Wishing Won't Make it So IIThe media are indulging themselves in some fantasies about Democratic victory in 2008. First up is the Seattle PI, which runs a
column on the potency of the working poor:
The nation's security guards, child care workers and cashiers could affect the next presidential election because they belong to the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. labor force -- the service sector -- and offer a tantalizing link to working-class voters who proved crucial in recent contests.
"The Bush base is, in fact, the white working class, overwhelmingly Republican. By economic terms it shouldn't be. It should be Democratic. It used to be," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor history professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara.This is something that gets repeated over and over again without being questioned, but in fact, it's just something that Democrats like to claim without providing any evidence. Who did better, the working poor in the US, or the working poor in the USSR? Who does better today, the working poor here, or the working poor in France? Which party would like to move our country towards French economic policy?
Appearing in the same paper is an
op-ed by Linda Valdez, an editorial writer at the Arizona Republic. The title says it all: Jesus would vote Democratic.
Retired Lutheran minister Daniel Bruch of Live Liberal gets right to the point: "I don't know if Jesus was the first liberal, but he was an important one."
Jesus taught love, tolerance, forgiveness, charity and humility. Don't take my word for it. Read the New Testament. It's not that long. And it's not about fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism, judging one another or dominating the Earth. It outlines a philosophy based on a really radical idea: Love your creator, love yourself, love your neighbor as yourself.You know, maybe if liberals weren't so hostile to Christianity, religious people might actually be tempted to vote for them. And despite Valdez's obvious fervent wishes, Jesus did not have a position on the minimum wage or government-subsidized health care.
