The wonklets have issued yet another report, poignantly titled "Unrequited Love", which discusses the infinitely perplexing question of why "middle class" (how I hate that phrase!) voters reject the Democratic Party. ("Middle class," for Third Way, means households with incomes between $30,000 a year and $75,000 a year. This in itself is a pretty interesting choice of boundaries -- a choice that would only make sense to people making ten times more. But I digress.)
The gist of Third Way's planctus is that white voters in this carefully-defined "middle class" went heavily for Bush in 2004. Black voters went for Kerry nine-to-one, but Third Way isn't very interested in them. (These Black voters are said to have gone for the Democrats for "historical reasons," a phrase that rings very strangely in the ears of anybody who knows any history before 1980, but that's a kind of baggage Third Way doesn't carry.)
Married women were also found to be less amenable to Democratic blandishments than their unmarried sisters, but Third Way stopped well short of attacking the holy institution.
As usual for Third Way, no real recommendations are forthcoming. But the clear subtext of the report -- so obvious to a Beltway apparatchik that it doesn't even need saying -- is that the donkeys need to look, act, and waddle even more like the elephants. How this is even possible is, of course, the great question. Clearly the Republicans need to move even farther right in order to free up some space for the Third Way Democrats. Doubtless the Republicans will oblige, and equally doubtless, the Democrats will happily move to occupy whatever ground the Republicans leave behind.
As always in the lucubrations of a pathological liar, truth will creep in. It's a law of nature. Truth always shows up somewhere, usually in a paragraph near the end. Here's Third Way's little involuntary chirp of truth:
"Democrats talk and legislate a great deal about issues that they believe are of concern to the middle class, such as better schools, affordable health care, and job security. This has not translated into middle class votes. Assuming these issues are truly important to middle class voters (and there is no reason to believe they are not), it could be that Democrats have a set of flawed messages that do not reach the middle class. Or, the middle class may simply believe that their schools will not be better, their health care will not be more affordable, and their jobs will not be more secure should Democrats run the Congress and control the White House."
Gotta love that middle class. No flies on them.
Clearly the Republicans need to move even farther right in order to free up some space for the Third Way Democrats.
living room to the right for the lieberreich
Doubtless the Republicans will oblige, and equally doubtless, the Democrats will happily move to occupy whatever ground the Republicans leave behind
don't be so sure
A succesful McCain bid
in 08
might lead to a centering move
sit right on top
of the lieber reichers