Posted on 09/12/2010 8:47:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
BIG BEAVER, Pa. – Voters throughout river towns like this one, from the Mid-Atlantic through the Mid-West and into the Deep South, are frustrated with Washington.
Most are working-class Democrats and independents who placed their trust in Democrats in the past two election cycles.
Interesting, then, that with all of the poll numbers and focus groups available to it, Washington’s ruling class still does not understand Main Street. In fact, it wants to know what is wrong with Americans.
President Barack Obama, his advisors, congressional leaders and even many of the D.C. Beltway’s elite pundits collectively believe that voter anger among Republicans alone may cause Democrats to lose November’s midterm election.
They could not be more wrong.
Democrats are losing the confidence of Main Street Democrat and independent voters because they did not listen. It really is that simple.
Yet, instead of owning up to Democrats’ shortcomings, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell blames a GOP takeover of “wackos” and “fruit-loops” – and the president, in a major economic-policy speech, says something very un-presidential about being referred to as a “dog.”
“Obama's problem, as I see it, is partly a matter of atmospherics,” said Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University. “He has to get out among working-class voters and display his popular touch.”
Things are very bad for working-class and middle-class voters, Gitlin says, given the economic collapse on top of long-running troubles in a rusting manufacturing economy. “It seems that the White House is, belatedly, trying to address these people, as in Obama’s Cleveland speech. … Obviously, it's going to be a rough haul.”
Says Keystone College history professor Jeff Brauer: “Obama and the Democrats basically mistook their 2008 electoral victory, which was more of a vote against George W. Bush than for Democrats, as the necessary connection with the everyday American to enact their agenda.”
Because of that, they didn’t feel the need to earn the trust of Americans before they made bold policy decisions, which is why their leadership is in political trouble for this midterm election.
Brauer says this is being compounded by Obama’s aloofness.
“Good political leaders are able to emotionally connect to their constituents,” he explains. “Ronald Reagan was masterful at comforting citizens, even not being afraid to shed tears, as during the Challenger disaster.”
Bill Clinton’s ability to listen intently, and to make anyone he spoke with feel as if they were the only person in the world at that moment, rendered his “I-feel-your-pain” style believable.
On the other hand, Obama’s cool, laid-back, intellectual approach to issues and crises has hindered true connectivity with average Americans. Moreover, his dry, sarcastic humor comes across to many Americans as elitist.
The major policy disconnect that Obama and Democrats have suffered with everyday Americans is the growing federal deficit and the national debt.
“This is their fundamental misreading of the electorate,” Brauer says.
Main Street Americans have been forced for several years now to tighten their belts, to make sacrifices and to act responsibility. The nation’s unemployment rate remains intolerably high; those Americans with jobs have seen their real incomes go down. Personal expenses are on the rise, while home values have plummeted.
“So what they expect is their government to also tighten its belt, make sacrifices and act responsibly during these tough economic times,” says Brauer. “They don’t see it as a time to enact what they perceive to be big-government programs, such as health-care reform, that they believe will further run up deficits and the national debt.”
Obama's positions – whether involving government health care, more stimulus funding or cap-and-trade energy policies – may line up with the liberal side of his party and many elites in Washington, but those are not in line with most Americans. A Rasmussen Report poll issued last month backs that up; it found that 67 percent of the political class says America is headed on the right track, while 84 percent of mainstream Americans disagree.
Main Street Americans tend to be those who, as Bill Clinton once said, "Work hard and play by the rules." They are the middle and working classes who tend to work 50 weeks each year, travel around the country by car for vacation, take care of elderly parents, volunteer in their communities and churches, and try to save enough money to help their children have a better life.
And they are the America that is coming out to vote this fall.
I am retiring and trying to start a new business. The various governments make it nearly impossible to comply with the rules regulations and permitting. Unless we mount a counter revolution we will become third world quick.
Cheers!
“does not understand Main Street. “
They understand it fine- it’s the enemy of unions, high taxation, and dependence.
It’s their enemy.
Knowingly ignore the ones that can safely be ignored. Yes, it shows contempt for the rule of law, but the laws are contemptious.
/johnny
I wanted to start a commercial fishing business. However in Florida after 12 years of Bush and Crist the only fishing license you can get is to sell inedible fish. To get a license to sell edible fish you have to buy a boat that already has a license. It is insane. Now if you catch fish and do not have a license then the State will take your boat and everything you own. They have hired so many marine patrol and bought them speedboats there are more of them on the water checking permits and licenses that fishermen or boaters. No we must have a counter revolution or it is over.
They're getting as bad as the South American countries. Someone opened up a coffee and cold sandwich shop and the City Council demanded they put in a grill (even though they had no use for it) because "the specs called for that size store". ???
The guy closed the shop.
“I am retiring and trying to start a new business. The various governments make it nearly impossible to comply with the rules regulations and permitting.”
My mother is 93. I asked her how her father prospered during the ‘30’s. She ticked down the list of jobs and ventures he worked at, all as his own boss. Installed plate glass, moved pianos and safes to third floors, tore down and rebuilt houses onto different lots, started and operated a music store, an antique store, built buildings and rented them...If you start adding up the cost of government fees and permits, regulatory requirements, certifications, insurance, taxes, legal liabilities and environmental impact statements you quickly realize how limited we are today by our government. Federal, state, county and city all want a piece of you and they want it up front in most cases before you’ve ever made a dime. There was even a recent proposal to tax us all $800 a year on our supposed use of the underground economy.
You can’t even legally hire somebody to work on your house because they must have insurance, a business license and pay unemployment insurance. You must pay them on a 1099.
It’s time to undo all of that and start over.
Bull. This is only what they'll admit to publicly. They know very well the depth of dissatisfaction. They can't be ignorant of it.
Worse. Even with Republicans. That is why I have become a counter revolutionary. Nothing else will work.
“They have hired so many marine patrol and bought them speedboats there are more of them on the water checking permits and licenses that fishermen or boaters.”
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And all with fat pensions, a plethora of paid vacation, holidays and “sick” days, and a blue-ribbon health insurance program.
Paid for by you.
Can you imagine how I felt after spending 20k of my savings on a boat to get the license and find out I could only sell fish unfit for consumption?? And all this was done by the BIG HERO Jeb Bush...Phooey!
And Patent Letter Shoes. Phooey! Counter Revolution Now! We are getting the good cop bad cop routine from the Repubs and Crats again. Except for the T-Party.
This from a stinking former president of the SDS who never worked a day in his life.
The successful small business owners I know do exactly this. They just focus on their business and ignore the rent-seekers. As the business gets bigger doing that gets much harder, but that's why we have Senators and Representatives for sale at discount prices. :)
“The successful small business owners I know do exactly this.”
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Indeed.
On my small commercial building and home, I do ALL of my own maintenance, improvements and repairs.
The alternative is to have a horde of make-work inspector/ bureucrats sniffing over my building and exponentially increasing the cost and time of any given project.
The only thing I have to put up with is a fat-assed, grossly underworked, heavily pensioned fire captain strolling through by building every year telling me I need to check the batteries in my EXIT signs and smoke detectors.
Gee thanks for the “professional” guidance.
I have a feeling that someone from 16th or 17th century Europe would see much that they recognize in our present state of affairs (along with a lot that they would not). Back then The King has his finger in anything and everything along with the various Lords, Dukes, Guilds and what have you. We had some breathing room for a few hundred years and we’re rapidly reverting back to the norm.
I would have plugged a George Foreman grill into an outlet and told em to f off.
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