Mark Stricherz

Mark Stricherz is a pro-life Catholic and the author of Why the Democrats Are Blue, a 2007 book detailing the takeover of the Democratic Party from 1972 on by secularist social liberals who pushed such issues as abortion, affirmative action, gun control, homosexual issues and feminism.

He locates this takeover by secularists and social liberals in the 1972 McGovern Commission, which had been formed to reform the party's nominating process after the 1968 Chicago convention, but instead became the vehicle for wealthy secular professionals to gain a foothold in the party. These secular activists alienated the party's old working class base of Northern Catholics and Southern Protestants, based esepcially in the Rust Belt and Appalachia, with their social agenda.

Mark Stricherz is, himself, a Conservative Democrat from Western Pennsylvania, so the main focus of his book is on Pennsylvania politics but could equally apply to other states in the Rust Belt and Appalachia.