Hamtramck Stan
| 🔧 | |
| Era | The Seventies |
|---|---|
| Age | 42-48 |
| Home | Hamtramck, MI |
| Demographic | urban, Polish Catholic, autoworker |
| Lean | Lean Democrat |
| Race | white |
Stan is an assembly-line worker in his mid-forties at Dodge Main, Polish Catholic and a member of the United Auto Workers. His loyalty to the Democratic Party rests on wages and contracts, and he represents the industrial union Democrat in the cast.
Who they stand for
Stan stands for the ethnic Catholic union Democrat of the industrial Midwest. This bloc was the core of the New Deal coalition, and how it voted decided much of the decade's politics. Walter Reuther, the head of the United Auto Workers, died in May 1970. General Motors workers held a 67-day strike that autumn. The 1973 contracts introduced pensions after 30 years of service, known as 30-and-out. Chrysler was rescued by the federal government in 1979. Dodge Main itself closed in 1980. The 1973 oil shock brought a wave of Japanese car imports that put his plant's future in doubt. Nixon's wage and price controls of 1971 froze his pay while prices kept rising. His vote wavered without ever leaving the Democratic Party for good. Wallace won Michigan's Democratic primary in 1972. Nixon then won the state in November, defeating the Democratic nominee McGovern despite the union's endorsement of him. Carter won these precincts back for the Democrats in 1976. Macomb Bev is his suburban counterpart. She left the Democratic Party over school busing. Stan remained a Democrat as long as his union contract held.
Playing to them
Stan supports labour law that makes it easier to organise a union, national health insurance, protection for pensions, and limits on imported cars. He also responds well to a president who visits a plant gate. He does not forgive wage and price controls, right-to-work legislation, or strike-breaking. He also does not forgive a trade policy that accepts the loss of his job as an acceptable cost. He prefers not to be asked about the war, school busing or campus protest, and a president who forces him to take a side on any of these loses ground with him. Winning his support costs the support of Muncie Merle and Main Line Margaret, who oppose the spending it requires, and the support of Sun City Dot, who favours right-to-work laws. It also worries Bucks County Larry, who pays the cost of the tariff at his car dealership. Coalfield Roy, Nonna Concetta and Motor City Moses are won over by the same programme. Macomb Bev can be held alongside him only as long as busing is not raised.
Where they live
The five states where Hamtramck Stan makes up the largest share of the electorate in the seventies:
- Michigan
- Ohio
- Illinois
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey