economics vs. values

food for thought from NYT's Nicholas Kristof:

"The Republicans are smarter," mused Oregon's governor,
Ted Kulongoski, a Democrat. "They've created ... these
social issues to get the public to stop looking at
what's happening to them economically."

"What we once thought - that people would vote in their
economic self-interest - is not true, and we Democrats
haven't figured out how to deal with that."

Bill Clinton intuitively understood the challenge, and
John Edwards seems to as well, perhaps because of their
own working-class origins. But the party as a whole is
mostly in denial.

The day will come when that 51% of the country realizes they've been had. In 1972, it took criminal indictments. The disillusionment this time around, if it ever comes, will not be pretty. And I, for one, will refuse the urge to gloat.

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