Main Street in revolt (Salena Zito)

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | November 3, 2012 | Salena Zito

[neverdem]

The homemade sign for Mitt Romney in the yard of a well-manicured but modest home in Leadville, Colo., forlornly signals the fracture of another onetime supporter of Barack Obama.

If Romney wins the presidency on Tuesday, the national media, the Washington establishment and the bulk of academia will have missed something huge that happened in “flyover” America under their watch.

It is a story that few have told.

It reminds one of the famous quip by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael following Richard Nixon’s landslide 1972 victory: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.”

Two years after suffering a historic shellacking in the 2010 midterm election, Democrats astonishingly have ignored Main Street Americans’ unhappiness.

That 2010 ejection from the U.S. House, and from state legislatures and governors’ offices across the country, didn’t happen inside the Washington Beltway world.

It didn’t reflect the Democrats’ or the media’s conventional wisdom or voter-turnout models. So it just wasn’t part of their reality.

In Democrats’ minds, it was never a question of “How did we lose Main Street?” Instead, it was the fault of the “tea party” or of crazy right-wing Republicans.

Yet in interview after interview — in Colorado, along Nebraska’s plains, in small Iowa towns or Wisconsin shops, outside closed Ohio steel plants and elsewhere — many Democrats have told me they are furious with the president. Not in a frothing-at-the-mouth or racist way, as many elites suggest. They just have legitimate concerns affecting their lives.

These Main Street Democrats in seven battleground states supported Obama in 2008. Now they are disappointed by his broken pledges: Where is the promised bipartisanship? How could health-care reform become such a mess? What direction is the country going in?

Their overriding sentiment is uncertainty over where the president is taking the country. They have no idea but get the feeling it isn’t the direction that traditional Democrats want.

They certainly haven’t gotten guidance from the president’s re-election slogans: class warfare, a hyphenated America, spreading the wealth around.

Over and over, these folks expressed unhappiness that fixing the economy doesn’t seem to be Obama’s focus; they have noticed that those in charge have high opinions of themselves but aren’t taking responsibility for the lack of progress.

It took Romney just 90 minutes, in a debate hall just a three-hour drive from that Leadville home’s sign, to convince many Americans (including many Democrats) that he passed their threshold test.

He came across as a qualified alternative to Obama who believes in their vision of an exceptional America and convinced them he can win.

And, just like that, “flyover” America was ready to vote its conscience.

What a shame that those from Kael’s “special world” don’t grasp the vicious cycle of their growing disdain for those alienated by their own actions.

They create dangerous narratives through Twitter and on TV that polarize and promote the rigidity of their ideology rather than introspection.

Never once have Main Street Americans heard Washington elites ponder, “What did we Democrats do to lose the confidence of so many voters?”

Plenty of traditional Democrats have voiced such concerns but are not being heard.

Conversely, Romney seems largely to have figured out what he did wrong in 2008 and what George W. Bush did wrong previously.

Obama’s progressivism no longer seems universal, upbeat and forward-looking; instead, it appears divisive, shrill and based on the worst kind of shortsighted power calculations.

Yesterday’s “special world” liberals, such as Kael, could be gently chided for their heart-in-the-right-place, head-in-the-clouds idealism.

Yet it is something else altogether to have today’s arbiters of political correctness order you to march “Forward” to a future with less promise, fewer choices, more intrusive government — and to justify it by telling you to accept that the new normal of high employment, low growth and diminished world influence is good for you.

Is it any wonder that Main Street America is in revolt, since no one is telling its story?

Perhaps election night will tell it, at long last

Read more: http://triblive.com/opinion/2883641-74/democrats-main-street-america-obama-romney-americans-election-kael-media?printerfriendly=true#ixzz2BEGIHUjb Follow us: @triblive on Twitter | triblive on Facebook

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Here’s are some of my signs up thru election day.

“Revenge the Benghazi 4: Vote for Romney”

“Remember the Benghazi 4 on Nov. 6th”

“Honor the Benghazi 4; vote Republican on Nov. 6th”

Hold up 4 fingers when you go into the voting place. When someone asks what they mean, say “Benghazi 4”. If they don’t know the story, tell them.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Should have been:

“Revenge for the Benghazi 4: Vote for Romeny”

and

“Avenge the Benghazi 4; Vote Republican”

[Impala64ssa]

It reminds one of the famous quip by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael following Richard Nixon’s landslide 1972 victory: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.”
I remember. My parents never thought too highly of Nixon, going back to when he was Ike's VP. But they also knew what a disaster a McGovern admistration would've been.

[onyx]

Hold up 4 fingers when you go into the voting place. When someone asks what they mean, say “Benghazi 4”. If they don’t know the story, tell them.

BTTT

[neverdem]

Never once have Main Street Americans heard Washington elites ponder, “What did we Democrats do to lose the confidence of so many voters?”

Plenty of traditional Democrats have voiced such concerns but are not being heard.

I'll take that Pauline Kael quote as a good omen. I can't wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth!

[Carry_Okie]

I remember. My parents never thought too highly of Nixon, going back to when he was Ike's VP. But they also knew what a disaster a McGovern admistration would've been.

Accordingly, Nixon floated the currency, gave us the EPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Of course, McGovern would have abandoned Vietnam to the communists...

The irony of it.

[Windflier]

...what a disaster a McGovern admistration would've been.

Agreed. To this day, I am forever grateful that my vote for George McGovern as a nineteen year old skull full of mush, didn't amount to anything.

[BlessingsofLiberty]

“Accordingly, Nixon floated the currency, gave us the EPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

Of course, McGovern would have abandoned Vietnam to the communists...

The irony of it.”

Wow!! Great post...well said

[PA Engineer]

Hold up 4 fingers when you go into the voting place. When someone asks what they mean, say “Benghazi 4”. If they don’t know the story, tell them.

With my left hand. My right hand will be in my pocket less I forget civility.

[AZLiberty]

McGovern and Nixon: A reminder that the two main political parties, switching back and forth, have aimed primarily at increasing their own power while reducing the freedom of the individual citizen. Being elected and re-elected is far more important to all of them than preserving the Constitution.

[NVDave]

As the economic situation worsens, I’m here to warn conservatives that this wrath will turn back on the GOP and conservatives if they don’t produce results.

Producing results will require breaking rules of the “conventional wisdom” inside DC. For example, immigration will have to be restricted to reduce the surplus in the labor pool. We’ll have to examine our trade policy - and why “free trade” is neither “free” nor working for us. We’ll have to examine our tax system, as well as take ruthless axes to spending on “stimulus” projects that are useless twaddle (like green energy).

All of this has to be addressed ASAP - and we’re not yet talking about the entitlement beast that is devouring the US budget, nor public employee pensions that cannot be sustained, etc.

I seriously doubt that much of this will actually be addressed with real solutions. There are too many self-indulgent interests who place themselves and their interest ahead of the interest of the entire country and have decided that they’re going to seek financial gain through rent-seeking. They control the fiscal and monetary policy of the US now, and they don’t give a rat’s rear end what happens to the schlubs in flyover country.

[uglybiker]

...liberals, such as Kael, could be gently chided for their heart-in-the-right-place, head-in-the-clouds idealism.

Their hearts may be in the right place, but their heads are stuck somewhere else.

[Einherjar]

{I remember. My parents never thought too highly of Nixon, going back to when he was Ike’s VP.{

“There are no American combat troops in Cambodia. There are no American combat advisers in Cambodia. There will be no American combat troops or advisers in Cambodia.
President Richard M. Nixon, November 1971

just sayin

[2ndDivisionVet]

What color are our uniforms this time?

[Terry Mross]

I don’t believe there is one thing obama could do that would convince those who still worship him to change their oppinion. And that’s scary.

[liberty or death]

I’ve had to tell the Benghazi story 100 times this past week. I am STUNNED by how many people don’t know.

[Lacey2]

"....the national media, the Washington establishment and the bulk of academia will have missed something huge that happened in “flyover” America under their watch."

They "missed" nothing. There is a difference between "miss" and "ignore". It's all about psyops.

[Lacey2]

Remember those stories and movies about the country being run by a super computer?

I think it’s time.

[BADROTOFINGER]

The best post I have seen on this forum in ages. Just, wow!