A lot of Republican pundits are upset that there were no questions last night about abortion or gays or prayer in school or the war on Christmas. But, think about it. As George Packer asks:
When will the class war ever finally drown out the culture war, if not in 2008? Under Republican rule in Washington, wages have stayed flat while income inequality has increased; the numbers of uninsured have soared; unemployment recently passed six per cent, its highest level since the early nineteen-nineties; gas and heating-oil prices have doubled, while basic food prices have gone up by fifty per cent; and the country’s financial system has come closer to collapse than at any moment since 1929. More profoundly, Republican dogma no longer offers convincing solutions, and in some cases it doesn’t even acknowledge the problems.
In fact, the Republicans are the problem. And that is the central reality in this campaign. The GOP desperately wants to shift the conversation onto the Culture Wars…going so far as to revive the phenomenon of the Weather Underground, an organization that ceased to exist over thirty years ago, and that was radicalized in opposition to the Vietnam War. But, the people, left to their own devices, ask questions about health care and the environment and jobs and inflation. And the mighty right-wing wurlitzer now has too much competition to drown out and distort the concerns of the people.
The Democrats job when this election is over, will be to make the working class believe in them again. Do that, and we’ll have an enduring majority.
