Josh Kraushaar thinks that the Democrats’ most effective campaign message in this cycle has been to go after Republicans for being rich businessmen who outsource American jobs or who otherwise flaunt their conspicuous wealth. This may be true in individual races where the shoe fits, like Georgia’s senatorial race or the governor’s match-ups in Illinois and Massachusetts. I don’t know how well it works when the Republican opponent doesn’t neatly match the stereotype.
Regardless, anti-businessmen messages are not what Will Marshall recommends. Economic populism is supposed to be a sure loser for the Democrats. But I just don’t see it.
If you are a white male “electrical engineer [who] is now doing software support because [your] line of work was shifted overseas,” you have a choice of supporting the Republicans because you believe their policies will promote economic growth and eventually bring your job back, or supporting Democratic policies aimed at limiting that kind of job loss in the first place and helping people who find themselves in your situation.
Ultimately, you may find both sides unconvincing, but siding with the outsourcers seems like an obvious bad bet. You can find the following to be the basest bullshit and still wind up convinced that the Democrat is clearly the better choice:
[Illinois Governor] “Pat Quinn running a populist campaign against a billionaire is like asking a dog to lick its balls. That’s just nature taking over,” said Democratic strategist Tom Bowen, a former political director for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Because voters expect something different from their governors, these issues are particularly potent.”
When it comes to good-paying American jobs, there are a lot of people in the Republican base demographic who behave like battered spouses. Their livelihood has been taken away to line the pockets of outsourcers and yet they still believe that their only hope is to rely on those outsourcers to restore them to their previous condition.
For Democrats to break through into this demographic, they need to make sure voters understand that the Republican Party is and has been the main culprit in destroying jobs for middle class Americans.
Overall, the Democrats do not excel at convincing people of this, but when actual outsourcers run for office it makes it quite a bit easier to sell the idea.
