In a year in which the Democrats have the enviable task of being able to run against the failed and unpopular presidency of George W. Bush, they have decided, against all reason, to fight for George Bush's unpopular and misguided bailout plan just one month before the November elections. They may do so at their political peril.
Right now, the Democrats have George Bush on the run. He is desperate to have a $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street passed quickly before the November elections. One would think the Democrats, having maximum leverage at this point, with Henry Paulson literally kneeling down to Speaker Pelosi to beg her to pass this plan, would try to use this leverage to do something for their constitutency in return. The Democrats, if they truly constituted an opposition party, which they prove every day they do not, could demand that if monies are going to go to bail out Wall Street, at least an equal amount would go to bail out average Americans in the way of health care, full funding for social security and medicare, mortgage and rent protection, infrastructure repair, decent public transportation, investment in green jobs and technology, etc.
Instead, they have not only agreed to the substance of Bush's proposed bailout plan, albeit with small alterations, they are now the ones in Congress fighting for passage of this plan. This not only represents a failure of leadership and principles on a grand scale, it is is also politically dangerous.
The Democrats are now linking themselves with Bush and his failed policies at a time they are telling Americans that a vote for them is a vote against Bush. This is illogical, and voters are not buying it. Let me illustrate this point.
This morning, while taking the bus to work in Pittsburgh (a bus which may be gone soon as the County is threatening to discontinue all bus service by December for lack of funds) I ran into a middle-aged woman named Jane who has been actively working for Obama for months. Currently, she is volunteering for the Obama campaign 20 hours a week, and she has given money every month for his campaign. Now, as she hears that Obama is agreeing with McCain to support the bailout plan, she is furious and wondering why she has bothered all these many months to support a candidate who himself looks like he is trying to run for Bush's third term. And, she assures me that she is not alone in these sentiments. Over the weekend, while canvassing for Obama at an Italian festival in Pittsburgh, the first question she heard from folks on the street was about the bailout plan and what Obama's position is on the bailout. Invariably, the folks asking this question expressed their opposition to the bailout and rage at those politicians who support it.
As Jane told me, she does not know how to canvass for Obama now given this bailout issue and his support for it. She does not know how to sell him to voters who are rightfully incensed that their tax dollars are about to be spent on a mound of bad debt with nothing of real substance coming back to them in the way of benefits, jobs and protection. She herself wonders, as do I, how Obama will be able to make good on his promises for social investment if all this money is spent now on the proposed bailout of Wall Street. And, other Obama activists in her community group are expressing the same sentiment. Meanwhile, I received a message from the local Obama office this morning telling me that phone calling and volunteering were down over the weekend.
Obama and the Democrats must wake up to the reality that when you promise people hope and change, you better deliver it. Caving in to Bush's half-baked bailout plan -- which, by the way, seems to have impressed the international and domestic stock markets very little -- is not change folks can believe in. Voters do want real change, and a real break from the past, and they deserve a real opposition party which will stand up for them and fight for an alternative economic plan which will purchase real benefits for working people instead of a mound of worthless paper.
The Democrats better heed this warning, vote this bailout down and go back to the drawing board where a more people-centered plan can be developed with the input of the voters and taxpayers. That is what democracy looks like.