One basic axiom for a party in trouble with voters is to absorb and expand the reach to new voters. The Democratic Party is losing touch with voters, so here are some expansion ideas. My main suggestion is to steal some thunder from the Republicans and drifting voters by daring to embrace some populist ideas, rather than softening some core beliefs. Here are some examples:
Reform higher education
One way is to fund a new layer of colleges, as in California, that are aimed at where the jobs are. An example would be UC Davis, with its wine-making classes. Another would be to provide money for “canon schools,” which focus on the Western canon (Aristotle, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes), including critiques of these works. Already we have four-year ex-community colleges in Bellevue, Edmonds, so build a system that meets the market and grants full degrees and graduate programs.
Dilute urban voters
Cities like Seattle can harden into monocultures, so provide examples and incentives to widen the electorate. Locally, I can envision a Seattle/Bellevue/Tacoma/Everett Council, starting with the ports and economic development. Or steal a page from the littoral cities of Northern Europe and its Hanseatic League, by creating such an alliance of various shoreline cities in Puget Sound. That would align Seattle with such issues as the struggling airport in Bellingham, building out Fort Worden in Port Townsend, finishing PACE (a long-delayed performing arts venue) in Bellevue, taking over the ferry system, and saving Orcas and Puget Sound. Seattle would gain friends in these other places, and the urban agenda would be enhanced in these ballooning burbs.
Encourage mergers
Loaned executives from the merger-and-acquisitions firms, plus state grants to mitigate the costs, would create a new efficiency among the surfeit of entities addressing such problems as the homeless, housing, schools, hospitals, struggling arts organizations, and prolific state agencies and boards. Ideally this effort is driven by a new non-profit, not the state’s economic development agencies (themselves in need of merger-medicine). Here is another way for brainpower in Seattle to share the wealth and learn by widening the scope.
Create Competitive Grant Programs
Many cities and regions need new facilities, so create a generous competitive-grant program, funded by a high-income tax, that spreads the wealth and is bottom-up, populist-style, not Seattle-driven or special-interest-driven.
Such programs would widen the urban electorate, align Seattle with broader needs, and actually deliver “abundance” projects.
Skyline resident David Brewster, a founding member of Post Alley, has a long career in publishing, having founded Seattle Weekly, Sasquatch Books, and Crosscut.com. His civic ventures have been Town Hall Seattle and Folio Seattle.