Its Not As Bad As That - Road to the Middle Class

WITH PRESIDENT Obama safely inaugurated, the experts are looking at GOP prospects and they are painting a gloomy picture. Both Michael Barone and John J. Pitney see a gloomy short-term outlook.

Barone notes that Republicans are doing dismally with black and young voters and are even losing the educated voters in the affluent suburbs.

Pitney worries that Democrats have a lock on congressional districts that are black, Hispanic, New England, and New York.

So how do Republicans have a chance?

They have a chance because things will change. Republicans are losing because voters are fed up with them, particularly upscale, educated voters that are influenced by upscale media. The upscale media has been running hard against Republicans ever since 1998 and the disgrace of Bill Clinton. (Plus there is also the fact that many educated voters work for the government.) On top of that, President Bush asked Americans to have patience while he solved the problem of Iraq. Who needs patience?

But Republicans are not running for office in the springtime of Obama’s adminstration. They will be running in 2010 and 2012. In 2010 they will be running against the first two rookie years of Obama. And in 2012 they will be running against four years of Obama. Given that the early signs are that Obama aims to govern as a patronage president, handing out goodies to the Democratic faithful, you couuld build a case that many swing voters are going to swing against the president and the Democrats in the near future.

After years of media drumbeat the voters now believe that the Democrats are the center-left middle-class party and the Republicans are dominated by the right. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? That’s all they’ve heard for ten years.

In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that the Democrats are a center-left party that would like to be leftier. And the Republicans are a center-right party that would like to be more libertarian. But as we get into the Obama administration it will be easier and easier to make the argument that the Republicans are a center-right party that works for the middle class and that the Democrats are a bunch of corrupt left-wing loonies that sneer at the middle class behind their back.

When Republicans start to make that argument hit home then all of a sudden upscale voters will start listening to Republicans again and New Englanders will stop looking down their noses at them.

And all of this is assuming that the advancing recession doesn’t cause significant hardship and anger and prompt a broad political realignment.

Be of good cheer! When the other guys are in power then there is everything to play for, and the only way is up.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Chappies

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Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Hugo on Genius

“Tear down theory, poetic systems� No more rules, no more models� Genius conjures up rather than learns� ” —Victor Hugo
C�sar Gra�a, Bohemian versus Bourgeois

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

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Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Postmodernism

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy

Faith and Politics

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable... [1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006

China and Christianity

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David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Religion, Property, and Family

But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family. Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

US Life in 1842

Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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