WASHINGTON - The words out of the labor leader's mouth were startling. "If the economy continues in the tank, it's a very, very positive thing for Democrats."
Gerald W. McEntee is serving his seventh four-year term as president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- one of the few growing unions in America -- and is a key player in AFL-CIO political decisions. He was trying to explain why the burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, 2001, that he said has created a "bubble" of political protection around President Bush ever since, won't necessarily make Bush invulnerable to defeat in 2004.
The guns-vs.-butter debate just beginning in Washington as questions mount about the cost of war with Iraq and its aftermath is one of a number of political issues pushed aside as a result of the tumult over foreign policy crises that weren't even on the radar in 2000. In 2000 the nation had a surplus; today it has a burgeoning deficit and the cash-strapped states also are in the red for about $80 billion.
But besides war and the economy, dramatic changes picked up by new Census Bureau data describing how America lives also will play a factor in the presidential election next year. Even without the tremendous difference 9/11 made, this is not the same country as it was in 1990.
The news, for example, that there has been a dramatic shift toward unmarried couples living together -- a 72 percent increase in the last decade -- has significant ramifications for elections, analysts say. Traditional opposite-sex couples tend to be older, are more likely to own property together, bear children, have roots in the community and vote. Only 23.5 percent of all U.S., households now are "married couples with children."
A new book on new census data edited for the Brookings Institution by Bruce Katz and Robert E. Lang shows that western cities in the United States are growing the fastest of all cities, averaging 19 percent population growth in the last decade. Such cities are increasingly likely to be governed by Republicans. Northeast cities, longtime bastions of Democrats, are declining.
Cities with large manufacturing operations are growing far more slowly than cities with strong service industries. Cities built for pedestrians and mass transit are in decline. Cities where residents are dependent on cars are growing.
But the new trend is that nearly three-fourths of the cities grew during the 1990s, reversing the old trend of declining cities.
And cities with large immigrant populations are growing much more quickly than cities without many foreign-born residents. McEntee notes, for example, that with unions now representing only about 11 percent of the U.S. work force, Democrats, whose major power base is labor, must lure more Hispanic and Asian-American voters to stay competitive. White House senior advisor Karl Rove also knows that and is insistent that the GOP and President Bush do more to appeal to Hispanics, now the fastest-growing minority.
Nonwhite minorities account for about 29 percent of the population, up from 24 percent in 1990. Four of five net new residents in the United States during the 1990s were minorities. And minorities are flocking to the suburbs -- segregation is decreasing around the United States.
As unions, with their heavy representation in older inner cities, lose clout, suburban areas, which tend to be more Republican, are growing. Only the suburbs of three cities -- Buffalo, N.Y.; Dayton, Ohio; and Pittsburgh -- failed to grow during the 1990s. But suburbs are changing and are no longer the 1950s-image of monolithic tract-house concentrations of people without the problems of inner cities. Suburbs now have many of the problems inner cities have, as well as environmental stresses.
At the same time, while 21 of the 36 largest industrial cities lost population, only five had double-digit percentage losses. Together all 36 had their best decade in the 1990s since World War II, growing because of the economic boom and the mushrooming of demand for services. This led to a bigger demand for housing and reclamation of abandoned or deteriorating neighborhoods.
Half of 24 major cities saw their downtowns grow in the 1990s and their cities grow as well. Houston saw its downtown population grow 69 percent in the 1990s. And "increases in white residents are leading the resurgence in downtown living," say Katz and Lang. They say empty nesters are flocking back downtown as are childless urban professionals. Their sense is that downtowns are emphasizing their historic character to give residents "a sense of place" as well as a certain excitement and convenience suburbs don't have.
Thus, dramatic demographic changes in the United States in just the last 10 years -- aging baby boomers, an influx of high-fertility immigrant families and a migration to the new Sun Belt areas in the South and the West -- are likely to have a big political impact next year.
Demographics, war and the economy lead both McEntee and Rove to predict an extremely close presidential horse race. The outcome is up for grabs.
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