Middle Class Mandate

After George W. Bush captured 51 percent of the popular vote and eked out a slim victory in Ohio to win a second term in 2004, the President swaggered to the presidential podium and told a divided country, "I earned capital in the campaign--political capital--and now I intend to spend it. It is my style."

True to his word, the President quickly demonstrated that he viewed his narrow electoral victory as a mandate to stay the course in Iraq, privatize Social Security, dole out corporate tax breaks, nominate extremist judges and drop all pretense of bipartisanship in pursuit of a reckless, right-wing agenda.

Voters, it turned out, were not so keen on setting ablaze our social safety net and slogging through an endless, bloody occupation of Iraq. Nor, it seemed, were Americans enamored with the President's divide-and-conquer leadership "style." The President misread his mandate, and two years later, his party suffered massive electoral defeats at every level of government.

It has been a month since the Democrats enjoyed an Election Day victory far more sweeping in scope than Bush's 2004 win. But you don't see House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pounding their chests or making partisan proclamations about their newly acquired political capital.

Instead, they're championing a consensus legislative agenda geared toward helping families that have been left behind by the GOP. They're standing up for America's shrinking middle class. Pelosi has pledged to spend her first 100 hours on key bread-and-butter economic issues long neglected under Republican rule.

This is a leader who understands her mandate.

Pelosi's priorities for the first 100 hours include increasing the minimum wage, lifting the prohibition on Medicare negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices, halving the interest rate on student loans and ending tax breaks for big oil companies in order to invest in alternative energy.

Pelosi calls her 100-hour plan a "down payment on the American dream." I'll take that deal any day over the Bush administration's "zero percent interest" in the middle class. The Speaker-designate's ambitious pro-working families agenda is worthy of our support.

This morning, Pelosi and Reid paid a visit to a national board meeting of my union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO, at our headquarters in Washington, D.C., where both showcased a collaborative governing philosophy that has been sorely missing in Washington for years. Their "style" is inclusive and determined.

"The Republicans want to reward the wealthy; the Democrats want to reward work. That's our biggest difference," Speaker-elect Pelosi told AFSCME leaders. "What [Republicans] need to understand is that they wouldn't have their wealth without the people doing the work.

"When I accept the Speaker's gavel, I will be taking it out of the hands of the special interests and put it into the hands of America's working families and children for a better future. There will be civility, integrity and bipartisanship. We'll conduct ourselves in the manner the American people expect."

"The Republicans have proven you can't be a one-party town," Senator Reid said. "You have to work together to find solutions."

For Pelosi and Reid to succeed, and for Bush to keep his veto pen in the drawer, we will have to make sure that the President and his party don't misread the political tea leaves once again. At this juncture, Bush is entrenched--and, to date, largely unsympathetic to the plight of the middle class--so achieving broader economic progress will be a difficult task.

To turn up the heat, AFSCME has helped form a new grassroots campaign called Change America Now. The founding purpose of the CAN campaign is to marshal public support for the economic reforms envisioned under Pelosi's 100-hour legislative agenda. The CAN campaign has united 41 progressive groups from across the country to advance a broader agenda of economic prosperity for American families in the areas of job creation, wages, health care, education and the environment.

CAN will use the campaign model developed during the successful effort to defeat Social Security privatization last year. Led by Americans United, a national coalition AFSCME helped create, outraged citizens across the country held hundreds of rallies, town halls and district meetings. An aggressive rapid response unit was set up in Washington, D.C., to counter Republican misinformation and articulate Congress' duty to protect the most successful social program in American history.

CAN will employ the same grassroots model to brand a progressive agenda and to answer the question of what we and our allies are for--and why the agenda we support is important to Americans from all walks of life.

"So here we are. We have won," Pelosi declared to AFSCME's leaders. "We have removed from power those who were there for one reason--to concentrate wealth in the hands of the top 1 percent. I know that expectations are high that we do better for the American people, and they should be."

Concluded Reid: "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'If you stand on principle and you are patient, you will succeed.' That's what we have done. We got our Election Day miracle. Now, it's time to change this country."