I spend about half of my time with white collar Ivy League elitists in Cambridge and the other half with blue collar airplane mechanics at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts. The elitists overwhelming dislike George W. Bush, consider the people who voted for him to be idiots, and consider W. himself to be an embarrassment. The elitists will talk your ear off about how it is impossible for middle class folks in the U.S. to get by anymore (though they themselves are buying new cars, vacations abroad, etc.). The airplane mechanics, who earn a bit less than auto mechanics, would seem to be precisely the folks that the elitists and the Democratic class warrior candidates are talking about. Do these guys appreciate Hillary and Barack looking out for them? At lunch today, I asked the assembled mechanics what candidates appealed to them. Ron Paul and his lower tax/smaller government pitch had some appeal. Otherwise, these guys had very little good to say about the candidates in general and nothing good to say about the Democrats.
Barack and Hillary in particular excited ridicule among these wrench-turners. They thought the idea of vastly expanded government services would result in vastly expanded taxes and a contracting economy, with fewer jobs for everyone.
I still claim that the Democrats will win, if only because they are considered less culpable for the Iraq morass, but it seems that they aren’t going to win with the votes of the people they claim to be so concerned about.
Why would you consider the Democrats less culpable than the Republicans on Iraq? Not one of the Democratic candidates would commit to pulling the US out of Iraq before the end of their first term. Many of them voted for the war. They also refuse to take the option of war against Iran off the table. No different than the Republicans.
In fact, the ONLY realistic candidate who was against the war from the start, and who has committed to pulling the troops out of Iraq immediately, is Ron Paul.
Maybe the Democrats will benefit from the PERCEPTION that they are more anti-war, but if Paul were to win the Republican nomination, that advantage would simply disappear.
I’d be interested to hear if you’ve noticed Bill Richardson. He has more successful diplomatic experience in the Middle East than other candidates, he is bi-cultural and bi-lingual, his position on ending the war has the shortest timeline and the strongest terms of any candidate, and — he’s Democratic Governor of New Mexico, which has a political and legal culture with marked similarities to Iraq and other tribal countries. http://www.richardsonforpresident.com and videos on you.tube.
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Those wrench-turners kept working day in and day out and keep making the same amount each week, so they are far more aware of new taxes and fees coming out of their paycheck.
They look at the entitlement attitude of the people affected by Katrina and reflect that Democrats want to give them even more things, although it has been 2 years and those folks have not even been working on fixing/demolishing houses – perfect jobs for low-skilled people, that even pay well.
I wonder why “bigger government” is supposed to mean bigger taxes. With current levels of military spending all I see are enormous sums of money begging to be spent on something meaningful.
Why would we want to spend so much on “defense”, more than next 10 countries combined in fact, when neither Canada nor Mexico is threatening to invade us?
Go Ron Paul.
Scott –
It’s perfectly possible that many of the democrats supported the war – perhaps because they believed that there were weapons of mass destruction, perhaps because they believed that this was a good way to go about nation building and the liberation of the Iraqi people. After all, if Tony Blair was 100% committed to this war, it stands to reason that many Democrats would be as well. People call the democrats “chicken” for failing to oppose this war, but that assumes that they were actually opposed to this war and failed to stand up to the Bush administration.
So I’d agree with anyone who thinks that attempts by the Democrats to put this all on Bush and/or the Republicans is full of it. However, this was the Bush administration’s idea – Bush supplied the imagination, architecture, and execution for this venture. While there are exceptions on both sides, the Republican party was, by and large, the power base he used to drive it forward. Everyone is dirty here, but there are degrees and kinds of of dirty.
Oh the paradox, the rich elite talking about how tough it is for the middle class and how they, the ruling class Democrats know what is best, a bigger nanny state government. On the other hand, the down trodden, blue collar, middle class “worker” comprehends the actual implication of a socialist style government, the crushing disenfranchising burden of socialized medicine and the demotivating effects of the forced wealth distribution of higher taxes.
Phil, if our esteemed media outlets were half as truthful in their news reports as you were in this particular blog entry, the suits on both sides of the aisle would take notice and start solving some problems rather than positioning for sound bites and accomplishing nothing.
Finally, I don’t think the “Iraq morass” is going to have a big impact on this election, indeed if it were to have a big impact the Democrats would suffer a blood bath for not fulfilling their alleged mandate to “bring home the troops”. I think the defeat of the Republicans at the last election was more a backlash for the Republicans forgetting their conservative roots and spending like drunken sailors. If the Republicans figure this out, the Democrats are in trouble, if they don’t, then you will be able to get out your dancing shoes.