Middle Class Blues

[kliljedahl]

(National Review Online)
This column was written by Gary Andres.

You wouldn't know it from reading the mainstream media, but Democrats are plagued by middle class blues. Despite John Kerry and others courting them with populist rhetoric and targeted get-out-the-vote efforts, large majorities of middle class voters chose President Bush and congressional Republicans in last fall's elections. While a little political Prozac may be required, some believe Democrats need stronger medicine to overcome an even more serious malady -- denial about their standing with the bourgeoisie.

So says a recent study by a group called "Third Way," based on 2004 exit-poll data from the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut. Interestingly, Third Way is not a Republican-leaning group crowing about the GOP conquests in the 2004 election. No, instead it's a "non-partisan not-for-profit strategic advocacy organization devoted to modernizing the progressive cause." Or in the words of a former Democratic Hill aide who knows it well, "an organization devoted to moderating the Democratic party and saving it from extinction."

Despite all the time, energy, and rhetoric Democrats spend trying to curry favor with "middle class" voters, their efforts are falling flat. With a couple of exceptions, instead of mining a Democratic electoral mother-lode, these voters delivered landslide margins to President Bush and congressional Republicans. For example, the report concludes that "George W. Bush defeated John Kerry by 22-points among middle class whites with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000." House Republicans won the same income group by 19 points.

Republican support among lower-middle-class white voters continued down the income scale more than suggested by conventional wisdom. The report says "The economic tipping point -- the household income level at which whites were more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats -- was $23,700." Middle-class black voters, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly for Democrats (by a nine to one margin) -- a spread so large, according to the report, it "masked the enormous deficit Democrats faced with other middle income demographic groups."

Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/06/13/opinion/main701403.shtml


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Warpy]

1. Sorry, buster, but $23K is NOT middle class

not by any stretch of the imagination. Middle class has traditionally meant that class that is able to afford outside household help, whether or not they choose to hire the au pair or lawn service. It takes a family a bare minimum of a six figure salary to achieve that today.

Working class people who make that $23K voted for the pubbies because they have no hope of becoming middle class. I know that seems like a terrible contradiction, but look at what the Democrats under the DLC have offered them: NOTHING. At least the pubbies offered them a tax cut, even though it turned out to be a great big bait and switch.

These third way cretins had better wake up and start smelling the economic coffee in this country, or they're going to be laughed out of office the way the DLC Democrats have largely been.

There's a reason the Dems lost all 3 branches of government, and it starts with thinking anybody making $23K a year is middle class.

[kliljedahl]

2. That was my thought exactly

I would consider anything in that range "lower Middle" or "Upper Lower" at best.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[jmaier]

5. Regardless of where you draw the line

the message is that Democrats are not breaking through to a very wide slice of the electorate where issues such as health care, minimum wage, labor practices, etc. should work -- AND worked fine in the past.

[Wright Patman]

7. It absolutely depends on where one lives

Where I live, $23K could be considered in the middle class, although not by much.

We consider anyone making six figures the way suburbanites would look upon someone making $10 million a year. It is very rare around here-- Limited to doctors and some lawyers.

And this rural county voted 71 percent for *. We have 11 percent African-American population, so that means the white turnout for * was closer to 80 percent. Thousands of people who barely have "a pot to pee in" as the saying goes viewed * as God because their pastors told them he was and because warmongering always works well at first in the Deep South. I would say well over half the 80 percenters here still expect * to conquer the world and bring back 50-cent gasoline at any time. You JUST GOTTA BELIEVE! :sarcasm:

[losdiablosgato]

3. A moderate dem with a pro labor/ pro middle class message is unstoppable

I ahve said it before and I will say it again. A pro gun, anti gay marriage, pro labor popularist will easily win in 2008. I went pistol shooting last weekend with a few friends and the talk turned to politics. They KNOW that the repugs are hurting them on bread and butter issues, but will not vote for a far left winger. Gun control and gay marriage were the main sticking points.

[madrchsod]

4. another delusional republican

the middle class is being killed by bushes policies and more telling is that the majority of the voters realize that their lot in life is really,really bad and the war is unwinable. so these people will go to the polls in 2006 and vote for bush and his enablers?

[teryang]

6. Middle class is a misnomer

If you aren't economically desperate, then you are "middle class." This lasts about as long as your health lasts for most working people. When your health is gone, then your job is gone. Then any health benefits you had are gone. Then you are desperate. Then you are no longer "middle class."

Pecking order:

Aristocracy

Corporate elites

Professionals

Workers

Disabled and chronically unemployed

Drug addicts, incompetents, insane persons and felons.