But Jefferson’s Democrats were not content to leave the people – the White people that is – with merely a plot of land and a right to vote.  Jefferson understood that an educated electorate was the only chance the nation would have to defend itself against the snares of aristocracy (a notion he spent his life consciously addressing both publicly and in his private life within the contradictions at Monticello.)  He was the first president to lobby for public education, including for White women, an unpopular notion that failed to materialize in his lifetime.  (Though the modern public University of Virginia was actually designed, funded and established by President Jefferson while he was serving in the White House.)

And so the nation migrated west, strengthening Jefferson’s Democrats with newly enfranchised voters who cleared the land along the ever-expanding national frontier.  And then came Andrew Jackson, arguably the first candidate to run, what would today be considered, a modern political campaign with something vaguely resembling a modern political party: the Antebellum Democratic Party.  Like Jefferson, Jackson called for a second American revolution, this time to liberate the taxed but under-represented workingman (White workingman, that is.)  Unlike Jefferson, he was far less calculating and far more aggressive in achieving this aim.

Understanding the need to acquire new lands as primarily an economic, rather than democratic aim, he eliminated barriers that had previously required ownership of property as a prerequisite to voting.  It was during the Jackson years that Quakers, Catholics and Jewish White men were also enfranchised into the system. Curiously enough, despite all of Jackson’s electoral reforms, he seems not to have consider lowering the voting age from 21 for white males (keep in mind, given the average life span and social status of someone living in Jackson’s day, 21-years-old was roughly the equivalent of 42 today!)  Instead, Jackson turned his attention instead to the dismemberment of the national bank and the credit systems he believed were undermining the people’s liberty.

The Democrats of the Antebellum Era were class warriors.  They believed all men were created equal (never mind women or “niggers”) and thus felt that any man who worked hard and made an honest living for himself, should – if he proved successful – one day be entitled to invest and grow and enter high society no matter who his parents were.  The advancement of social status through individual, rather than familial achievement, included through the purchase of slaves.  Thus enter the Antebellum Republican Party, which in actuality was much more class-conscious than specifically concerned about the welfare of slaves.

The Civil War can thus be understood as a contest between competing elitists: southern Whites who wanted power in the hands of the many and established first and foremost in local bodies where democratic government could flourish; Northern Republicans (also exclusively White at this stage in the game) who understood national progress in terms of distribution of wealth – rather than political power.  The Republicans wanted a strong centralized federal government that could finance the construction of bridges, canals and transcontinental railroads for the purpose of promoting national commerce.  They argued that everyone would benefit – even though there was still no income tax, organized labor unions and limited public education – because all the wealth these privately owned, government subsidized, projects would generate would somehow naturally trickle down to the public.  In a republican political system, wealth ultimately becomes the only real measure of political power, making individual voters – while not entirely irrelevant – dramatically less capable of effecting real change.

Since the founding of these two parties, the scope of the electorate has increased dramatically.  Women, Blacks, felons, young people (or at least younger people) and even residents of the District of Columbia, have all been enfranchised into the electorate.  Yet by moving away from a democratic system, I think we somehow have broadened the disconnect between everyday voters and their government.  It’s thus not hard to imagine why, for example, an African American voter feels unheard in Washington when 99 out of 100 U.S. Senators are White.  It also explains our collective cynicism towards politicians who graduated from Ivy League Universities, earn seven-figure salaries, serve as governor of a state before making a pitch for the White House, and then – as Bill Clinton said – truly “feel [our] pain.”  Perhaps that’s why people like me become more interested in state politics.  And perhaps that why the modern electorate is more comfortable voting for the candidate who’s fun “to have a beer with” than the guy who’s in the running for a Nobel Prize.

MY UPBRINGING

My Mom comes from a family of New York Jews who, of course, support The Democrats.  But upon moving to Oregon she switched to the Republican Party to support our still favorite governor (and favorite US Senator) Mark Odom Hatfield.  Hatfield made national headlines in 1964 when he became THE ONLY GOVERNOR in the entire United States to not sign President Johnson’s resolution, outlining unconditional support for the U.S. war in Vietnam.  Later, he forcibly removed the US military from Oregon’s borders, making us the only state in history to successfully and permanently expel a federal institution.  Billy Graham asked Richard Nixon to make him his vice president, though Hatfield declined – believing Nixon was bad for the GOP.

Being in real estate, my mom does have some conservative bents, but it’s mostly because everyone she works with is Right-wing.   I also believe that since the Internet invented the concept of chain-emails she’s become more extreme – and less educated – in her political views.

Generally speaking Mom’s not a fan of any kind of taxes, nor “socialized medicine”, and since 9/11 she’s become increasingly uncomfortable about what she reads online about Muslims.  She voted for Ronald Reagan in 1988 (because she figured that he’d scare the hell out of the Russian given how successfully he scared the hell out of her) but has supported every Democratic candidate for president since.  She opposed the war in Iraq from the start, is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.  Having lived in Paris for several years, and being the daughter of an immigrant, she’s very cosmopolitan, a workaholic, and what I would describe as a classical feminist.  She was a big supporter of Hillary Clinton during her 2008 presidential bid.  By contrast, it was John McCain’s decision to put Sarah Palin on the ticket that convinced her to support Obama – something she was at first reticent to do.