Beltway Meredith
 | |
| Era | The 2000s |
|---|---|
| Age | 40-49 |
| Home | Fairfax, VA |
| Demographic | white, government contractor, Northern Virginia |
| Lean | Lean Democrat |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | Dunwoody Amanda |
| Successor | Beltway Barbara |
Meredith is a project manager at a Northern Virginia defence contractor and a moderate Democrat from the Washington suburbs. She believes the administration's case for the Iraq war, and once she finds that case false, she begins to vote on competence.
Who they stand for
Northern Virginia's professional class grows faster than any comparable group during the decade, funded by the homeland-security and defence-contracting money that follows the September 2001 attacks, and Fairfax and Loudoun become the richest counties in the country. The region's votes carry Tim Kaine to the governorship in 2005, Jim Webb to the Senate over George Allen in 2006, and Virginia to Barack Obama in 2008, the state's first Democratic presidential win since 1964. These votes come from women like Meredith, who live through the Pentagon attack, the anthrax letters at the Brentwood postal plant, and the three-week 2002 sniper attacks, and support the Iraq war before watching Colin Powell's evidence at the United Nations fall apart. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Walter Reed scandal of 2007 reinforce her conclusion that the government cannot manage the programmes it starts.
Her predecessor, Amanda, assumes the government works because it has always worked for her. Meredith is angrier than the anti-war left, because she supports the war before she turns against it, while the anti-war left never trusts the administration's case in the first place. Her successor, Barbara, defends the same government agencies against both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
Playing to them
Meredith rewards competence. She wants a war run to a plan, a budget that balances, a disaster response that arrives on time, schools freed from the testing law, stem-cell research, and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. She is a hawk who wants the war managed rather than repudiated, and a president who ends the war in disorder loses her support, just as a president who leaves it unresolved for too long loses her support. On marriage, she supports civil unions but is not yet comfortable extending the word marriage itself to same-sex couples. Gun control and abortion rights are settled matters for her, and she supports both without reservation.
She does not forgive a president who misleads the public about a war, contractor cronyism, evangelical Christians in government positions, or a wartime deficit that a Republican administration describes as fiscally conservative. Winning her support through fiscal discipline and steady management of the war costs Protest Paige and Berkeley Leonard, who want the war ended rather than merely improved. Her social positions cost Megachurch Heather and Jasper Faye. Her support for a balanced budget costs Janesville Gary if it means cutting his pension.
Where they live
The five states where Beltway Meredith makes up the largest share of the electorate in the 2000s:
- West Virginia
- Maine
- Arkansas
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
Lineage
Dunwoody Amanda → Beltway Meredith → Beltway Barbara
Professional women, moderate Democrats, and what changes is her attitude to the government. Amanda assumes the system works because it has worked for her. Meredith works for a government contractor, believed the government about Iraq, and learned it lied, so she now votes on competence. Barbara defends the FBI, the State Department and NATO because Trump and Bernie both attack them. She takes the government for granted, then distrusts it, then defends it.