The "enthusiasm gap" is for sissies. We don't need pollsters to tell us how we feel. We are angry and frustrated. And I don't mean the average voter. I mean Democrats in Washington.
The stakes are high. And we know they are the highest for those people who are the most frustrated with Washington. The average Jane in America is not going to be helped if the Republicans are in charge. Because she is not the one funneling them all the money they are spending to try and win. Business is not benevolent. Nor are the infamous Koch brothers who want the Republicans to take control so they can end government programs like student loans and social security. Let's just take that as a given -- that their agenda is not the average Jane's agenda.
That being the case, what are Democrats offering? For starters, the acknowledgment that change isn't happening fast enough to make enough people's lives better.
But importantly, we are offering evidence, not rhetoric. And the evidence shows that these last two years have made things better. Job growth is low, but it IS happening -- health care for 30 million uninsured people IS happening -- student loans are cheaper and small business taxes are lower. We must not shy away from our progress because the Republicans are fraudulent in their accusations. And absent in their solutions.
So what is missing? Maybe it's us. For those of us who have been in Washington for years, are we acknowledging how different it is? That over the last two years, access to power HAS shifted and real constituents matter MORE to this White House and the Democratic leadership than the interest groups and lobbyists in Washington? Because it is true. And it has been refreshing.
Lobbying has changed -- and that is a good thing. Now the case to be made isn't about fundraising -- it is about how the claims being peddled affect the average middle class American. When the White House staff look at an issue on behalf of President Obama, they look at it differently than has been done before -- especially in the Bush years. They think of who put them in office and how it helps those people. They don't want to be told that the way to get it done is how it got done before.
The same is true of Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team. This has led many in DC, including plenty of Democrats, to accuse them of arrogance. It isn't arrogant to stay focused on what succeeded during the 2006 and 2008 campaigns when what succeeded was the conviction that in order to push this country out of its crisis, people in Washington had to act differently. Did everything get done that needed to get done? Of course not.
But it won't get done if the Republicans get put in charge. Then it is back to business as usual for the wrong people.
We committed to change. Now let's double down. The stakes couldn't be higher.
Follow Hilary Rosen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hilaryr
You're avoding the point and ignoring the facts I disucssed. Canada lowered taxes across the board, including investment taxes. Canada slashed the federal workforce and cut spending by 10% over two years. Canad'a business tax is lower than ours. Canada's tax on foreign-earned income is a fraction of ours, which brings hundreds of billions of dollars of capital into the country. Our tax on expatriated income is over 30%. Gee, and we wonder why so much foreign-earned American income never makes it to our shores.
Its up to the people they were told blank out by BOEHNER & leading republicans that they will FIGHT to get rid of entitlements without a regard for the senior women when only 18% of women over age 65 were receiving private pensions. Women suffer the most who depend on 90 % of their income on soc security and many of these women live in or near poverty.
There are some bottom-line issues that seem to always be out of reach. Why does the USA maintain a vast overseas empire? Why is austerity for most people a plain fact while bailouts help the very financial class that has sucked the blood out of this country?
Why doesn't it matter who we vote for on these basic issues?
I live in New York. The Democrats run the entire state and federal government, and have delivered NOTHING GOOD in two years. Instead of "green jobs" we get transit cuts. Huh? Instead of relief in the housing market, the government has subsidized the inequities.
The Democrats have shown they can manipulate peoples hopes and fears, just like the Republicans. And they've shown again and again that on all issues that really matter, they are not effectively any different. Small changes? No. All that switches up is the "national tone" — which ain't nothing, but it's not going to solve the problem.
When the Dems lose seats, just look at every "friend of Obama" that he has betrayed.
The Republicans realized that if things continued in the same direction they were going, they would be left holding a losing hand. So they marshaled their forces and circled the wagons. They came up with ideas like the Southern Strategy and anti-immigrant policies, they got the rich robber barons to fund conservative think tanks and lobbying organizations like the American Enterprise Institute and the Chamber of Commerce and they adopted social and religious issues that they really didn’t care about but would bring them votes.
We must give him our support and give the conservatives and Republicans the ridicule they so richly deserve.
National Debt - http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway
Bill Clinton
1/29/1993 -- $4.17 Trillion -- 4,167,200,410,899.83
1/31/2000 -- $5.71 Trillion -- 5,711,285,168,951.46
1/31/2001 -- $5.72 Trillion -- 5,716,070,587,057.36
George Bush:
1/31/2002 -- $5.94 Trillion -- 5,937,228,743,476.27
1/30/2004 -- $7.00 Trillion -- 7,009,234,605,728.06
1/31/2005 -- $7.63 Trillion -- 7,627,742,597,775.41
1/31/2008 -- $9.24 Trillion -- 9,238,008,288,942.11
1/31/2009 -- $10.63 Trillion -- 10,632,005,246,736.97
Barack Obama:
1/31/2010 -- $12.28 Trillion -- 12,278,635,997,966.88
Increase of $1.65 Trillion includes stimulus spending, TARP, etc. It won't double in the next 6 years ... unless the wrong choices are made.
You decide.
So, no speech by Pres.Obama about gay rights, but a speech about the Chilean miners? What is wrong with that picture?
BTW, is what I said not factual?
And all this is the RIGHT KIND OF CHANGE??
Nah, I'm sure more government control, out of control spending, and higher taxes will turn things around........
Where was all this rage when GW was spending us into oblivion?
Maybe Mr. Emmanuel is correct when he asserts that a position is not worth pushing or fighting for when he hasn't got the 60 votes in the Senate. To wit: a single payer option was not pursued for lack of 60 votes. But, what did the Obama Administration do to get the 60 votes? It caved in and unilaterally disarmed before debate began. Then, it wasted untold time by pursuing bi-partisanship.
Change we can believe in might have been believable if the Democratic leadership had taken firm stands, taken it to the people - especially in those districts of wavering Democrats or Liebermann, and made a push. It did none of this. Indeed, in August 2009, it ceded the national stage to rabid Republicans.
Yes, you can point to small advances that have been undertaken. But, there's too much that was left undone. Here's a test of the enthusiasm gap at the grass roots. Now that the Obama Administration has been slapped by a federal district judge on DADT, do the sensible thing and DON"T APPEAL. Stop the persecution NOW!