These are OUR wedge issues; everyone but BushInc’s Neo-Cons agrees with us

[Czolgosz]

The Pew Research Center recently completed a landmark study, Beyond Red vs. Blue, which analyzes demographic subgroups which comprise Republican, Democrat, and Independent voters. Here’s a link: <http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=943>.

This study confirms that the BushInc agenda is driven by Neo-Cons and is mainly at odds with most Republicans’ values (and of course it disdains all Independent and Democratic groups’ values). WE MUST PUT THESE ISSUES FRONT AND CENTER!

According to the study, the Neo-Cons (called “Enterprisers” in the Pew study) are generally rich and white (most are married male guns owning Fox News fans) and support the PNAC foreign policy as well as the corporatist/anti-consumer domestic policy including the elimination of both government social services and regulation corporate misdeeds. They compose just 9 percent of the population and only 1 percent voted for Kerry (they are a small group, but they are the most reliable right-wing voters and campaign contributors). Most interestingly, on many key issues, these Neo-Cons do not share the views of the other Republican voter groups the Social Conservatives (the 11 percent of the population who are church-going, immigration-hating Republicans) or the Pro-Government Conservatives (the 9 percent of the population who are poorer, nationalistic, Christian Republicans).

Here are our eight wedge issues:

1. UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE

Who favors government health insurance for all (even if it requires tax increases)?

23% - Neo-Con Republicans
59% - Social Conservatives Republicans
63% - Pro-Government Republicans
65% - All Americans

2. RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE

Who favors raising the minimum wage?

46% - Neo-Con Republicans
79% - Social Conservatives Republicans
94% - Pro-Government Republicans
86% - All Americans

3. PROTECTION AGAINST JOB OUTSOURCING

Who is concerned about outsourcing American jobs?

43% - Neo-Con Republicans
67% - Social Conservatives Republicans
71% - Pro-Government Republicans
69% - All Americans

4. PROTECTING AGAINST CORPORATE ABUSES

Who thinks big corporations have too much power?

26% - Neo-Con Republicans
88% - Social Conservatives Republicans
83% - Pro-Government Republicans

5. REGULATING BUSINESS TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC

Who thinks corporations have should be regulated to protect interests?

16% - Neo-Con Republicans
58% - Social Conservatives Republicans
66% - Pro-Government Republicans

6. PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT FROM INDUSTRIAL POLLUTERS

Who favors better protecting our environment from industrial polluters?

16% - Neo-Con Republicans
67% - Social Conservatives Republicans
61% - Pro-Government Republicans
77% - All Americans

7. NO DEFICIT EXPANDING TAX CUTS

Who thinks tax cuts are more important than reducing the budget deficit?

50% - Neo-Con Republicans
31% - Social Conservatives Republicans
37% - Pro-Government Republicans
32% - All Americans

8. UNILATERAL FOREIGN POLICY

Who supports Bush’s unilateralist foreign policy?

73% - Neo-Con Republicans
49% - Social Conservatives Republicans
40% - Pro-Government Republicans
37% - All Americans

We need to put these issues at the heart of our campaigns and in the news. This is an agenda we should all be able to get behind.

Join me in shifting the debate to our wedge issues. We should be asking BushInc every day why they won’t adopt these sound policies which are so widely supported by most Americans, including most mainstream Republicans.

I’ll be out working on a Democratic fundraiser today so, if you think this is useful information, please keep this thread kicked.

[Gyre]

1. Oooh. This is really useful if the dems pick up on it! Kick

Thanks, clearly sets the battle lines between them and America.

Gyre

[beingthere]

2. excellent - thanks

[Mr Grieves]

3. really informative... thanks

gives me some hope. Interesting how us Liberals are both the largest voting bloc and the most "radical." (gay marriage, foreign policy, etc.) I'm so gald to see a majority supporting universal health care. We shouldn't be afriad to talk about that issue, as loudly and as often as possible - everytime they say "Abortion" we say "Health Care." They say "No Gay Marriage" - we say "Raise the Minimum Wage." Fight wedge issues with wedge issues!

[newyawker99]

30. Hi Mr Grieves!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Great strategy guide - I can live with it.

[Neil Lisst]

5. Czolgosz, those are great points!

Czolgosz, I want to call attention to your points and keep this discussion alive.

We have some great points to advance, with a ready majority for those points. We let the right define us, and attack us, even while they run everything.

Scarface said it, and we have to have them. Balls. We have to be out there, demanding changes the public wants.

-----
my progressive political cartoon
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. very nice!

It made me think of today's corpserations.
Outsourcing - today's CEO, MBA and CPA pat answer to cutting costs and increasing profitability.

OK. In small amounts, it works. Let's be honest. Of course, it works when you fire someone earning $22/hour not including benefits, and replace them with someone earning $12 a DAY without benefits. On the front end, the company serves its taskmasters perfectly, providing ever-growing returns in exchange for less cost. Sunbeam's old CEO actually enjoyed firing people. He admitted that it gave him a thrill.

Let us remember that the front end is connected to other parts.

First, the corporate American waistline is not an endless, bottomless source of so-called fat. After a while, those cuts go after muscle tissue. We are way past that point these days. the nerves, muscle, tendons and bone are being cut away recklessly.

Delphi's bankruptcy is just the first of many major corporations finding out that there are limits to outsourcing. Pretty soon, CEOs, CPAs and MBAs will recognize that there is no more middle class, nothing large enough to support the system. When that happens, disaster will already be upon us.

Which brings us to the back end. The ass. When you combine this disasterous corporate policy with an administration which rewards the ultra-wealthy and cuts only their taxes, leaving government itself as destroyed as middle America, you have destroyed all safety nets, all possible recovery and worst of all, you reward precisely the kind of behavior and decision making which led corporate America to today's reality.

[bluedawg12]

7. Magyar vagy? kick! great points

neoconnies out of touch.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. The DLC is on the wrong side of almost every one of these issues.

Until we help Dr. Dean take back our party from the corporatist shills we will continue to NOT offer a clear alternative to the voting public and continue to not be doing what we should be doing, which is beating the living crap out of the fascist fundie right at the polls.

[Savannah Progressive]

9. I guess you haven't heard

The DLC who is busy getting their Corporate Checks for voting as the Corporations tell them, are saying we Liberals are the problem. Yep, we liberals have such out of the norm ideals. We Liberals are the fringe that is tearing the nation apart. We know better, we know we believe in policies that help the working men and women, we know the truth.

The only people who would believe we are the problem are the wanna be Repugnik Lite folks who think the way to power is to listen and follow orders from Limbaugh like the Repugniks do.

[niceypoo]

10. Nominated!

[Zodiak]

11. What you have stumbled upon is populism

Populist ideals tend to be fiscally liberal and socially conservative. It was religious populists that rallied the agrarian states in the late 1800's to push for the policies that eventually led to th New Deal. If you are willing to swallow a little social conservatism, populism will grow the size of the party considerably.

The Republicans have been capitalizing on the social facet of populism to win the South while killing them economically with fiscal conservatism. Our liberal fiscal policy is a great fit for populism, but we have to be more socially conservative for the strategy to be successful. Unfortunately, with the DLC, we have the same message as th Republicans...fiscal conservatism with a mixture of social positions.

I think populism is a winning stratgy for the South. Screw the corporatists...their home is in the Republican party. No large group like that should be able to freely play both sides of the fence.

Read "What's the Matter With Kansas?" for a great treatise on this hypothesis.

[Czolgosz]

15. "What's the Matter With Kansas?" is a great read! I agree that we win

the populist/elitist or populist/corporatist fight more convincingly than we win the liberal/neo-conservative or liberal/reactionary fight. I think we win that fight in the south, we win it in the mid west, we win it in the inland west.

Reptilicans WANT to frame the fight as a liberal vs. (mock) conservative fight (which we also win if we could stop the DeLay-style gerrymandering, Diebold-style rigging, and Rove-style ballot manipulation) because they have a chance in that fight whereas the populist vs. corporatist elite is a fight we win hands down.

[bluedawg12]

19. We stir our base with lib v. neocon

but we actually get votes with populist issues.

Your pew poll is a great source of info.

[athena]

33. "What's the Matter with Kansas" does not advocate social conservatism.

Thomas Frank points out that conservative social "values" become important to people only when economic issues (i.e. populist issues) are taken out of the equation. You can be sure that the average Joe cares more about his job security, his health and his children's education than about foetuses and gay marriage.

So, according to Thomas Frank, Democrats don't have to "swallow a little social conservatism." They simply need to start standing up for the lower and middle classes' economic interests.

Democrats will never get anywhere by abandoning civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights. The Republicans already represent those "anti-values", and the Democrats only look unprincipled and weak when they keep changing their position on social issues. What the Democrats need to do is stop courting corporations and stand up for the values that are not already represented by the Republicans, namely, economic values. It's as simple as that.

[John_H]

12. Any stats on illegal immigration

Why we continually give the rethugs this issue is beyond me--hell, they pretend to be the only ones against it when really they're the only ones FOR it.

For us coming out loudly about being tough on illegal immigration is win, win, win: Some Labor votes would come back our way, we steal one of the issues (in addition to guns) that they use to both snare swing voters and rally their base, and we lose not a single vote in the process.

[Zodiak]

13. I agree

Illegal immigration does have a noticeable downward effect on worker's rights in the United States, and it is encouraged by corporatists.

I really do want people to have opportunity, but not in this manner. I would rather work to build opportunity in their home country because we are currenly in a crisis.

Other losers for the party (not that I disagree with the Dem or liberal position on all): animal rights, gun control, regulation of child-rearing, secular indoctrination. These issues suffer from massive framing deficits, and should be reframed or de-emphasized, but that is my opinion. I know these may be someone else's pet issues.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. 'secular indoctrination'?

I give up - what the heck is that?

[Zodiak]

22. I admit "secular indoctrination" it is not part of the two-word culture

of right-wingers, so I am loathe to "coin it" for fear of it spreading into the FR and end up in the next RW commercial. Let's just keep it quiet, shall we?

But if you want my definition, I think it is the fear that the "liberals" are going to force people to not believe in God, and their real-life example of that is China. They fear that liberal ideas will take their Protestant, Christian God out of public life to be forgotten forever. Thay also have the belief that when a kid goes to school that does not Jesus on the wall or the ten commandments, then then our society indoctrinating them into a system that puts God last, ergo "secular indoctrination". That scares the piss out them, and is a BIG motivator for a fundie to never look into our direction for votes. That includes fundies that are liberal and do not know it.

It is hard to push for a fair, free society without running into this sort of thing from fundamentalists. Our message COULD be delivered in a way that assuages such fears, but for that, it takes populism.

[Czolgosz]

21. I wasn't even aware that regulation of child-rearing was an Democratic

issue. Are for Time Outs or against them?

Just kidding. I assume that you are talking about corporal punishment, but -- still -- I wasn't aware that this issue was being emphasized in any way by Democrats.

[Zodiak]

23. Being from the South,

I have the pulse of the elusive "red" vote as I experience it. Many hard-nosed southern types believe they know how to raise their kids best, not the state. This includes corporal punishment, but is not the full scope of the issue (what clothes they wear, do they pray?, etc.). In many states, corporal punishment was used at least until 1994 (the last year I checked). Many parents down there are receiving the message from the left that if you spank your kids, the kids will be taken away from you or you will go to jail.

This is a VERY personal issue with people, and a sure-fire loser if taken as a political stance. Sure, the facts support the left on this issue, and it is the right thing to do, but the backlash is generated by the forceful nature of this message. In California, I hear that if you spank a kid more then three strikes, those kids can be taken away (don't know it as a fact, just told this by a person losing her kid there).

Even though I agree that beating your kids is wrong, I do not agree that taking nanny-state issues and running with it scores well with rural Southerners who feel that the way they were raised was just fine.

It is issues like this that makes joe six pack believe we are "elitist", and KArl Rove has played this fear to the hilt. Once again, I will say that populism is a cure for this ailment.

[Czolgosz]

24. I agree that there are some people who feel adamant about spanking their

children, and I understand that there are people on the other side of the issue, but I'm not seeing the connection between the "anti-spanking" crowd and the Democrats. Is this a plank of the platform I missed?

[Zodiak]

25. The whole Dr. Spock approach to not beating kids...

connotatively is associated with liberals, although I would agree that it is not an official plank of the party. If I had more time, I could probably pull out an article or two where some "egghead liberal" is advocating the Dr. Spock approach. Some of this approach has been translated into law, and most of the states that administer this style of legislative parenting are blue.

It is guilt by association coupled with really, really bad framing. Beating one's kids is really bad, but I am not sure that many parents have gotten the message why it is bad, and that is the most tragic part about the bad framing.

[Czolgosz]

14. Actually, immigration is an interesting issue. 71% of Neo-Cons support

expanding immigration to allow immigrants to work in the United States legally for limited periods of time (because they like the idea of exploiting the cheap labor). 58% of liberals also support such issues as temporary visas, but for different reasons.

Between these furthest right and left groups, there is little support for facilitating expanded immigration.

[bluedawg12]

20. Neocons also want immigration from southern catholic nations

to then bring into their conservative X-tian repug voting block.

Cathoic working class hipsanic folk vote against their economic interests thanks to their deep religious roots.

Neocons use religion like a propaganda tool.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. The issue rapidly degenerates into xenophobic nationalism

and in doing so alienates a core Democratic Party constituency: the Latino voter. The Democratic Party should not take up the standard of North-South nationalism. Let the fascist right play that card and solidify the growing Latino vote as ours.

[No Exit]

18. Split 'em up! Move 'em out! Just look at what neocon America-hater

Jim Robinson (king of the freeptards and a Bush-bootlicker) is saying about... Lew Rockwell and Pat Buchanan:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"To: armedforliberty; All
Revising and extending my remarks.

Why do I call these guys traitors? Well, we recently had the opportunity to witness up close and personal the communist led International Answer and Code PinkO people in action in Crawford and DC. I can tell you first hand that these slimy creeps are the real deal. Socialists, Marxists, Communists, punk anarchists, leftist revolutionaries, you name it.

America haters. Baby killers. They are absolutely in love with every slimeball communist/terrorist/tin-pot dictator in the world. They hate our way of life, hate our freedom and want no limits on the depths of their depravity. That's why they hate God and hate our constitution. No limits means NO limits.

They cannot wait to dissolve our constitution, our borders and our national sovereignty and make us subservient to some global socialistic power. Star-crossed communist utopians dancing, spitting and cussing in the streets. It was a real sight to behold.

Slimy, filthy, foulmouthed creeps. The same kind of long-haired weirdo hippy freaks that slimed us in the 60's. In fact many of them were resurrected hippies. Aging old communist farts trying to relive the glory days when they brought America to her knees and forced her to surrender to the Vietnam communists after having defeated them in battle.

Thank you Walter Cronkite. Puke!.

They hate America. Hate our troops. They are afraid that we're gonna win this war and bring peace and constitutional democracies to the Middle East. Can't have that. Spreading freedom would destroy their plans for global communism. They desperately want America to lose this war and the next one (which will be fought here at home if we do lose this one).

And now we learn here today that Lew Rockwell is part of this filthy traitorous movement. I knew that he and Buchanan and many of the paleocons had long ago gone over the edge with their hate Bush campaigns, and that they sympathized with the French, German, Russian, Iraqi axis against America, but I didn't know how far they would go.

Marching with communists in our nation's capital? Protesting at Army/Navy hospitals in full view of our recovering wounded servicemen? Parading in the streets with white crosses and makeshift coffins, spitting on the memory of our fallen heroes that fought and died for our country? Giving aid and comfort to the enemy during wartime? How low can you go?

How can this be called anything but treason?

If this is what the Rockwells and Buchanans and their followers want and believe, if they want to align themselves and protest against America and march arm-in-arm with their America hating communist comrades during wartime then they're nothing but traitors themselves and should own up to it.

And the rest of us should recognize them for what they are and treat them accordingly.



38 posted on 10/06/2005 3:06:51 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
< Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies >


Source: freerepublic.com, via whatreallyhappened.com

[Czolgosz]

31. That makes my skin crawl.

[kevsand]

26. These are all issues that we can and should win on.

As a cautionary note, however, I would add that the devil is often in the details. What I mean by that is that very often the general support for these issues evaporates in the face of a specific solution or proposal for change.

In that context, we must be careful to craft proposals that are firmly based in both common sense and the common values that the broad support for these issues springs from. Extreme solutions or proposals are automatically self-defeating.

[Czolgosz]

27. Here are some wage details we should be shouting from mountain tops!

Since 1997, Congress has increased its own pay 7 times but has not increased the minimum wage once.

Congressional Representatives make $28,500 more per year than they made in 1997.

A person making minimum wage earns $10,700 per year working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, which is still $5,000 below the poverty level for a family of three.

7,300,000, or 72% of the adult work force, would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage (including 1,800,000 working parents with children under 18 years old).

Adjusted for inflation, the value of the minimum wage has fallen off more than one quarter since 1979.

The minimum wage would have to be $8.70 to have the same purchasing power it had in 1968.

In the four years after the last minimum wage hike, the economy added 11 million jobs.

4,300,000 Americans have fallen into poverty since 2000.

[kevsand]

28. That's pretty compelling stuff.

I would think that a challenger could gain a lot of ground against an incumbent congressman using that kind of data...

[Czolgosz]

29. What can we do to get initiatives about the minimum wage on ballots in

all the battleground states in Nov. 2006?

I think the homophobic ballot initiatives really drew a lot of slimy voters out from under rocks to vote in 2004.

I'd like to see us get the same type of effect but with good hard-working voters who might be too busy to vote otherwise but who would come out to the polls to support a great cause like raising the minimum wage (and perhaps also vote for whatever good candidates happened to be on the ballot and supporting the initiative).

We really should try to get this done.

[AirAmFan]

32. 24 states allow citizen initiatives and ballot referenda--

See the current DU thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5054098

"The great minds think alike", After posting the above thread, I just found your thread a few minutes ago. I agree that the minimum wage is the best issue for ballot referenda -- perhaps in the same 11 key states where anti-gay-marriage initiatives pulled just about every Fundie out of the woodwork in 2004, nipping Kerry's margins enough to keep Dubya in the White House.

Raising the minimum wage has no direct effect on state government budgets, splits Wall Street Republicans from the majority of even Republicans, and would increase turnout among a reliably Democratic but low-turnout group: the working poor.

Another advantage of initiatives and referenda is that they ensure that certain issues will be front and center in elections. Without them, personal attacks (for example, "Swiftboating") can steal all headlines away from a candidate.

[Czolgosz]

34. What do you think we can do as a first step to get a minimum wage ballot

initiative on as many states' ballots as possible for Nov. 2006?