Political Punch Interview with Mark Stricherz, author of "Why the Democrats are Blue: How Secular Liberals Hijacked the People's Party"

Jan 28, 2008

In his book, “Why the Democrats Are Blue: How Secular Liberals Hijacked the People's Party,” Mark Stricherz claims that what was once known as the "people's party" was changed to a party of secular and feminist values by a coup carried out in 1969.  This hijacking can be discovered by a close look at the McGovern Commission, Stricherz argues. CNA had a chance to talk with him about his book and the dirty details.

Q: What background do you bring to the book?

I grew up in a traditional Catholic family and I really wanted to talk about the poor, and needy and the vulnerable. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s in Bay Area, I really saw the difference between the values of my family and the growing secularization of the Bay Area.

Why was it that my family - we’re still Democrats - and these new people who’ve taken over the Democratic Party were Democrats? The party all seemed to change in the 70’s.
 
Being a reporter I’ve seen the changes covering Washington.

Q: What were your motivations, both personal and professional for writing this book?

Why was it that so few Democratic presidential candidates have won since 1968?  I mean that is a bad streak. That was the worst since 1896-1928.

Also how has the party that used to be led by all of these Catholics come to be the party of abortion on demand, with no legal protections for a whole class of human beings? That’s a revolution not an evolution.”

Q: What is the main argument of your book?

Secular liberals used the 1969-72 McGovern Commission to hijack the National Democratic Party and impose their values on it. By driving away Catholics and blue collar voters, they helped the party to lose six of the last nine presidential elections.

Everyone talks about the defection of Southerners from the Democratic Party in the mid-1960’s, but everyone knows what caused that. It was when Johnson signed the civil rights act, in 1965. But why was it that Catholics left, because they have left?

Feminists specifically, and seculars in general, hijacked the party. 

 

Q: What happened in 1969 with the McGovern Commission? Could you explain that for our readers?

The Democratic Party had a “boss” nomination system. In other words, state and local officials chose the party’s presidential nominee.

These bosses controlled the selection of delegates (the delegates at the convention choose the nominee of each party). The boss nomination process was undemocratic as a procedure, that was true, voters could not choose the nominee.

In 1968 anti-war protestors and young people had been marginalized and in a few cases excluded. So at the 1968 convention in Chicago, the party chose another reform commission to change the way the party selected their nominee. Basically they were going to go to a democratic system where voters picked the nominee instead of bosses.

What happened was in 1969 a small band of anti-war activists decided that they wanted to get an anti-war nominee in 1972. They did two things: one, they gave quotas for females, young people and blacks as delegates…. The main motive for giving a quota for women was that they knew they were more likely to oppose the war. It was undemocratic procedurally…. Secondly, the caucuses require several hours of meetings and it’s hard for working class folks to get to the caucuses.

The quotas were the main thing; the quotas brought the feminists into the party. The feminists had their own agenda with abortion.

Q: So was this some sort of power grab by activists?

More than a power grab: it was a coup or a hijacking. The mandate of the McGovern Commission was to democratize the party’s nomination system and these secular liberals made the nomination system activist.

Q: What has the long term effect of this been for the Democratic Party?

There are a bunch of consequences from it, but one major consequence is that feminists entered the Democratic coalition and dominated the platform. Over a span of 12 years—in 1968 they had no presence—in 1980 the party platform calls for abortion on demand and federal funding of abortion; by 1980 that drove away a lot of Catholics.

I have notes from Catholic officials complaining and lamenting how the party has been revolutionized in so short a time.

So the McGovern Commission is this unrecognized revolutionary body, as important I think as Johnson signing the civil rights amendment. It was transformational of American politics.

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Q: What would you say has caused those Catholics who used to be a part of the Democratic Party to leave?

The main reason is a shift in Catholic leadership. There’s no question that Catholic men have switched themselves to the Republican Party. That’s realignment. And Catholic women have de-aligned from the Democratic Party.

In 1968 three fifths of Catholics gave their vote to Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee and nowadays a typical Democrat gets 45-47% and that’s a quarter of the population, that’s a lot of votes. They’re also strategically located in big states—Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania.

Q: What surprises did you come across in your research?

From 1948-1968 if you check the names of [the] DNC chairman, almost all of them are Catholic. There was total domination.

The second thing was that the press totally missed the story. One group of people just hijacked the world’s oldest political party and no one’s written about it.

The third thing that fascinated me, that shocked me too, was that the Catholic bosses played a major role in putting blacks into the Democratic national coalition. At the climactic 1948 Democratic convention in Philadelphia, all these Catholic bosses fought for the strong civil rights plank that extended legal protection to black Americans and that was key.

Q: What are the chances of the Democratic Party becoming pro-life within the next 10 years?

There’s no chance at all. Unless some group in society such as Hispanics or Catholics or Evangelicals got wise and decided to wrest power from the seculars who dominate the party. The national party will never change until some group takes power away from these people. No one should be naive in thinking otherwise.

When anti-war folks and seculars were taking over the party in the late 60’s and early 70’s, one of their sayings was ‘Power is not given to you, you need to take it away from someone.’

Q: Did you come across any solutions to the divide of Democratic Party?

Yes, the solution is both political and cultural.

The cultural solution is that some group, newly emergent in society will have to decide they want to take over the Democratic Party and restore its heritage.

The political part is equally important. They’ll have to democratize the party’s nomination system. They’ll have to get rid of quotas for women as delegates, get rid of ex officio delegates, get rid of the caucuses. Just open it up to the people, let’s expand participation, not limit it. 

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