The storm before the calm, or are most feds Democrats?
The presidential election is still more than a year away, but that's not preventing Senior Correspondent Mike Causey from wondering not only which candidates th...
Math problem for feds:
There are 17 (at least) Republicans seeking their party’s presidential nomination. All but one (Donald Trump) say they will support whoever gets nominated.
There are at least three Democrats seeking to be their party’s standard bearer. One, maybe two more may jump into the race.
With the first voting not until Feb. 1, all are raising money, looking for publicity, raising money, trying to make their case, raising money and raising money from millionaires in Hollywood and Wall Street so they can better represent the middle class.
The media covering the wide field of candidates needs to feed the 24/7 news cycle, even when there sometimes isn’t any real news. Those of us who focus on the people side of government are, again, speculating on what would happen to the government — and your job — if Candidate X becomes President. That in turn leads to speculation as to whether government workers, as a breed, are Democrats or Republicans.
Many elected Republicans seem to feel that most federal workers are Democrats. Many Democrats agree. As a result, one party tends to pound on them (at least on the campaign trail) while the other tends to take them for granted.
About this time four years ago the Federal Report headline was “The Elephant (or Donkey) In The Room“.
The column said that while many people believe or assume most feds are Democrats I don’t think so. They say that when you start quoting yourself, you need a break. Nevertheless, the column said, “Based on decades of conversations, mail and now email from feds I would say the pols are wrong. My guess is that feds are very much like their middle and upper class neighbors in blue and red states. Because of the mission of the federal government, feds tend to be better-educated and better paid than the general public. Politicals (of both parties) as a rule are nervous with smart voters.” Which, if correct, is a problem. For feds.
They are an easy target and their knowledge and experience make politicians of both parties nervous.
Government Executive recently reported on a study by Government Business Council. It said that 44 percent of the respondents identified themselves either as Democrats or “Democrat leaning-independents.” The survey by the research arm of Government Executive Media Group, showed that 40 percent either identified as Republicans or GOP-leaning independents. Of the undecided a large number said they were conservatives.
What the survey did find is that career government executives were more likely to lean Democratic (49 to 40 percent). At the GS 14 and below level the numbers were 44 Democrats, 38 Republicans.
What the candidates say, the way it is interpreted and what really happens — when they win — are usually three different things.
Ronald Reagan said that government “is the problem.” A Washington newspaper predicted our town would be “decimated” if he won. He did, it wasn’t and the size of government (especially the Defense side) increased dramatically. The lone federal union that endorsed Reagan for President was the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association. We all know how that worked out!
Bill Clinton campaigned as a populist Democrat and won (as per usual) the support of all federal unions. Yet, his first act was propose a federal pay freeze, although a bipartisan law proposed a modest increase. He then cut nearly 300,000 federal jobs, many of which were farmed out to private contractors.
When you figure out which candidates are best and worst for you, as a fed, let us know. As self-styled “experts” we are still pretty much in the dark.
Nearly Useless Factoid
The donkey first appeared as a symbol of the Democratic Party in a cartoon drawn by political cartoonist Thomas Nast for the Jan. 15, 1870, issue of Harper’s Weekly. The cartoon, entitled “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion,” shows a donkey tagged “Copperhead Papers” kicking a dead lion. The lion represented the late Edwin McMasters Stanton, President Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war during the last three years of the Civil War, and the Copperhead Papers were Democrat-leaning newspapers in the South.
Source: History.com
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Mike Causey
Mike Causey is senior correspondent for Federal News Network and writes his daily Federal Report column on federal employees’ pay, benefits and retirement.
Follow @mcauseyWFED
