The sub-prime mortgage crisis and worsening credit card debt are only intensifying a longer-term trend of economic distress for most Americans. This reversal of fortune, which began in the 1970s, includes dwindling prospects for good employment, severe cutbacks in employer-provided health insurance, less reliable company pensions and family incomes that lag inflation, except for the rich.
All these trends have accelerated during the Bush administration. Many economic forecasters are predicting an election-year recession -- seemingly a windfall for the opposition party. Yet it's not at all clear that the Democrats will pin the economic distress squarely on the policies of the Republican administration or offer a politically convincing alternative to them.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, January 13, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 46 words Type of Material: Correction
Democrats and the economy: An article in today's Opinion section by Robert Kuttner says that Barack Obama has "used the language of mandates" in talking about health insurance, connoting "governmental coercion rather than governmental help." In fact, it is Hillary Clinton who has used such language.
Why not?
There are four main reasons.
Uncertain trumpets and ideological mush. Since Jimmy Carter was president, Democrats have been split into two factions. Populists attack the political influence of organized business and seek to once again harness capitalism to deliver broad prosperity. By contrast, "New Democrats" offer a faint echo of moderate Republicans. Their slogan might as well be: "We don't much like government either, but we can run it better."
The result has been a mixed message that doesn't persuade voters to take Democrats seriously as the party of ordinary Americans. Bill Clinton ran in 1992 as a populist -- "People who work hard and play by the rules shouldn't be poor" -- but he governed as a New Democrat centrist.
In the last two presidential elections, Al Gore and John F. Kerry tacked back and forth between offering a whiff of class warfare and a bloodless centrism -- trying to please both wings of the party. When Kerry decried "Benedict Arnold CEOs" who export American jobs, he was warned by some of his big donors to stop using the phrase, and he did.
Financial captivity. Democrats are increasingly dependent on Wall Street and big business for contributions, especially at the presidential level, and this has blunted their appeal to ordinary voters. In the 1990s, many congressional Democrats supported the financial deregulation that helped lay the foundation for the Enron debacle and, more recently, the sub-prime loan mess. The current financial meltdown ought to be a perfect issue to distinguish Democrats from Republicans. But just enough prominent Democrats -- such as New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer -- have their fingerprints on deregulation to prevent the issue from gaining more partisan traction.
