They’re not fooling me one bit: the Texas Legislature and all the work they’ve been a-doin’ from the Clinton to the Obama administrations, gerrymandering precincts and now disallowing voters to select the straight-party option. I remember during the 20th century when local Republican and Democratic party chairs recommended all voters simply check the straight-party option conveniently located at the top of the ballot, each party chair maintaining theirs had the best and most outstanding candidates in all races. In that bygone era the party elders just wanted to make it easy on voters since so many if not most don’t vote at all. Too, they knew most voters don’t bother researching each and every race such as all those district judgeships and state commissions—names we’ve never heard of let alone the duties of each office.
Yeah, we’re just a bunch of ignert ol’ hicks spread out all over this great big Lone Star state like a swipe of mustard on a bun. All right, maybe ignorance is kinda true for a lot of voters, folks just pickin’ names on the ballot based on vague familiarity and past acquaintances from high school and church (no one we really know or heard of running for office) or to quote the late Molly Ivins when Texas voters chose ‘cute’ names on the ballot and in the process voted for “the wrong Don Yarborough.” Mostly straight-ticket voters are probably sticking to the political party with which they define themselves and likely always have.
My fellow Texans, it’s gonna be up to us to decide how we gonna play this game called e-lek-shuns. And it’s gotta start with knowing the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Grandpa knew the difference
My grandfather was asked this question by his children. Back in those days, he intently listened to the news on the radio as well as read the daily newspaper. He took our nation’s history and voting privilege very seriously, and as a poor man trying to provide for his ever-expanding family he sought some kind of ray of hope, of financial stability on the horizon. He was, of course, devoted to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Grandpa taught his children: Democrats care about the common man while Republicans care about money. Simple response from a not-so-simple man living in desperately hard times. I don’t know if he ever perceived how the two governing concepts go hand in hand.
So the old Depression-era distinction or belief in the two parties continued until the 1960s, when if you can believe it, people down South switched party affiliations like … hmm, like it was the end of the world. The switcheroo had to do with the Civil Rights movement and the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Southern Democrats were gonna have to support African Americans, simple as that. Instead many white Democrats ran lickety-split to the Republicans, whose political agenda never promoted the advancement of people of color.
Then there was the hippy factor and the Vietnam War, separating American voters into hawks and doves. Doves just wanted to make love not war; hawks were ready to fight for any reason anywhere—something like that. Then American politics got really ugly in the ’70s with radical Democrats, college youth completely dissatisfied with the status quo by the Man. To be a Democrat in those days implied one may support violent protests at home to end the war overseas. A generation gap evolved with Democrats usually younger voters and Republicans their parents.
Ready for his close up
Enter Ronald Reagan, the law-and-order governor of Hippie California. Americans generally forgot he used to be a Democrat before switching to the GOP. Why? It’s no mystery but one that needs reviewing. His wealth increased and so did his tax rate. He no longer believed that government could and should solve all the country’s problems. He believed government was the problem. Many Democrats, former liberals who at the time were parents of the Mini Boom, agreed. They were called Reagan Democrats.
So we’re back to the two-pronged philosophy of our country divided by Democrats and Republicans. Clinton’s presidency brought together the parties. His style was called Business Democrats, AKA New Democrats, and he was quite adept at using tax revenue to build and create new business especially in neglected communities. Did I mention he is credited for balancing the federal budget and erasing the deficit to $0? That feat was not mere luck but phenomenal economic foresight.
Money is the root
A government teacher taught the difference between Democrats and Republicans by quipping: Republicans see a cockroach and call an exterminator while Democrats see one and stomp it with a shoe. Democrats keep their curtains open when they shouldn’t while Republicans, though unnecessary, keep their curtains closed. Shtick was his way to answer the age-old American question, “What’s the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?”
I think the answer is similar to the difference between Missionary and Southern Baptists. It’s about where the money goes based on the priorities of the organization. Republicans believe, in the paraphrased adage of President Cal Coolidge, the business of America is business. Business has to be good for the little guy to prosper, for anyone to prosper. A fair point. Democrats believe government should help the little guy when he cannot take care of himself through employment, education, food and healthcare. An altruistic notion.
So now, how have the two long-standing American political Parties come to blows, like sending mail bombs to big-name Democrats, over how the money’s spent? What the hell? Some say the animosity came from the Democrats doing in President Richard Nixon. Others say the hatred seeped in when Republican political know-it-all Newt Gingrich created a list of adjectives to use whenever speaking about Democratic opponents. Such words that would eventually be tied to all Democrats include: liberal, sick, pathetic, weak, corrupt, destructive, intolerant, insensitive, radical, traitors, self-serving, selfish, incompetent. Hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute! Don’t all these words describe some Republican leaders, too, or anybody for that matter? Goodness gracious.
That list of adjectives cleverly devised to stick it to Democrats along with the modern internet age of fast-paced political arguments have escalated the so-called major differences between political Parties to a deadly battle of sorts, still without declaring civil war … yet … again.
Straight-jacket politics
Back to the original subject, the straight-party ticket may not be the smartest way to vote especially in the Information Age when voters really should look up any candidate and read about him or her and decide for ourselves who we like or trust. But the straight-party ticket obviously has been used in recent national elections as a protest vote, one that clearly tells the other Party in charge: “I can no longer sit back and let your side ruin the country, in my humble opinion as an American citizen, taxpayer and voter.” The straight-party vote was more or less a ‘fed-up’ and ‘throw-the-bums out’ maneuver … one that a sore-head Party decided to take away from all of us. The straight-party vote was just too overwhelming and powerful and maybe primarily used by Democrats.
Some say all the other states do not allow a straight-party line on their election ballots, so Texas should follow suit. Why I never thought I’d live to see the day Texas would want to be like all the other states in the Union. Our elected officials in Austin may say this is for our own good, like making a kid drink milk, that using our brains to make a decision as crucial as voting for the right Don Yarborough is literally life or death. It’s life and death all right, of expanding political thought, social movement and cultural change. But hey, we’re all Americans. Democrats and Republicans have too much in common to want to kill the other side. Right?