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Will GOP Connect With Worried Workers?
US News & World Report/CapitalCommerce blog ^ | Jan. 29, 2007 | James Pethokoukis

Posted on 01/29/2007 11:47:35 AM PST by DredTennis

Laura Ingraham, the willowy, conservative radio talker, really nailed it. She was speaking last Friday night as part of a panel discussion at a "conservative summit" in Washington held by National Review magazine. Ingraham said she was impressed by Jim Webb's televised rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union address, particularly the part that hit on economics. In his talk, the newbie U.S. senator from Virginia launched a populist attack on the Bush economic years, railing about growing income inequality, skyrocketing CEO pay, outsourcing, and the so-called middle-class squeeze. Although Webb's stern speaking manner and improbable hair are easy to mock, Ingraham urged her fellow conservatives to pay serious attention to his message. "The party that comes off as the party that represents the American worker best is the party that wins in 2008," she said, adding that the GOP will be relegated to the political wilderness if it goes back "to being the party of the elites."

(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
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Is all this worker angst the real deal or an ephemeral phenomenon???
1 posted on 01/29/2007 11:47:37 AM PST by DredTennis
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To: DredTennis

I don't think the party that is setting an anti-business agenda will come off too well if there is a recession.


2 posted on 01/29/2007 11:50:45 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: DredTennis
Laura steps up to the plate yet again and show that under all the Conservative bombast of the Talk Radio 2nd raters lurkers a whole bunch of Socialist Wanna bees.

Ronald Reagan would be APPALLED with what his supposed intellectual god children are doing these days.

Populism? More Govt More Taxes More regulation is NOW defined as "populism"

God Help us. WHEN did the Conservative Establishment get this stupid?
3 posted on 01/29/2007 11:50:56 AM PST by MNJohnnie ( If they say "speaking truth to power,"-they haven't had a l thought since the Beatles broke up)
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To: DredTennis

It's the real deal, in the sense that the Dems and the media will hammer it for the obvious reasons, while your malcontent third-party types and other "true" conservatives will hammer it to siphon-off some votes from the Republicans.


4 posted on 01/29/2007 11:51:08 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: DredTennis

I agree with laura--but watching that National Review thing with the five whining women--was just painful.


5 posted on 01/29/2007 11:51:21 AM PST by Pondman88
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To: MNJohnnie

Hello? Did you see the same article I did?


6 posted on 01/29/2007 11:53:54 AM PST by gogeo
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To: DredTennis

Ingraham was impressed with Webb's rebuttal?? Please tell me she is not that much of a dingbat.


7 posted on 01/29/2007 11:56:09 AM PST by pissant
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To: DredTennis

It's real enough that we need to take the time to explain why fiscally conservative policies and the free market are BEST for workers of all classes, and that cutting the pay of the top 500 executives to 1/20th what it is would not help ANY workers have a better life.

Imagine we took all of Bill Gate's money, and distributed it evenly amongst all the 300 million of us in America. How much is that per person? 50 billion dollars split 300 million ways is about 170 bucks each. Yep, I feel the upper class coming on now.

How about you work for a major company, IBM. They have worldwide about 330,000 employees. Their CEO compensation in 2005 was "Meanwhile, CEO Sam Palmisano is one of the highest-paid executives in the industry, with direct compensation last year totaling $12.4 million--".

OK, let's say we didn't pay him at all, and distributed the money to all the employees. Each employee would get $38. Enough to take their wives out to dinner at Red Lobster.

Yep, that's a good reason to pass new laws and have government interfere in the free-market economy.

If a janitor somewhere thinks that HIS salary is negatively effected by how much the CEO of his company makes, he is being lied to by the democrats.


8 posted on 01/29/2007 11:58:55 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT
It's real enough that we need to take the time to explain why fiscally conservative policies and the free market are BEST for workers of all classes

Such as the meat cutters who used to make $19 an hour but now make $7, thanks in large part to illegal immigration? The WSJ says that is the free labor market at work.

9 posted on 01/29/2007 12:02:13 PM PST by dirtboy (Duncan Hunter 08 - rationalization not required, he IS a conservative already)
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To: gogeo
Ingraham said she was impressed by Jim Webb's televised rebuttal to President Bush's State of the Union address, particularly the part that hit on economics. In his talk, the newbie U.S. senator from Virginia launched a populist attack on the Bush economic years, railing about growing income inequality, skyrocketing CEO pay, outsourcing, and the so-called middle-class squeeze. Although Webb's stern speaking manner and improbable

Did you bother to read the article? This is pure big goverment Socialist drivel. Utter nonsense economically and politically. It has no bases at all in any factual reality. The American economy is the best shape it has EVER been. It is utterly absurd for Laura, who lives inside the DC bubble world and does nothing but hang out with other News Media Elitists to whine about "the Party of the Elite". She IS an Elite!

The whole problem with NRO and the rest of the "Conservative" Mdia Establishment like Laura is they have hang out in DC for SO long they have lost all touch with factual reality. The losers in the Junk Media establishment scream nonsense about the economy NONE stop and rather then CHALLENGE them, the supposed "Conservative" media starts mindlessly echoing them! Laura and NRO desperately need to get OUT of Washington DC. They have simply LOST all touch with reality!

10 posted on 01/29/2007 12:03:30 PM PST by MNJohnnie ( If they say "speaking truth to power,"-they haven't had a l thought since the Beatles broke up)
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To: DredTennis; Paul Ross; A. Pole

Webb and Laura are right on the political implications of globalism and outsourcing. My state in '06 is a case in point. The voters sent packing (by a wide margin) an incumbent two-term moderate-conservative Republican who embraced the Bush globalist economic message in favor of a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who made very effective campaign hay out of this very issue. Many of Sherrod Brown's campaign ads featured shuttered factories and people standing in unemployment lines who were formerly tax-paying manufacturing employees. This struck a chord not only with voters who were out of a job, but those who feared they might be. The GOP needs to come up with a simple, coherent, effective message that will appeal to middle class working Americans. Hyping stock portfolios and megabucks CEO pay isn't going to cut it.


11 posted on 01/29/2007 12:06:21 PM PST by chimera
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To: DredTennis

Geez. I thought Webb's presentation was terrible. He looked and sounded like the teacher's pet in high school everyone hated.


12 posted on 01/29/2007 12:06:28 PM PST by pabianice
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To: 1rudeboy

As an anecdotal bit Gen X'rs that I know are not particularly concerned with who the President is or what the new en vogue policies are. They are concerned with their jobs being outsourced and their future. Now that is very shallow when things like Islamofascism are looming but it is what it is. Hey where's the remote


13 posted on 01/29/2007 12:07:05 PM PST by Domicile of Doom (Center amber dot on head and squeeze for best results)
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To: dirtboy
Such as the meat cutters who used to make $19 an hour but now make $7, thanks in large part to illegal immigration? The WSJ says that is the free labor market at work.

Proof to back this up? This is the whole problem. ABSOULTE lies get screamed as "Fact" and mindlessly repeated so often they become "fact". This claim is a complete manufacture MYTH. It has no base at all in fact. It just nonsense propaganda. The best paid employees in the grocery chain I work for are the meat cutters. They have NEVER had their wages cut EVER.

My God, the Conservative Movement has simply gotten too stupid to survive! They simply mindlessly accept everything the Junk Media screams at them as fact!

14 posted on 01/29/2007 12:07:31 PM PST by MNJohnnie ( If they say "speaking truth to power,"-they haven't had a l thought since the Beatles broke up)
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To: Domicile of Doom
They are concerned with their jobs being outsourced and their future.

You're right. Terribly shallow.
15 posted on 01/29/2007 12:08:02 PM PST by aNYCguy
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To: MNJohnnie
Proof to back this up?

That is quite well documented.

But I notice you launched into a rant that the claim was false without bothering to wait for me to substantiate it.

16 posted on 01/29/2007 12:08:40 PM PST by dirtboy (Duncan Hunter 08 - rationalization not required, he IS a conservative already)
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To: DredTennis
There is widespread displeasure with the exporting of jobs. Both Democrats and Republicans have had a hand in bringing about the job and factory displacement. If either party can successfully capitalize on that displeasure it will be a very formidable opponent attracting voters from a wide social spectrum.
17 posted on 01/29/2007 12:13:55 PM PST by backtothestreets
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To: pabianice

I think R's are going to have to face the issue squarely. Protecting unskilled and pretending they are middle class gets us nowhere. Attacking the corrupt urban plantations with more than vouchers with opportunity and ownership society is pregnant with potential.


18 posted on 01/29/2007 12:15:15 PM PST by ClaireSolt (Have you have gotten mixed up in a mish-masher?)
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To: MNJohnnie

He's not talking about the "grocery chain", I don't think he meant meat cutters but meat packers.


19 posted on 01/29/2007 12:15:36 PM PST by streetpreacher (What if you're wrong?)
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To: DredTennis

"Is all this worker angst the real deal or an ephemeral phenomenon???"

I'm in Ohio, a state largely destroyed by GOP leadership. But here in Ohio, the worker angst is very, very real. Jobs are scarce here.


20 posted on 01/29/2007 12:15:53 PM PST by brownsfan (It's not a war on terror... it's a war with islam.)
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