Posted on 01/20/2008 8:37:09 AM PST by forkinsocket
Anxious lower middle class families are shaping up to be the crucial political constituency of this year's election. Polls show that financial security is their biggest concern. They worry about health and education costs, about retirement, and about their prospects for getting ahead. Their insecurity has markedly reduced public support for free trade and contributed to public concerns about immigration. They also appear to be behind a great deal of the generally uneasy mood of the electorate.
The Democratic candidates have noticed and are championing an old-fashioned economic populism that stokes voters' fears and seeks to direct them toward welfare state-style solutions that expand the role of government.
Among Republicans, only Mike Huckabee has made a real effort to speak to the lower middle class. On the stump, his economic message is always directed at the working family: "We're losing manufacturing jobs, homeowners face a credit crisis, high fuel costs are spiraling, and families are hurting," he noted in a recent campaign ad. But this conservative populism is often merely a rhetorical echo of its liberal counterpart. His distinctive proposal, a form of national sales tax, would hurt many working families.
The other Republican candidates are not even trying to appeal to these voters, which could prove very costly in key states, especially in the upper Midwest, in November. Lower middle class parents have been a crucial Republican constituency in recent years. More important, these voters are the heart and soul of the kind of American culture that Republicans want to promote: industrious and striving, family-oriented, culturally conservative, religious, and patriotic.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Not likely since the liberal Washington elites in both parties give their candidates a twenty percent delegate advantage from the get go.
Here’s another pundit with no understanding of the FairTax.
Actually it’s more likely a panderer for some extra “change”. LOL.
Ramesh Ponnuru is and ill informed a$$
It’s really a shame that these people view the FairTax in economic terms (since it’s intended to be revenue neutral), when it really is more about power and influence.
Republicans cannot out “populism” the DemoRats. Trying to spells doom.
Kill terrorists
Shrink the government
Lower taxes
The pejorative 'populism' is thrown in when it could be called be called listening to the citizens.
This is not new. After the 1929 business failures, people turned to the government solutions of FDR. Post WW II, private industry again produced prosperity.
Today the failure of the trade promises and the inadequacy of an 'information economy' engine has made citizens again turn to government.
If private business depends on the global production economy for profits, expect the gravitational pull of government to increase.
Mike is the anti-populist candidate, when we talk about ‘old school’ populism.
Pat Buchanan is a populist. Rush is wrong trying to say Mike is one.
Mike is a Open Borders Lover. He loves illegals in our country, that is not a Populist ideal.
He likes the fact that his Arkansas chicken plants used the ‘globalist’ force of low paid, low educated, foreign, illegal aliens. That is anit-populist.
I don’t think he mentions NAFTA, GATT or any trade laws in specific. He is also a big fan of Gov’t controlling your life when it comes to health, global warming and other UN actions. Which is totally anti-populist. Old school guys like Buchanan want us out of the UN and the Gov’t out of our lives.
Oh please, ...”Conservative Populism?” Redistribution of wealth is popular theft, but it can’t be tortured into meaning conservative. It’s better just to call liberal Republicans liberals or populists, progressives or putzes. The next election is most likely going to be a contest between a Democrat liberal and a Republican liberal, both competing to out populist the other..
Exactly...
Spot on!
Do they really want a tax progarm that is fair to the lower class with angst? Exempt everyone’s income up to the poverty level from federal taxation and then do a graduated tax. Current tax schemes like the flat tax and the graduated tax starting with 10% on low income people is still a huge disproportionate share when viewed from the perspective of basic living needs. $2000 in federal taxes plus social security and state tax is a proportionately enormous amount if you make $20,000 and must basically feed, cloth, house, heat, and transport yourself on what’s left over after taxes.
Which is why it really has no chance.
The House of Representatives is voted on every two years. Any grassroots effort will have to start there.
Given time and discipline, it can happen.
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