Saturday, October 04, 2008

Will The Blue Collar Workers Support Obama?

Let me put this bluntly: Republican economic policies got us in the spot we are in. Many cannot still see the connection between the lock up of the credit markets and jobs. It does exist.

Take a look around the Net and there are plenty of better explanations of how this problem on Wall Street is a problem for us. (Nixon, Bush, Palin has an interesting slant and makes some strong points on why deregulation s was a bad idea - basically foxes guarding the hen house. A Clear Explanation of the Current Financial Crisis and a Proposed Solution)

Meanwhile, The Muncie Star Press publishes Will Muncie's working class vote for Barack Obama?.

Historically, working-class whites and blacks in Muncie have come together to work in labor unions and support a common goal. But more often than not, race was a dividing factor in Muncie political life, local experts said.

As a result, when questioning the role race will play in the election process, journalists from across the country have come to Muncie to address this concern.

"It's there. (Racism) is there, to some extent...and it's hard to imagine it not having some impact on voting patterns," said James Connolly, director of Middletown Studies at Ball State University. "I hope I'm wrong and that it's minimal."

Some local Democrats, although they understand why Goodall and others believe that working-class white voters will not support Obama given local and national history, still believe that on Nov. 4, the issues, not race, will be the deciding factor. Although they acknowledge there is a segment of their voters who will not vote for a black man for president of the United States.
Indiana is not the only state where the question about race versus our pocketbooks is being asked: HOW WILL MISSOURI BLUE-COLLAR VOTERS BREAK? and In Florida’s Economic Pain, Obama Gains Ground.
Meanwhile, the schisms of race, sex and class opened by the bitter Democratic primary contest between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York have not fully healed. Many older Democrats quietly admit they will not vote for Mr. Obama because they fear he would put too many blacks in power, or be hamstrung in office by racial opposition.
So we can elect a white man who shows nothing but ineptitude on economics to continue the misguided policies of another inept white man?Take a look at the news: 159,000 Jobs Lost in September, the Worst Month in Five Years and September job losses are double August's. About all I can say is get over it, cut your noses off to spite your face another time.

Think about these paragraphs from Paul Krugman's Edge of the Abyss:

So we probably have to wait for the next administration, which should be much more inclined to do the right thing — although even that’s by no means a sure thing, given the uncertainty of the election outcome. (I’m not a fan of Mr. Paulson’s, but I’d rather have him at the Treasury than, say, Phil “nation of whiners” Gramm.)

And while the election is only 32 days away, it will be almost four months until the next administration takes office. A lot can — and probably will — go wrong in those four months.

One thing’s for sure: The next administration’s economic team had better be ready to hit the ground running, because from day one it will find itself dealing with the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression.

We elect McCain we can look forward to Phil Gramm at Treasury. I have heard nothing from Phil Gramm rejecting deregulation. For more about what is wrong with Gramm and therefore with McCain: Gramm role raises judgment issue, Tired of whining from voters who helped make this mess. Consider this from MSNBC's First Look blog:

It's correct that McCain's plan does provide the same tax credit for all purchasers regardless of income, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker says that Biden did "mischaracterize" the consequences of McCain's plan.

But the nonpartisan Urban Institute notes that "the credit is not adequate to make coverage affordable for many," especially low-income Americans or those with pricey health care needs.

During the same exchange used in the Obama ad, Palin called McCain's plan "budget neutral." Per the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, McCain's health care plan would actually increase the federal deficit by $1.3 trillion over ten years, just shy of the $1.6 trillion price tag on Obama's.
Can we survive another Republican presidency? I do not think so.

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