A strange thing happened in Bend a few weeks ago. More than 700 people came out on a Saturday night to hear a writer talk.

The writer wasn’t a household name like Tom Clancy or Stephen King. She was Barbara Ehrenreich, a freelancer who frequently contributes to Harper’s magazine and other slightly left-of-center publications.

Ehrenreich’s latest book is “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” To research it, she spent a year working a variety of low-paying jobs. The idea was to find out whether it’s possible to live on what a typical working-class person in America earns. (Short answer: No.)

The Bend audience was enthusiastic, laughing and applauding Ehrenreich’s jabs at the Bush administration and America’s CEOcracy and giving her a loud standing ovation at the close.

The turnout for Ehrenreich was surprising; in this town, it’s tough to pull a crowd of 700 for anything short of the county fair or a high school graduation.

Another surprising thing happened in Bend on the same day: A rally against the threatened war in Iraq drew a crowd of about 250. (A counter-rally supporting the war attracted two – count `em, two – demonstrators.)

To put these happenings in context, remember that Bend is not exactly Berkeley. Or even Eugene.

As Democrats in Oregon and elsewhere contemplate the clobbering the GOP gave them Nov. 5, they might want to give some thought to these events in Bend, and to other events that tend to fly under the radar of the pollsters and political pros.

The evidence is far from conclusive, but the pattern suggests a possible turning of the political tide.

Item: Millions of Americans buying Ehrenreich’s best-selling book, and thousands turning out to hear her speak in big cities and small ones.

Item: Millions more buying populist gadfly Michael Moore’s recent best-seller, “Stupid White Men.”

Item: Hundreds of thousands taking part in anti-war rallies in cities from New York to Bend.

If all these folks are wild-eyed radicals, there are a heck of a lot more radicals out there than the pollsters are telling us.

Another piece of driftwood on the tide: Oregon voters approving a hike in the state’s minimum wage. The margin was razor-thin, but the marvel is that the thing passed at all, with its opponents enjoying a 2-to-1 spending edge.

And another piece of driftwood (actually this one looks more like an aircraft carrier): Green candidate Ralph Nader picking up nearly three million votes in the 2000 presidential election.

As Democrats ponder their future, they’ll be torn by conflicting advice. The Clinton-Tom Daschle-Terry McAuliffe-DLC wing of the party (motto: “We’re Really Republicans Too”) will argue that the only hope for salvation lies in pushing the party even farther to the right.

(Some right-wing pundits and politicians, curiously, are giving the same advice. Hello? Since when did the likes of Trent Lott and Rush Limbaugh start worrying about the welfare of the Democratic Party?)

On the other side are those who say the party needs to rediscover its soul. It needs to remember it is the party of FDR and Harry Truman and JFK. And it must do more than invoke their names; it must embrace their principles.

If a progressive tide is rising in America and the Democrats can catch it, they can ride it to success in 2004 and far beyond.

If they don’t, they’ll more than likely stay right where they are – stranded on the political mudflats.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 15th, 2002 at 10:24 am and is filed under Bruce on the Loose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.