Republicans Say the Common Man Be Damned

In their desire to stop Mitt Romney from getting the Republican nomination, several of his opposing candidates have over the past week highlighted his role in Bain Capital, a private equity firm. They said Romney took over companies not to heal them and make them prosper but to gut them, fire employees, and eventually close them while making a tidy profit for Bain.  The term coined was, “vulture capitalist.”

This was too much for the capitalist backers of the Party, even for some strong conservatives that generally have little use for Romney.  Gingrich and Perry were admonished for their attacks on capitalism.

The headline that the Democrats should make sure is emblazoned in the minds of all voters from this episode should be, “REPUBLICANS SAY THE COMMON MAN BE DAMNED.”

If nothing else the Republicans are being consistent.  Whether it’s their position on companies like Bain Capital or the fraudulent activities of the big banks that precipitated the current economic crisis, or their opposition to any meaningful regulation of the financial industry to protect the consumer and the economy as well as virtually all environmental regulation, the Republicans have only one interest … protecting the interests of their big business donors.  Let them do what they want to fatten their wallets. If the average man suffers, tough.

Next to the positive message of where the Democrats want to lead this country and how that will help the average citizen, branding the Republicans is of critical importance if they hope to be victorious in 2012.  All voters, and especially middle-income voters, need to be very clear on where the two parties stand on issus affecting their welfare.

The Coming Democratic Landslide of 2012!

Contrary to all the gnashing of teeth in Democratic quarters about the bad outlook for 2012, I think it can be argued that the outlook looks great … at least if the campaigns are run well.

Republicans have been doing a good job of shooting themselves in the foot. They are so high on their ideological mission and bent on pleasing their Tea Party base that they seem to have forgotten that there are other voters out there who they need to be reelected. Perhaps that’s because at least some freshmen Republicans in the House have indicated that they have no interest in whether they get reelected; they’ve said they are there to do a job.

Recent polls have consistently shown that Republicans in Congress are held in even worse regard by voters than Democrats.  Even in strong Republican districts that elected Tea Party candidates in 2010, support for the Tea Party and for the Republican Party has fallen way off … to less than 50%. And then there’s the general anti-incumbent sentiment, which will fall more heavily on Republicans in 2012 since they have a clear majority in the House.

And what about Obama? Yes, the economy will be a challenge. If the Republicans nominated a strong moderate, I think an Obama win would be almost impossible under these conditions.  However, that is certainly not in the offing. Romney may in fact be a moderate Republican, but he has worked so hard to paint himself as a Tea Party conservative in the primary race that he will be an easy target for Obama in the election campaign. Gingrich is a moderate in many ways. But Gingrich comes with his own problems that make him an unlikely victor.

Given the disgust of the American public towards the failure of Congress to deal with recent major economic issues, and their placing primary blame for this failure on the Republicans, the Democrats have a real opportunity if they run a smart campaign. And what is a smart campaign?

A smart campaign is first running a very positive campaign that tells people clearly where Democrats see the country going and how they propose to get us there … a clear vision statement with legislative particulars, communicated in a way that the average voter will get. This must be the main thrust and the counter to Republican laissez faire policies.

But at the same time, Democrats cannot let the public forget who has kept our current economic problems from being solved; the public could care less at this point who caused the problems, but they do want them fixed. And Democrats must nail Republicans for being the hypocrites they are … they pose as the party of the people but really are the party of big business and the rich. Those are the interests they are protecting.

This election could be the biggest Democratic victory since Johnson v Goldwater in 1964. The question is whether Obama, the other Democratic candidates, and very importantly the consultants that fashion the campaign, have the right stuff.

Democrats Better Pay Attention To The Needs of The Middle Class

Why are Tea Party people so angry and fearful? Yes, right-wing demagogues aided by right-wing funders like the Koch brothers have stoked their fears and anger to a fever pitch, but why were they angry to begin with?  Why are they and many in the broader population so receptive to the lies and fear-mongering?

President Jimmy Carter posited that their fear is of a changed social order evidenced by the election of a black president. While I’m sure that is part of the answer, is it really so simple as the color of Obama’s skin and his progressive policies? No, the answer lies elsewhere.

Feeding this fear of a changed social order, racism, and the Tea Party’s resonance has been a sea change in the wellbeing of America’s middle class. The middle class is made up mostly of nonprofessionals … people with only a high school degree. As manufacturing and other middle class jobs have disappeared over the past 30 years, their standard of living and the quality of their lives has been drifting downward.

The recent recession only exacerbated the trend. In March 2011, 12 percent of those with only a high-school diploma were unemployed compared to 4.5 percept of those with college degrees and 2 percent for those with professional degrees. The greatest impact has been on men … in 1967, 97 percent of men 30-50 years old in this cohort were employed; in 2010, just 76 percent were.

The issue is not just unemployment.  For those employed, their wages have stagnated since the 1970s as a result of numerous factors but primarily the impact of globalization, having to compete with low-cost overseas workers - corporations will shift production overseas without much concern if it increases their profit by saving costs of production.

Not only has the combination of unemployment and stagnating wages resulted in economic problems for these men and their families, these pressures have brought about greater interpersonal stress, with a resulting increase in divorce rates and other examples of social dysfunction. The greater income inequality that developed during this period has also resulted in heightened actual and felt lifestyle differences between the middle class and those with more income and education.  (All data from, Don Peck, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved,” The Atlantic, September 2011)

The world as the middle class knew it since WWII has been turned upside down.  Small wonder they are scared, angry, and alienated. Yet this important shift in the American social fabric is never discussed, even by Democrats. Politicians talk vaguely about the need to protect the middle class, but the evisceration that has already occurred is not mentioned.

If the Democratic Party wants to win in 2012, it must clearly let the middle class know that it is aware of their pain, that it feels their pain, and that it proposes a series of interrelated policies to restore the lot of the middle class. It's a complex economic and social engineering question that will require the attention of our best and brightest. Obama and the other candidates must share their vision for where they want the country to go and how they propose getting there.