roanoke.com Real Politics / Preston Bryant

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

For years it’s become customary for Democrats – on both the national and state levels – to engage in “class warfare.”

Al Gore made class warfare his chief strategy in his 2000 presidential campaign. While pledging to bring people together, he ranted daily, endlessly about �the people versus the powerful.�

Richard Gephardt, the liberal Missouri congressman and former Democratic House leader who is now seeking his party�s nomination for president, also has made a career of class-warfare politics. An admitted believer in Big Government programs, Gephardt has never shied from accusing Republicans of wanting to throw the elderly and poor out in the streets.

But it’s NYC’s own Rev. Al Sharpton who’s probably the most over-the-top national Democrat today when it comes to pitting people against people. He’s also vying for his party’s nomination for president (most Republicans hope he gets it) in a Democratic field that certainly includes any number of more qualified candidates. But despite the illegitimacy of Sharpton’s campaign, it’s his show-stopping class-warfare buffoonery (a word used quite purposefully here) that’s grabbing all the attention as he and other Democratic presidential wannabes barnstorm from one primary state to another. So many of the Democrats’ rank-and-file seem to go away more inspired by Sharpton’s performances (another word used quite purposefully here) than any other candidate’s.

When people like Sharpton seem to meet popular success with class-warfare rhetoric, it inspires others to want to get in on the act, too. And so Democrats seem to be doing now even in Virginia.

A few days ago, Charlottesville�s longtime representative in the House of Delegates, Mitch Van Yahres, got the blessing of local Democrats to run headfirst into yet another apparently unopposed campaign for re-election.

Van Yahres, an avowed liberal who matches his constituency quite well, and others at his party send-off encouraged Democrats to �get mad� about Republican-led tax cuts in both Washington, DC, and Richmond.

Though running for a state office, Van Yahres attacked President Bush�s recently enacted $350 billion tax cut. The Long Island native sounded like so many national Democrats � especially Gephardt � who are forever debating tax policy in Robin Hood terms instead of the job-creating economic impact that may or may not result. The latter is where tax policy debate should always hinge.

Others at the Van Yahres gig spoke of Virginia Republicans wanting “to leave no millionaire behind,” a reference, perhaps, to the state GOP wanting to help small businesses and farmers by getting rid of the estate tax. It's a line as colorful as any Sharpton might use to rally a crowd.

It�s a pretty safe bet that the rhetoric heard at Van Yahre�s nominating convention will be heard in Democrats� campaigns all over the state. It�ll especially come out as the governor and General Assembly begin debating the finer points of much needed tax reform. You�ll hear Democrats � once again � talk about what percentage of taxes one class of folks pays relative to another. And you�ll not hear them � once again � say much of anything about what kind of tax policies most stimulate the economy.

Democrats apparently no longer subscribe to JFK’s valid economic theory that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Democrats at both the national and state levels seem increasingly less likely to support economic policies designed to fire up a sputtering economy for the benefit of all than those that would redistribute one person’s hard-earned wealth to another. They want to give one man’s fish to the guy across the street instead of teaching that other fellow how to hook and clean a striper on his own.

The social order that Democrats all around seem to want is the very one that Sir Thomas More wrote about in �Utopia.� The 16th century Renaissance man wrote of a place where life was always blissful and its inhabitants never worried. Everybody on this island nation had plenty of food; education, childcare, and healthcare were absolutely free; and no one ever had to worry about retirement, for their kindly neighbors would always share with them any leftover bounty they themselves might have. Nobody was ever overworked. FDR would be right at home, even if JFK wouldn�t.

�Utopia,� of course, is a fair amount of folly and satire. More was ecclesiastical at heart and certainly had strong utopian thoughts about what a society should be. But in addition to being a devout churchman, he spent a career in public service, in various high-ranking bureaucratic jobs dealing with the mechanics and practicalities of government.

More knew Utopia to be a place that could never really exit. Too bad most Democrats don�t.

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