Lost in the debate over the middle-class tax policies that President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address is the puzzling disappearance from our political language of a once-common term: working class. Suddenly, no one in politics seems willing to use those words, as if calling someone working […] Read more »
The States That Will Pick the President: The Rust Belt
With Democrats consistently strong along the East Coast and West Coast, Republicans dominant in the South and much of the Great Plains, the two parties now often fight most fiercely over a band of burly states that run west from Pennsylvania into Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and then Iowa. … […] Read more »
Clinton’s Greatest Political Strength May Be Hiding in Plain Sight
Much of the debate about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s potential appeal to female voters may be focusing on the wrong group of women. Probably the most frequently asked question about Clinton’s possible coalition as a Democratic nominee in 2016 is whether she can win back the working-class white women who have […] Read more »
The Problem With Middle Class Populism
… When the middle-class populist message is turned into actual legislative proposals, the costs, in the form of higher taxes, will be imposed on the affluent. Such a shift in the allocation of government resources threatens the loyalty of a crucial Democratic constituency: well-off socially liberal voters. Over the past […] Read more »
The Emerging Republican Advantage
… From 1896 to 1930, the Republican Party reigned supreme; from 1932 to 1968, the New Deal Democrats dominated; following a period of deadlock, the Reagan Republicans held sway during the 1980s. After the parties exchanged the White House, Democrats appeared to take command of American politics in 2008. In […] Read more »
The diagnosis is right, but where’s the cure?
On this Americans agree with President Obama: The economy is getting better — for the rich. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll finds broad skepticism that the proposals the president outlined in his State of the Union Address last week will go anywhere in a Republican-controlled Congress, though. And that’s distressing […] Read more »