Blue vs. Green

The Blue-Green is fraying. Republicans need to focus their energy on wooing the blue and forgetting the green.

Blue means the blue-collar voters who used to be called the Reagan Democrats.

Green means the rich elites who love to espouse environmental policy as they board their luxurious private jets.

There used to be a coalition between the environmentalists and the labor movement. Labor would support environmentalist candidates and vice versa, all with the goal of getting rid of the Republicans.

But that coalition is falling apart over issues like coal mining, fuel efficiency standards, higher taxes on a variety of different products, and other policies pushed by limousine liberals.

Democrats are being driven hard by the netroots. The bloggers, the billionaires, the pacifists all urge a radical agenda of surrender. And by surrender, I don’t just mean in Iraq. Surrender your air conditioning. Surrender your hard-earned tax dollars. Surrender your jobs. Surrender your car. Surrender.

The elites that run the Democratic Party are mobilizing to kill the domestic car industry, to prohibit any kind of mining in this country, to raise taxes sharply on all smokers, and of course, to pull out of Iraq now.

But most working-class Americans don’t share those values with the elite billionaires and bloggers who now run the Democratic Party.

Most working-class Americans don’t want to pay three times more for their utility bills. They don’t want to drive Korean cars. They don’t want to be forced to pay close to a buck a pack more for cigarettes. And they don’t want us to lose in the war on terror.

Republicans have been running on a message of ending earmarks and stopping immigration. Nobody knows what earmarks are, and with every vote on immigration, we kiss away any possibility of getting the fastest growing segment of the population, Hispanic voters.

A message geared to the blue-collar workers might out-flank the Democrats. These voters, the former Reagan Democrats, were called the silent majority by Nixon. Republicans need to reintroduce themselves to this ultimate swing vote.

The Democrats are the elite party now. Rich people vote Democrat. They don’t vote Republican (just look at the fundraising totals).

Let’s use that elitism against them. We need some good old-fashioned populism to counter the Democratic plans to increase the price of air conditioning, cigarettes, gas and almost any other product you can think of.

Let them have bloggers and the billionaires. Give us the people.