I have a feeling that the coming center-left ruling majority is going to have a different feel to it than the old New Deal coalition. This is one example of what I’m talking about:
Some Catholics in Metro Detroit are organizing a media and Internet blitz against three local members of Congress, saying the representatives’ stand against a Democratic proposal to finance the State Children’s Health Insurance Program — known as MIChild in Michigan — is inconsistent with their vow to oppose abortion rights.
“The important thing to communicate to them is that Catholics regard this as an issue of social justice and basic human rights — this is a life issue,” said Michael Hovey, the director of the Office for Catholic Social Teaching for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
A campaign of radio advertisements and e-mails to the offices of Reps. Joseph Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Township; Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia; and Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, is to begin Monday. The advertisements will be broadcast on local Christian radio stations.
I’m pretty familiar with the Metro Detroit Catholic mindset. They are almost prototypical Reagan Democrats. Almost all of them have some connection to the auto industry and, thus, labor unions. But many of them are also refugees from the city of Detroit…scarred by the riots, and deeply hostile to the remaining population. Reagan’s appeals to patriotism resonated with them, but his rhetoric about welfare queens reverberated at a lower, deeper level. By the early 1990’s they were buying up Rush Limbaugh’s books in droves.
I think most of them are back in the Dems’ tent.