Democrats' Corporate Cocoon

It is astonishing how many Democrats in the past three months have been
making the worst case scenario for their prospects in the November
mid-term Congressional elections. Do they believe that the most craven
Republican Party in history needs their help in such a self-fulfilling
prophecy?

The arguments that the Democratic pundits, along with some elected
lawmakers, are giving focus on the slowing of the recessionary economy
and the "natural giveback" to the Republicans of the hitherto safe seats
that they lost to the Democrats in 2008.

The mass media-exaggerated aura of the Tea Party, pumped by Limbaugh,
Hannity and the histrionic Glenn Beck, has put the Democrats in a
defensive posture. It is giving the puzzled Republicans an offensive
image. I say puzzled because they can't figure out the many disparate
strands of the Tea Party eruption which includes turning on the
Republicans and George W. Bush for launching this epidemic of deficits,
debt, bailouts and unconstitutional military adventures.

Being on the defensive politically becomes a nightmarish
self-replicating wave among that 10 percent slice of swing voters who
can make the difference between a big win or a big loss. These are also
the non-hereditary party voters whose philosophy is to "throw the bums
out" again and again until they get the message.

Gallup's most recent poll predicted the Republicans taking the House of
Representatives. While political scientist, Larry Sabato, with a 98%
predictive accuracy in Congressional races over ten years, sees the
House gone and the Senate as a toss-up. But it is still early.

The Democratic Party's problems are much deeper than the Sunday talk
shows indicate. First the Democrats do not have a progressive political
philosophy. They could learn from a four time winner--Franklin Delano
Roosevelt--when it comes to being perceived as the working families
friend.

One has only to listen to the debates on C-Span between Democrats and
Republicans running for Congress or the Governorships. Too often, apart
from a Libertarian or Green in the mix, there are very few bright lines
or contrasts between the Republicans and Democrats, however much they
try to magnify personal differences. Indeed, the freshman Blue Dog
Democrats, who won in 2008, go out of their way to criticize their
Congressional leaders and President Obama, with the full encouragement
of the national Democratic Leaders. The latter stayed away from the
hustings during the long Congressional recess. The Democrats lost August
to the Republicans and the right-wing radio and cable yahoos who speak
of the stimulus, the health care law and the proposed restoration of
Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy as "job-killing agendas" and a disaster
"for families and small businesses." Such Republican false statements
fill the Congressional Record.

What keeps the Democrats from making their case? Is it their desire to
keep raising big money from big business at the cost of muzzling a far
more effective political message than their post-Labor Day offerings of
more small business tax cuts and a ten year $100 billion tax credit for
corporate research and development?

Do they believe those two actions are vote-getters or balm for getting
more campaign money from business? Indeed, the tax credit mainly goes to
super-profitable computer companies (Cisco, Intel, Microsoft) and big
drug companies that already have outsourced their production to China
and India.

And small business, which is receiving eight tax cuts under Obama, is
waiting for consumer spending to increase. President Obama should
fulfill his campaign pledge in 2008 to raise the federal minimum wage to
$9.50 per hour by 2011, which would increase that buying power. Even
that increase, while worthwhile, still wouldn't equal the minimum wage
of 1968, adjusted for inflation.

The Democrats might listen to some of the articulate callers to C-SPAN
radio or WPFW in Washington, D.C. to catch the powerful vernacular of
protest. One caller succinctly made the case for policies, including
using the tax code, to encourage companies to bring back industry and
outsourced jobs that were shipped to China and other repressive or
low-wage countries, with Washington's help no less.

People are really upset about where corporate globalization, one-sided
trade treaties, and costly foreign wars have taken our country. Working
Americans who have lost their jobs can stay at home in November and cost
the Democrats elections as they did in 2004. Voters look for
politicians who take a stand, who know who they are and can show they
side with the people, not global companies that have no allegiance to
the country that bred, subsidized and defended them.

How did Reagan, even as a big business apologist, hold the 54 GOP Senate
seats and only lose 26 House seats in the mid-term election of 1982?
Reagan was, in the words of Jim Kessler, "facing 10.8 percent
unemployment, 6 percent inflation, a declining GDP, an approval rating
barely above freezing and the indignity of having drastically increased
the budget deficit over the previous year after running as a fiscal
hawk." Maybe it is because enough voters saw the "Gipper" as knowing
what he stood for and showing steadfastness and better times coming
soon, in comparison to the wavering, concessionary posture of the
then-majority Democrats in the Congress.