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November 06, 2007
Your World In Charts: Rising Populism Edition
From the latest Democracy Corps strategy memo:
Now, it's entirely possible that "big businesses get whatever they want in Washington" means not only "a health care system whose main goal is to generate profits" but also "immigrant labor," and so this will be a bit more of a political wash than it currently looks like. But the discontent within the middle class is serious stuff, and it seems to suggest that John Edwards' new message -- which combines his populism with a hard-edged reformism -- may have some resonance.
November 6, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
"But the discontent within the middle class is serious stuff, and it seems to suggest that John Edwards' new message -- which combines his populism with a hard-edged reformism -- may have some resonance."
Yes, I would say so. The smart thing Edwards has done this time around is, as you suggest, to give his class warfare populism a reformist bent. His message is better now, larger, because his clean-up-corruption theme suggests solutions and appeals not to just to Dems but independents as well, Perotistas and such.
Posted by: david mizner | Nov 6, 2007 2:14:39 PM
please, oh please, let's have a New New Deal....
(without a decade-long depression to be fought, thank you)
Is Edwards the new FDR? (recall that FDR ran in 1932 as a budget-balancer - no rocking the boat guy)
The immigration issue is a real spoiler in the picture for the Dems. Both positive (hispanics aligned with the Dems) and negative (white working class in rebellion). It's really hard to assess this since the dynamics are changing, and it may be a single-issue vote among many.
I'd even be in favor of strong hints of some court-packing ala 1936. Send them a message....
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Nov 6, 2007 2:20:44 PM
"But the discontent within the middle class is serious stuff, and it seems to suggest that John Edwards' new message -- which combines his populism with a hard-edged reformism -- may have some resonance."
If we'd like to create an enduring Democratic governing coalition in this country, we've got to rope in our share of the Perot voters who have been the swing vote for the past 15 years.
A reform message and a reform candidate are the only way to accomplish anything beyond narrowly defeating the GOP Presidential candidate due to Bush fatigue.
If we want a true 50 state Party, with all the political and policy benefits that would accrue from that, we've got to run on reform and economic populism.
And there's only one candidate out there who can pull that off.
Posted by: Petey | Nov 6, 2007 2:21:16 PM
Petey, you shock shock shock me with your shrill liberalism (just kidding, I'm applauding).
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Nov 6, 2007 2:23:19 PM
I agree. People can see that government is a wholly owned corporate subsidiary. The only folks that havee not been seeing it are the MSM, another wholly owned corporate subsidiary.
Posted by: Tom Wells | Nov 6, 2007 2:23:52 PM
Damn mizner beat me to the punch on the Perot factor...
Posted by: Petey | Nov 6, 2007 2:26:32 PM
I always find it funny when "leaders have forgotten the middle class" does well in these polls. No US politician has ever in his or her entire life forgotten the middle class. They may suck and give the corporations what they want, but they continually, every day obsess with the middle class vote.
Posted by: Mark | Nov 6, 2007 2:32:16 PM
Where's the war? Wasn't that the big librul issue heralded in the elections?
Posted by: El viajero | Nov 6, 2007 3:18:51 PM
Where's the war? Wasn't that the big librul issue heralded in the elections?
Guess this proves that your claims elsewhere that the "anti-war left" holds the whip over the Dems are just bogus nonsense.
Posted by: WB Reeves | Nov 6, 2007 3:28:28 PM
I think this poll explains Murdoch's support of Hill & Bill.
If there ever was a couple capable of killing rising populism...Hill & Bill are it. And with a little help from DiFi, Lieberman, Shumer, Biden et al, 2010 should help Republicans recover from 2006.
Posted by: S Brennan | Nov 6, 2007 3:32:19 PM
I'm deeply depressed that "rising fascism" was not reflected on the list at all.
Posted by: Anthony Damiani | Nov 6, 2007 9:05:15 PM
The Iraq War wasn't mentioned because Democracy Corps didn't put it on the list (this wasn't an open ended question).
Also, I don't think that "big businesses get whatever they want in Washington" is a good proxy for xenophobia. In my experience, people who jump on the Brown-people hating don't really connect it with big business.
These people aren't Marxists--it isn't their first impulse to see undocumented immigrants as a pool of vulnerable, low-wage laborers brought in to the country at the behest of our corporate overlords. They just don't like brown-skinned people, and will come up with ad hoc rationalizations for it.
Posted by: rufustfyrfly | Nov 7, 2007 12:21:47 AM
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