Posted on 11/14/2004 9:14:53 AM PST by OESY
Democratic politicians and left-leaning commentators, seeking to ex plain President Bush's victory, argue that Republicans have persuaded blue-collar voters to ignore their economic concerns and instead vote based on cultural issues like gay marriage, gun control and abortion....
The inspiration for this line of thought is Thomas Franks' recent book "What's the Matter With Kansas."...
Social issues clearly played a crucial role in President Bush's re-election. But the notion that heartland voters are disregarding their economic well-being is wildly at odds with the facts, as a close look Franks' book and poll results makes clear. As long as Democrats continue to believe they are losing the middle of the country solely for cultural reasons, they'll miss the fact that many voters simply don't trust them on the economy, either.
Franks' purple prose paints a grim picture: Kansas is "pretty much in a free fall," with economic devastation leaving it "a civilization in the early stages of irreversible decay." The cause, says Franks, is modern capitalism, especially as practiced by all those businessmen-GOPers: Kansas is "burning on a free-market pyre."...
Call off the apocalypse: Kansas is far from sinking into economic oblivion. In fact, the state's economy has actually outperformed the nation's for years, in good years and bad....
It's clear many voters think this way, and not just in Kansas. Democrats want to believe the election turned solely on the War on Terror and cultural issues, but most Americans were unmoved by the Democratic economic agenda.
Only 45 percent of voters said they trusted Kerry to handle the economy, against 49 percent who expressed confidence in Bush....
Like Franks, the Democrats seem adept at ignoring the economic facts of life and instead conjuring up fanciful scenarios. Maybe that's the real reason why they've lost so many voters in the heartland.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ah, a Useful Idiot.
Anyone who lives in America and has eyes and still buys into that class warfare nonsense is hopeless.
Well, I think there is an element of truth to the notion that Americans tend to be slightly left-of-center when it comes to economic issues. When polls ask if they'd support more government funding for healthcare or education even if it meant higher taxes, majorities say yes. Most people think the government should do more to stop outsourcing and distaste for Nafta is high. So let's not be fooled by our own spin.
True, Bush scored slightly higher than Kerry in (recalibrated) exit polls when voters were asked who they trust more on the economy. But neither candidate cracked 50%. And polls have consistently shown majority support for Democratic positions on these issues.
Ultimately, every governing coalition serves a variety of factions. Some of the policy prescriptions that emerge from such coalitions have majority support, but some do not. Let's drive home our competitive edge on security and values instead of pretending that the economy is equally favorable ground. That's a ticket to losing.
I mean, when the Democrats ruled for decades, they had their own wedge issues; it's not like the public agreed with them on everything. We should take what we can get without being blind to reality.
Re the economy and domestic issues: we need to take those issues from the Dems too (inc' health care, education and poverty).
Well, I think there is an element of truth to the notion that Americans tend to be slightly left-of-center when it comes to economic issues. When polls ask if they'd support more government funding for healthcare or education even if it meant higher taxes, majorities say yes."
That's an argument liberals love to toss in, but that is really only showing people's reaction to the equivalent of pro-liberal "push polling".
How many people say no to ...
"DO YOU WANT A FREE TURKEY FOR THANKSGIVING?"
Now ask:
"Do you want to be taxed to give free turkeys to other people too laz to buy it themselves?"
big difference.
'"Do you want to be taxed to give free turkeys to other people too laz to buy it themselves?" '
Talk about push polling! These are the same polls that showed people trusting Republicans more on security. I think it's pretty straightforward and fair to ask: "Would you have more government funding for health care if it meant higher taxes?" That's not push polling, as far as I can tell. I suspect one of the reasons that less than 50% trusted Bush or Kerry on the economy was (a) people realized what a spineless wimp Kerry was, and they didn't trust him on much of anything, and (b) both sides favor Nafta, the WTO, etc., which have fallen out of favor.
Again, we need to be careful not to buy our own spin. A 51% victory when Kerry's negatives were REALLY HIGH does not prove that the public agrees with us on every issue. Those who think it does may ultimately undermine our efforts. Governing coalitions are fragile things. When almost half the country voted for the other guy, we need to remain vigilant.
Not mentioned is the rather severe draught in the Western part of the state over the last five years which just broke this summer. But even then, and I have spent a lot of time over the last few years in Western Kansas, all of Kansas is doing quite well, thank you very much. If we could get rid of the demorat gov it would get better faster.
Franks' views of American economics stem from his readings of 30s and 20s writers of the left like John Dos Passos and Randolph S. Bourne. He studied free market ideology as a system of rhetoric, never buying it. (I knew him well at the University of Chicago). He thinks advertising is all powerful and the only needs capitalism serves are those it first artificially creates.
According to JasonC Tom Franks never new a thing about economics but was heavily imbrued in the usual class struggle dialectical poppycock. He doesn't seem to even want to study the facts as they are. I think it is safe to assume, sight unseen, that there are no facts, figures, statistics or graphs in the work in question; just carefully selected anecdotes and emotional impressionism. His view is echoed by the democrats, amplified by the MSM, all of whom came of age in similar ideological hothouses.
Throughout the '90s and the first part of this new decade, Kansas' unemployment rate was below the U.S. average. In fact, when the country's unemployment rate dipped below 5 percent from 1997 to 2001, Kansas' fell to under 4 percent — a level so low that economists basically consider it to be full employment. Even when the slowdown hit in 2002 and 2003, Kansas lost jobs at a slower rate than the nation.
It's the same story in the state's agricultural sector, which Franks claims the free market has driven "to a near state of collapse." Yes, Kansas farm jobs shrank by about 9 percent in the 1990s, a result of farms becoming larger and more efficient (and producing more), but the state's total agricultural economy grew by 10 percent, some 30,000 jobs, as areas like food processing and agricultural wholesaling expanded.
The object of Franks's particular scorn, his home of Shawnee and the rest of Johnson County, seem to have done especially well. For three years during the last expansion, the Shawnee area's unemployment rate actually dipped below 3 percent, for one of the tightest labor markets you'll find anywhere. And when the recession set in, Shawnee's unemployment rate still stayed below the U.S. average.
And though Franks describes the place as practically empty and destitute, Shawnee's population was up by 27 percent in the last Census. Just 3.3 percent of its citizens live below the poverty level, vs. about 12.5 percent nationally. "It's possible his view of us is outdated," says Jim Martin, executive director of the Shawnee Economic Development Council, in a classic bit of Midwestern understatement.
The same holds for most of us. Socialism sounds just grand when you know nothing about how the world really works, it did to me when I was a kid. If Sowell's Basic Economics was required reading in college (or even high school) it would be the end forever of le partie democratique and anyone else echoing the same general redistributionist line. However, things have been slowly changing since Reagan (looking back, I wish he had tried even harder to get his commonsense economic message out, perhaps he did, but the MSM managed to distort it sufficiently to keep us confused). Now, with over 50% of us invested in the markets--indirectly or directly--Kerry and Edwards' stale Grapes of Wrath-inspired "Two Americas" rhetoric begins to sound downright embarassing to listen to. Honestly, I think Bob Shrum must have some ancient leather-bound collection of William Jennings Bryan's, and Huey Long's collected speeches on his nightstand from which he cribs his stuff.
I believe that is correct. Dos Passos was never anti-American, though he was anti-capitalism. He became more conservative after WW II, and as he got older. But he remains best known for his writings in the 20s and 30s (anti war writings after WW I, Manhattan Transfer, and the USA Trilogy). The USA trilogy is what impressed Tom Frank. Harvard intellectual writer and socialist travels middle America in the depression and notes blue collar virtues and vices, kaleidoscopically, in snippets of popular culture and short tales. Tom could relate, and had similar ambitions as a writer. Not having a depression, he made do with a stock market bubble in the 90s (see "one market under God", an earlier book of his).
Interesting (I never read any Dos Passos) I would say this is of a piece with our Great Depression/FDR mythology (re. FDR's Folly). For many of us, all we have to go on is the memories of our grandparents. My own late maternal grandmother, who, even when she couldn't remember what I'd said to her five minutes earlier, could tell me in detail how much the Great Man "cared about us." I see it in my mother, a prosperous software instructor who thinks no-one ever made a great fortune without somehow taking it from someone else (zero-sum economics). I get mighty, mighty sick of being told how democrats are magically better on domestic issues: "healthcare and the economy" and that republicans are some kind of G.I. Joe doll you take off the shelf, wind up and let go whenever times are threatening, then put back in it's box when the danger is over and good times are once more at hand.
I guess the best thing is for the president and his allies in congress and the governors mansions to simply pound the message home in speech after speech but the speeches themselves have got to clearly express the commonsense principles involved. I could stand to know a bit more about the pros and cons of outsourcing and how many jobs are "outsourced" to US from abroad. The message of tax reform and simplification and of course tort reform must be refined and made easy to understand and then relentlessly sold (let's not talk about his "guest worker" plan for now). But the president must first get straight what he wants to do and then "take it to the country." Thankfully, we now have the new media of talk radio and the internet, something Reagan did not have. I myself learned a great deal through them over the years and was introduced to a good many authors and think tanks.
I think it's pretty straightforward and fair to ask: "Would you have more government funding for health care if it meant higher taxes?"
MY point is - that is NOT the question that is asked! They DONT put the price tag on. That would make it a fairer question.
"Do you want more Government services for X?"
never asks about the price tag - that's a 'push poll'.
The real TRUTH is this:
The Republicans and free-market economics is far far better for the overal economy than Democrats and welfare-state economics. But the benefits of a free market are diffuse, and the costs specifics. Combined with a massive MSM bias on the matter, where they tried to make it out like the G W Bush economy was Herbert Hoover II, and the split decision was not surprising. It's easier to see the negatives of messy semi-market economy that is growing robustly but is constantly challenged by many issues, including foreign competition. But that doesnt make negative analysis fair or correct. The correct view on the economy is that G W Bush has done a very good job, that socialism has failed time and time again, and the free market works.
You benefit from free trade through lower prices on practically every single product you buy, but you cant put your finger on it as readily as a headline about a factory shutting down somewhere.
"Governing coalitions are fragile things. When almost half the country voted for the other guy, we need to remain vigilant."
Pretending the Democrats have some 'advantage' because their version of poison is the WRONG way to handle this.
What we need to do is deliver prosperity for great majority of Americans, We know how to do this - and it is NOT by pandering to welfare-statist mentality or economic isoloationists. It's through:
- Tax Reform and tax rate reductions
- Tort and regulation reform/reductions
- Controls/reduction of Government spending
- Pro-growth policies wrt trade (ie free but also fair trade)
- reasonable cost-effective environmental policies, ie, drill in ANWR, dont let a few caribou stop us from reaping $600 billion worth of benefit from a piece of frozen tundra
We also need to get choice into the school system, the social security system and medicare. A 'choice' philosophy should pervade the provision of Government services. Also we need to be adamant about making sure every Government agency and service meets these tests of: Need, Vision/Mission that meets need, Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Accountability.
A lot of work needs to be done, and it'll be long and arduous, but yes we need to grab those issues aggressively, especially health care. At least the role of lawyers in the high cost of care can be easily explained, less so the problems of socialized medicine.
The arguments of the right are usually more difficult to make. It's always easier to say "free stuff for everybody" and "it's the rich man's fault". Refuting this one-step silliness involves a multi step argument (that people do not want to hear in the first place).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.