CULLOWHEE – Here at Western Carolina University, where I’ve just completed two days of lectures and meetings for the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs, the myth of the monolithic west is nowhere in evidence.
Said myth is that the western part of our state is reliably Republican, dating back to the region’s anti-secession stance during the Civil War. The reality is that while most western voters have come to prefer Republicans for federal offices, there have always been pockets of Democratic support for statewide candidates – and voters in many counties have shown an increasing tendency to vote Democratic in legislative and local contests.
The folks here at Western Carolina University get it. That’s partly because so many are from nearby communities, and have practical experience with the local politics. One of my dinner companions on Monday night, an undergraduate, had worked for the Heath Shuler campaign. Another, a local Republican activist, already has her sights set on the governor’s office, with stops in county and other offices along the way. Both major political parties are well represented on campus, with active student groups and a diverse faculty. And speaking of the professors, they know their subject and have imparted it effectively.
(Indeed, every time I visit the Cullowhee campus, I am reminded of the fact that excellence in higher education is not necessarily found in places that receive high magazine rankings or attain national stature through athletics and exclusivity. If what you are seeking is really good teaching, by mature professors who know how to do it with fairness and ingenuity, you are more likely to find it at schools such as Western than you are at the much-ballyhooed research universities where faculty-student interaction is often constrained and a distressing number of undergraduate courses are taught by grad students or adjuncts. Students may have higher average test scores or GPAs going into the latter category of schools, but that doesn’t mean the education they receive there is superior or even adequate.)
Since the 2002 election cycle, Democrats have been able to offset Republican gains in other parts of the state, such as the suburbs and down east, with “surprising” pick-ups in mountain counties that, in retrospect, shouldn’t have been all that surprising. These include a couple of N.C. House districts as well as three Senate contests in the far west 50th District (now represented by Sen. John Snow), the next-door 47th (now represented, again, by Sen. Joe Sam Queen), and the 45th in the northwestern counties (won this year by Steve Goss). Democrats had earlier taken back a House and Senate seat in Buncombe County lost during the GOP surge in the mid-1990s. Several county commissions in the west swung Democratic in 2004 and 2006, as well, in the latter case thanks in part to Shuler’s coattails.
Successful Democrats in the mountains – outside of Asheville, anyway – typically take social and cultural issues off the table by expressing views indistinguishable from those of their Republican adversaries. This now-national strategy, symbolized by Shuler himself in the national media coverage of the 2006 cycle, really has its roots in earlier Democratic victories for state offices here in western North Carolina and elsewhere in the South. In rural areas, traditionally suspicious of big-city elites and disproportionately affected by the churn of global trade, these candidates run as populists. They promise government protection from international competitors and government subsidies for new employers, tourism, training, and local infrastructure. In the west’s growing suburban communities, Democrats tack a little more centrist on economics, eschewing populist rhetoric for a more fiscally conservative posture.
Can North Carolina Republicans compete? Of course. They still win most of the state and local offices in the region. Republicans lose races here when they are overwhelmed by better candidate recruitment, the Democrats’ massive fundraising advantage, and (as in 2006) by national factors. It takes a lot of hard work for Democrats to win and retain these seats.
They’re up to it.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.