When it comes to the media, or the Village, they are like a child that has dropped and shattered a cookie jar all over the kitchen floor and doesn’t want anyone to come sweep it up. ‘Mistakes were made’ they say, and think that can be the end of it. Take a look at Stu Rothenberg:
Democrats must decide whether they want a candidate who is angry and confrontational, and who sees those favoring compromise as traitors (Edwards), or a candidate who presents himself as a uniter (Obama), or a candidate who presents herself as someone who understands the ways of Washington and can get things done (Clinton).
While Clinton and Obama both acknowledge the importance of working with various interests, including Capitol Hill Republicans and the business community, to come up with solutions to key problems, Edwards sounds more and more like the neighborhood bully who plans to dictate what is to be done.
The ‘ways of Washington’ have brought us to this pass. Shards of crockery are all over the floor. The three candidates under discussion here all have the same kind of experience on the ‘ways of Washington’ because they are all, or have been, U.S. senators. Edwards, like Clinton, has been part of a national campaign. Clinton might have a better understanding of what goes on in the East Wing of the White House, but there’s little to no real difference in the candidates’ respective experience with the ‘ways of Washington’.
They all know that you can’t pass major legislation in Washington unless you have at least a little bipartisan support. The only way to get around that requirement is to have the White House, 60-plus senators, and a healthy majority of the House. The Democrats have an outside chance of obtaining those three prerequisites of unipartisanship. But it’s unlikely that Edwards will move in on Pennsylvania Avenue and find that he doesn’t need to work with Republicans to get things done. He knows that. What he is doing now is asking for a mandate for change, so that if he gets elected he can say that the people want certain things done. Above all, Edwards wants to clean up the crockery. But he also wants to overcome big business’ blockage of meaningful energy, environmental, and health reforms. What distinguishes Edwards’ rhetoric is his insistence that we cannot overcome big business by compromising with them. We must defeat them. I’ll come back to this in a moment, but let’s look at some more Rothenberg:
The former North Carolina senator is running a classic populist campaign that would have made William Jennings Bryan (or Ralph Nader) proud. Everything is Corporate America’s fault. But he’s also portraying himself as fighting for the middle class and able to appeal to swing voters and even Republicans in a general election.
Edwards certainly would dispute that there is an inherent contradiction between his populist rhetoric and his alleged middle class appeal. But his approach to problems is likely to frighten many voters, including most middle class Americans and virtually all Republicans.
What’s interesting here is that Rothenberg reveals a bias. He thinks a populist campaign, by definition, promises nothing for the middle class, won’t be supported by the middle class, and then he concludes that a populist campaign will frighten the middle class. It’s a strange way of looking at things. Rothenberg must think the middle class is comfortable, happy, and complacent. Yet, poll after poll shows that the American people are unhappy with the direction of the country, pessimistic about the economy, and pessimistic about the future. Energy, health, and education costs are through the roof, and income disparity has reached pre-Great Depression levels. People are losing their homes and the value of their homes. We’re bogged down in an unpopular war in Iraq and we’re not doing well in Afghanistan. The world increasingly dislikes us. They have a more favorable opinion of China than the United States.
Let’s go back to those nasty corporations. A look at Edwards’ rhetoric will show that he’s angry with corporations for specific reasons: health care coverage, energy emissions standards, etc. He’s not opposed to the existence of corporations or to their profitability. He thinks they have undue influence and that the interests of the American people and the world are in conflict with the interests of big business in specific cases. Edwards doesn’t want to destroy Exxon/Mobil, he wants to beat them politically and get something done.
But Rotherberg doesn’t see it that way.
Scare the stuffing out of Corporate America and watch the stock market tumble. That’s certain to make retirement funds – including those owned by labor unions and “working families” – happy, right? Stick it to Wal-Mart, and their 1.8 million employees are at risk. Beat up on IBM, and you are beating up on their 330,000 employees. Take a pound of flesh from General Electric, Citigroup, Home Depot and United Technologies, and you’ve put the squeeze on just under 1.2 million employees.
It’s easy to see the logical fallacy here. Rothenberg is suggesting that a president can’t make Corporate America nervous without it hurting the very people a populist sets out to aid. Even the suggestion that corporations might have to pay more for what they pollute, for example, is bound to cause massive lay-offs and a collapse of the stock market. If Wal-Mart has to abide by reasonable labor standards, those jobs will just be lost. Rothenberg sets up rules where the little guy can never win. And he wants to impose those rules on the electorate, whom he considers middle class, but not unhappy for being so.
Edwards portrays himself as a fighter for the middle class, but his message is decidedly working class and left. The North Carolina Democrat’s message seems well-suited for 1933 or 1934, but not nearly as ideal for 2008.
What is unintentionally ironic here, is Rothenberg’s assertion that Edwards’ policies would be appropriate in 1933 (in the midst of the Great Depression) just not in 2008. We might ask whether FDR’s policies might have been appropriate in 1928 before the extremes of the Gilded Age led to worldwide calamity. After all, income disparity is right back at 1928 levels. And Rothenberg isn’t just talking about what will sell here, he’s saying that Edwards’ policies are bad. Here’s his conclusion:
But let’s be very clear: Given the North Carolina Democrat’s rhetoric and agenda, an Edwards Presidency would likely rip the nation apart – even further apart than Bush has torn it.
I’m tempted to just say, “WTF?”. Edwards wouldn’t rip the nation apart, he’d rip the Village apart. He’d change the status quo in the ‘ways of Washington’. At least, that’s what he’s looking for a mandate to do. And I think the middle class is feeling quite ‘working class and left’ at the moment. They’re ready to sweep the kitchen floor.
