama are ready to play that role.

    Clearly, these are not the Democrats of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Harry Truman’s Fair Deal or even Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Working- and middle-class Americans, including small farmers, low-level proprietors and ethnic businessmen, constituted the primary base for those Democrats. Although some leading Democrats, notably Roosevelt himself, came from the aristocracy, the upper classes and most of the corporate hierarchy remained fiercely Republican.

    But now the old class lines have changed. The once-impregnable visual barriers of the past — which separated the ultrarich from the rest of us — have largely dissolved. As Irving Kristol once noted, “Who doesn’t wear blue jeans these days?” Today, you can walk into a film studio, software corporation or high-tech firm and have trouble distinguishing the upper tiers from at least the middle ranks.

    Many of these moguls today tend to be socially and environmentally liberal and strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Yet despite their attire and attendance at U2 concerts, their economic concerns will remain radically different from the rest of society. Having secured their support, a President Obama may be forced to take great pains to secure the fortunes of the likes of George Soros, Robert Rubin, the Google decabillionaires and other big party funders.

    We may have witnessed the birth of this new class in the bizarre alliance of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barney Frank with Wall Street’s viceroy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Once fully in power, these Democrats likely will begin by propping up the financial elites — much as Bush has done — but will also have to make a “grand bargain” to satisfy key party constituencies outside of the financial elite.

    There are already hints of this in Obama’s recent statements. His program to send cash to the poor through tax credits and other largesse can be seen as a political payout to his large, heavily minority, urban constituency. Massive bailouts for failing city, state and county governments — another part of the senator’s program — would also bolster public employee unions and their pension funds, both of which have emerged as key Democratic backers. New handouts for the U.S.-based auto industry, as Obama has recently suggested, would, not coincidentally, help one of the last large, unionized private sectors.

    Sadly, none of this will do more to create upward mobility, particularly for the next generation. The working poor may get a few hundred desperately needed dollars to spend, but this is no substitute for a policy that would stimulate production of jobs. Unions and their pension funds would get an extended holiday from addressing their often outrageously generous retirement and medical benefits, but that comes at the expense of the larger, private work force. The financial elites could secure government support for stabilized markets but would have little incentive to invest in domestic production industries and middle-class employment.

    Finally, Obama’s base of highly educated, socially liberal, professional Democrats — largely insulated in universities and nonprofits from economic distress — would be rewarded with the political validation of their worldviews on everything from gay marriage and diversity to environmentalism. More federal support for education, another likely Obama initiative, could also allow them to keep comfortably feathering their nests.

    Over time, however, such an approach could threaten the unity of the Democratic Party. This prospect emerged in the first House vote on the initial Wall Street bailout package. In addition to economic fundamentalist Republicans, many suburban, exurban and rural Democrats also found the plan objectionable. Hostility was particularly marked in the Great Plains, Appalachia, South Texas and other areas strongly oriented toward energy production, manufacturing and logistics.

    This growing wing of populist Democrats, often more socially conservative than their coastal and urban counterparts, tend to favor steering capital toward sectors such as domestic energy production, agriculture, manufactured goods and domestically sourced specialized services. All these, they believe, could drive up incomes and salaries for a wide spectrum of Americans far better than boosting transfer payments or shoring up investment banks.

    This political approach does not appeal to the urban liberals now dominant in both the Democratic Congress and the Obama camp. These represent places, such as New York, San Francisco and Chicago, that are increasingly more dependent on speculative real estate and financial assets than producing goods. Their primary interest in the next few years will be to find out how to create yet another bubble, perhaps tied to designated “green” industries, which could send local land values and stocks soaring again to unsustainable heights.

    All this, however, leaves the Democrats and Obama in a quandary. They could favor programs to expand industry, energy production and basic infrastructure, but they would risk of a wrathful Gore and his allies. It will take all Obama’s considerable political skill to balance his commitments to the greens, the hedge fund industry and venture capitalists with creating a program that will increase the incomes and prospects for middle-class Americans.

    Republicans could take advantage of this schism — if they have the intelligence and foresight to do so. The GOP could embrace the old Hamiltonian policy of internal improvements and incentives for the country’s industrial, energy and logistics companies that still employ millions of working- and middle-class Americans.

    After all, the legacy of corporate socialism bequeathed by President Bush makes it almost impossible for Republicans to sell themselves as economic libertarians. They will need to offer something to the middle class besides the well-worn politics of social resentment and military belligerence.

    But such a GOP rebirth likely lies in the future, if ever. In the next few years, the Democrats will have to address the nation’s growing class chasm on their own. How they do this may well determine not only the future success of the Obama presidency, but the survival of the American aspirational model, as well.

    This article originally appeared at Politico.

    Joel Kotkin is a presidential fellow at Chapman University and executive editor of www.newgeography.com. He is finishing a book on the American future.

  • California Disconnect: Don’t Get Out the Vote for Congress, State Legislature

    Have you heard about the current election season in Los Angeles?

    Sure, we’ve all gotten word about the presidential campaign. But how much have you heard about races for the U.S. Congress or State Legislature?

    The member of the U.S. House of Representatives who represents my neighborhood is up for re-election, along with his 434 colleagues. So is the fellow who represents me in the California State Assembly—and his 79 colleagues.

    I haven’t heard a peep from either one of them – no automated phone calls, signs, brochures, or door knockers. I’ll bet most of you could say the same for your representatives.

    There are a couple of reasons for all of this quiet, and the first is that elected officials don’t want to campaign.

    The U.S. Congress is just as unpopular as President George W. Bush. They’ve earned the low esteem, too, because many members of both major parties have been asleep at the switch these last eight years, dozing off while our nation continued to conduct warfare abroad and inflate a housing bubble at home, putting both ends of the deal on credit.

    Members of the State Legislature just did some foot stomping with the governor that caused their annual budget to be a couple of months late—a case of tardiness that has and will cost us all plenty.

    The second – and more discomforting – reason for the quiet campaign season is that an overwhelming number of the elected officials who represent Los Angeles in Washington and Sacramento don’t need to run hard. They have “safe seats,” with boundaries for their districts carved up to give them a lock at the polls.

    There’s also a measure on the November 4 ballot that claims to fix the process of drawing up boundaries for state offices in California. Rest assured that politicians have a hand in the deal, so don’t expect much.

    Where does that leave unhappy voters?

    It seems clear that there only a couple of ways to deal with a political system that’s in such shape. The first is for everyday folks to get together and start looking for individuals they know and trust as possible candidates for various offices. Forget about political experience—all the experience in Washington and Sacramento hasn’t done us much good. Just look for bright men and women whom you know to be honorable. Tell them you want them to run for office. Then help them make the race.

    Of course it’s too late to take such steps in this election, which leaves the matter of how to make the current crop of elected officials feel your displeasure.

    Voters could make a powerful statement by withholding their votes for members of Congress and the State Legislature. This is not suggested lightly, and it’s not to say that anyone should skip the presidential election, which is simply too important to sit out.

    It’s also understood that this will hit the few legislators who have actually been working in the best interests of their constituents lately. That’s a tough break, but it’s become clear that mass punishment of the legislative class is the only way to convince them of what poor use they’ve made of our hallowed institutions. Voters must let them all know that we know the game is rigged.

    The legislative class might get the point if its members see large numbers of us vote in the presidential election but find no reason to cast a ballot for other offices. They’ll win their rigged game, but victory will come with a warning. Maybe they’ll figure out that we’re tired of safe seats choking off any hope for vibrant campaigns where ideas matter.

    Again, this is nothing to take lightly. The right to vote is sacred. Yet the very same right is abused by the current system.

    So it’s true that your vote is your voice.

    Yet it’s also true that silence can sometimes speak volumes.

    Jerry Sullivan is the Editor & Publisher of the Los Angeles Garment & Citizen, a weekly community newspaper that covers Downtown Los Angeles and surrounding districts

  • Here They Go Again

    Recent soundings from Washington suggest that neither party has a solid idea of what to do about the deepening economic crisis. It makes me cringe to hear Barney Frank, Chairman of House Financial Services Committee, talking about a big stimulus to “prop up consumption”.

    Under the Democratic-controlled Congress, this would likely include the usual tax relief to middle and working class Americans, as well as big new payments to hard-pressed cities and states. To be sure, the interests of wage-earning Americans should be paramount, but this is reminiscent of the “stimulus” plan earlier this year that did little more than “prop up” spending on consumer goods for a couple months.

    Since many of these products are made in China or somewhere overseas, who are we helping most here? In addition, of course, the bail out of local governments benefits a prime Democratic constituency — public employee union. If we are going to cough up more to pay their salaries, why not ask them first to accept less largesse? Maybe they can agree not to retire until they are in their sixties, like the rest of us chumps, I mean, taxpayers. Then we can talk bailout.

    However, let’s not pick on Democrats alone. The Republicans seem to like consumer “stimulus” but only when spiked with more tax cuts for their dwindling, but still significant cadre of wealthy Americans. Maybe this will help consumption a bit more at Bloomingdales than Wal-mart, but in the end, who cares?

    My thought is that we should focus instead on the core issues of stimulating the “real economy” through incentives for high value manufacturing, domestic energy producers of all kinds (including nuclear power) and investment in basic infrastructure, including new transmission lines, research in clean and alternative fuels. All of these things would reduce our increasingly debilitating dependence on other countries to fund our deficits and consumption habits.

    To lift spirits of Americans the most we need a program that aims to make the country less dependent on both Middle East energy producers and Chinese manufacturers. As we did starting in the 1930s, let us create a climate for real upward mobility based on expanding the productive economy. It’s time to stop relying on quick sugar highs to spur more consumption of items we do not produce or can’t afford and time to start getting back to basics.

  • Obama: A Campaign Model for the Information Age

    Senator Barack Obama has run the first campaign of the information age, and win or lose he has set the standard for how campaigns will be run from this point forward.

    He has parlayed his inspirational speeches and personal appeal to the millennial generation into a base of small donors likely unequaled in modern election history. His campaign understood the power of the Internet and social networking and successfully used it as a resource to create political buzz about him and build a fundraising juggernaut.

    It was the breadth of Obama’s fundraising base that positioned him to bring the Clinton campaign to its knees in the months following Super Tuesday. Clinton’s “big dollar” donors had “maxed out” expecting a quick and decisive victory in February. The lack of financial resources available to Clinton in the months after Super Tuesday allowed Obama to campaign in the marginally significant electoral states and build his delegate count using tens of thousands of $25 contributions.

    It was the Obama campaign’s ability to replenish its coffers, spend and reload again and again that was a — it not the major — factor in derailing the Clinton nomination that a year ago seemed all but inevitable. Obama was able to fight a protracted war, because he has built long supply lines. Clinton went for the early knockout and ran out of gas.

    Obama’s fund raising advantage has reflected more the way he built his base of support than the momentum he had at that point in the campaign. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama had raised $454 million as of August 31, 2008. The website www.opensecrets.org reports that 94 percent of Obama’s funds come from individual donors and 51 percent of Obama’s contributions are $200 or less.

    When compared with John McCain’s base, Obama has much more in reserve. Obama has amassed 95,000 more small contributions than McCain. He has 10,700 more contributions of $2,300 plus than McCain, but this number represents only 30 percent of Obama’s total compared to 49 percent of McCain’s total in this category. And, 16 percent of McCain’s contributors are “maxed out” as compared to 9 percent of Obama’s.

    It is even more interesting when you break it down to gender. Female donors comprise 42 percent of Obama’s base and 28 percent of McCain’s base of financial support. Females donors account for 71.6 percent of the total contributed by males to Obama while McCain’s female donors reflect only is 38.3 percent of total male giving. In the category of donors from $200 – $499 Obama’s base of female donors outpaces McCain’s by a ratio of 3.4:1.

    Obama has built his political organization around his fund raising base rather than vice versa as is usually the case in political campaigns. This is critical in building his “machine” in states like Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Colorado, where he is either winning or close to it.

    The beauty of this model is that after the television ads have gone dark and the radio ads ring hollow, Obama is only a mouse click away from continuing the conversation with his base.

    On Election Day, Obama will have more than 2.5 million investors who are almost certain to vote. The campaign infrastructure that he has built will enable him to contact them and focus them as a resource throughout Election Day. This may well decide the election for Obama. But win or lose he has set the bar for future candidates in terms of building a base of fund raising support.

    Dennis M. Powell is president and CEO of Massey Powell an issues management consulting company located in Plymouth Meeting, PA.

  • Post-Imperial Foreign Policy: Our best allies are countries most like US

    When the Presidential and vice-Presidential hopefuls talk foreign policy, they look every which way — towards the Middle East, Russia, Europe, Asia or Africa, but they largely ignore our own backyard.

    In the next decades of the 21st Century, our policymakers will need different priorities. When looking for our closest allies, we may well need to look away from current entanglements in unfortunate, far away places and towards a stronger relationship with countries — notably Canada — with whom we share so much.

    This requires some understanding of where we are today. The breathless talk of an “end of history” and inevitable democratization that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union should be swept aside by now. Instead we need to understand both a greater diversity in national systems and, increasingly, a trend towards ever more authoritarian regimes.

    Anyone who has studied history should understand this. Authoritarianism has been the default mode for millennia and seems likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.

    Twenty years ago it was possible to see in Russia and even in China, signs of a transformation towards democracy and a civil society. But clearly Putinism has produced something of a legal dictatorship in Russia, a downsized Soviet Union dressed in democratic garb. China seemed headed towards a more civil, less dictatorial state — before Tiananmen ended that dream. The recent Olympics seemed to highlight an authoritarian success story in a way that the designers of the 1936 Berlin Olympics would have appreciated.

    The influence of these countries, particularly China, in the developing world is also growing. Many see the so-called “Beijing Consensus” — placing economic development ahead of even modest democratization — as more appealing than the inherent inefficiencies of popular control, not to mention American hectoring and self-righteousness.

    Even our closest historic allies in Europe are increasingly asserting their own notions of what is best for them. With a rapidly aging, even declining population, these countries do not share the basic American need for sustained, vibrant economic growth over the next few decades. Instead they likely will continue to embrace a conscious policy of slow growth and stability. This will not change even when the hated George Bush is gone — despite a possible flurry of post-election Obamamania.

    How to respond to these trends? Flex our muscles? Been there, done that and what has it gotten us? In the end, we will have fewer opportunities to apply either military or economic power. The latter is now too well dispersed in the world and likely to become more decentralized in the coming decades. Even military power has its limits as can be seen by the rise of asymmetrical warfare. At the same time rising economies like China are rapidly increasing their military might as well.

    None of this means that we should accept the fashionable notion of American decline. Although obscured by the current financial crisis, our unique strengths — demographic, economic, and even political — remain very much intact. An aging Europe, the favored candidate for preeminence among many east coast policy wonks — does not share these assets. They have their own ethnic problems, a weak military, a shrinking supply of skilled workers and a continuing dearth of babies. Their economic system may not have our unfortunate penchant for excess, but built on security, it appears to restrain innovation and risk-taking.

    China, India and Russia and other rising powers of today also face enormous demographic and economic challenges. All have large populations of poor people once you leave the westernized cores. Russia’s economy is overly dependent on commodities; China and Russia face demographic declines equal or even worse than the EU.

    So where can we find our best allies? We look to those countries who share our demographic vitality, our fecundity and common values — Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

    Like the United States these countries are also “countries of aspiration.” They remain enormously attractive to both skilled and unskilled immigrants, including those from Europe and Asia. If there’s a brain drain in the world, it’s mostly to the US, Canada and Australia.

    Although born to British colonialism, these countries have over time, notes historian David Cannadine, “increasingly come to resemble the United States”. This is not a matter of liking George Bush, eating McDonald’s or even getting fat. It’s about young countries that are, in their own fashion, knitting together diverse legacies, including those of indigenous people. Strong pockets of anti-Americanism exist in certain circles in all of these countries, but on the grassroots level the similarities are likely to become more striking over time.

    Bolstering ties with Canada represents by far the greatest opportunity. High energy costs mean proximity matters more than ever. Canadian and American firms need to share adjacent markets. This will strengthen even more the strongest bilateral trade relationship on the planet.

    Perhaps even more important are family ties. Canada remains the largest source of visitors to the United States and vice-versa. Some 800,000 Canadians have settled permanently in the United States; 200,000 Americans have moved north to Canada. Many have dual citizenship. (A quick disclaimer: my wife is a native of Quebec and a dual citizen).

    Building on these natural ties will take some psychological changes in both countries. A strong alliance requires both a confident Canada and a respectful America. Americans need to stop thinking of Canada as a kind of northern icebox that we raid for resources when hungry. Canadians, for their part, should no longer regard themselves as America’s poor cousins but as equal partners with enormous resources, both human and material.

    With Canada, this relationship can be immediately strengthened at both the national and regional level. One step would be to embark on a program of cross-border infrastructure that would expand trade corridors from the Arctic down to Mexico, from Cascadia to the north Atlantic. Such steps would increase markets and productive capacity across our common continent.

    Another potential opportunity lies in building an alliance around environmental and energy issues. A strongly integrated North American Energy Community, including Mexico, could insulate Americans from unreliable suppliers in the Middle East, Russia and South America. For Canadians, it would cement a stable, long-term relationship with a steady customer and perhaps guarantee a floor on prices.

    Finally, NAEC would work on environmental concerns related to energy. We all share a common space here in North America; mountain ranges, rivers, lakes and topographical zones do not recognize borders. As we work to secure our common energy future, we should then create a sustainable future for all the residents of the great continent.

    Of course, none of this likely will excite the policy elites in Washington. They are already atwitter with ideas for how the President should address our relations with Pakistan, Russia, China or other troublesome distant place. It would be refreshing instead if perhaps Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain, on taking office, might first consider to build stronger relations with a neighbor who shares not only values and family ties but also this vast, rich and blessed continent.

    Joel Kotkin is Executive Editor of NewGeography.com.