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April 16th, 2008
Campaigns, Washington Debate Could Make Threatened Workers Bitter
Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama created a political firestorm when he waxed philosophical at a San Francisco fundraiser about the plight of the working class—a group of Americans under constant threat of job loss.
“It’s not surprising that they get a little bitter; they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment,” he was quoted as saying.
Leaving aside the potential offense the remarks could give to people whose faith or firearms are genuinely important to them, Obama may be on to something when he says that many American workers are bitter.
But it’s unlikely their economic fears are assuaged by what they hear from presidential candidates, including Obama, or from elected officials. Helping those who have been left behind by global economic competition and technological advancement requires a complex policy approach based on management, labor and government cooperation.
It will take the combined efforts of those three entities—along with presidential leadership—to modernize U.S. workforce training programs, streamline health care and wage assistance for displaced workers, and develop a portable benefits system so workers don’t lose their safety net when they lose their jobs.
These issues deserve a prominent place in political discourse. They’re not getting it. True, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi halted the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, a top priority for President Bush, in order to “put the leverage back into the hands of America’s working families” and force Bush to consider Democratic economic proposals.
Chief among them is an expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance for workers who are adversely affected by trade. Another is a second economic stimulus package that focuses on an extension of unemployment benefits.
But when Pelosi and Bush tangle, they usually fight over Bush’s insistence on making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. Democrats say they are a sop for the wealthy.
Bush only brings up Trade Adjustment Assistance when he is looking for support for trade agreements. The administration has shown little interest in it otherwise. But Democrats tend to talk more about cushioning the hurt of unemployment than they do about how to help all workers—including those who already have jobs—improve their skills and their standard of living.
On the campaign trail, Obama has devoted at least one speech to workforce training. But the rest of the time, he stokes worker anger about tough economic times rather than outline ways to help them move their career arc higher. He’s consistently pitting workers against management.
“What we can’t do is sign trade deals that put the interests of multinational corporations ahead of the interests of our workers or our environment,” Obama said in an April 15 speech before building trade unions.
In reality, international companies depend on a strong workforce. The firms’ success is inextricably linked to their employees’ success—and for that matter, unions’ success. Despite his rhetoric about uniting management and labor, Obama rarely explores how to leverage that relationship for the good of the economy and individuals.
Sen. John McCain is not necessarily providing much hope for struggling workers either. In a major speech on economic policy April 15, he concentrated on tax breaks—an issue that won’t bring immediate comfort to those whose factory is moving to Mexico or China.
He did outline worker retraining and unemployment insurance reforms. But those policies came up in paragraphs 33 through 35 of a 43-paragraph speech. People who are worried about how to improve their skills to get a better job had to wait a while for McCain to get around to them.
Bush, Pelosi, Obama and McCain could do a better job of addressing workers’ fears.
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What Hillary doesn’t get is this isn’t about black, white, elite, redneck etc. It should be about uniting all the various segments in American rather than divide them in Carl Rove fashion. It’s about beating John McCain. Yet her latest Rove style strategy has her campaign insinuating that the Montana Yellowstone County Commissioner ”picked Clinton only after he heard Barack Obama’s now famous “bitter” comments. But Kennedy told FOX News on Tuesday that he decided on Clinton long before that. “I had been leaning toward Hillary for months,” Kennedy said. “I actually decided to endorse her two weeks ago.”
Think about it. If someone created a website which allowed us to vote on one simple question, ‘are we bitter about how things have been going here in the United States’, do you think the happy campers would ‘win’ or do you think the Americans who are fed up, been pushed down, passed over and trickled on would outnumber those who prefer to wear blinders or blindly put a politician above the interests of their party or the interests of our country.
For Hillary to try to twist Obama’s words in this regard is beyond her normal campaign games, it’s an act of desperation. When more google for information on her pastor and spritual advisor, Doug Coe, they may come to realize it is all a game to her. When they google through all the campaign lies alone, whether it’s bullets flying, joining the Marines or simply her stands on issues, they will realize we’ll be the losers in these games.
If we want to discuss someone out of touch or elitist, think about the string of unpaid bills Clinton has left in every state she’s been in, bills owed to small vendors. Consider why one would fork out $26,000 for an orchestra for a fundraiser yet not pay her workers’ health insurance premiums for two months. Is that not elitist?
Bill is now trying to help Hillary again but he needs to clean up his own front porch first. His charities not only support Alibaba, Inc., accused of collaborating with the government in its crackdown on Tibetan activists, his scholarships finance schools in Dubai who won’t even accept Israeli students. Perhaps after Bill’s Columbian deal hitting the news about the same time as his charity gaffes they needed a bit of wmd.. weapon of mass distraction.
Was Bill taking advantage of a young girl in his employ not elitist? Was his putting himself above her interests, the interests of his family, the Democratic Party and our country somehow not elitist?
Perhaps Bill needs to do twenty years of community service in the south side of Chicago to get a grip on what constitutes an elitist, or try to feed a family on food stamps.
Hillary needs to figure out which political party she works for. I have yet to hear her rally her people to vote Democrat no matter who wins the nomination. Not one word. I thought the whole idea was to beat McCain, not hand him on a silver platter 28% of the Democratic vote.
And btw, we were fooled by a beer drinking party guy trying to act like the common man before, look where it got us. And if using that campaign game is not elitist, I’ll eat my hat.
Posted by: MsSwin | April 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
This debate was the most fair one yet. I liked that the responses were timed, and each were given an equal amount of time. I liked that the questions were staggered, and that they “flipped a coin” to see who would go first on opening and closings. I was impressed that both were challenged with tough questions and not allowed to wiggle out of fully answering.
ABC handled this debate in a very admirable way, and I think both candidates supporters should have been satisfied with the fairness of the debate, for a change. This is how journalists should handle debates. Both got tough questions.
My main observation is that Clinton was ASKED questions about her positions on Wright and Obama’s bitter comments, and she responded, owning her position, while Obama hedged on the Bosnia question, admitting his “campaign” was hammering on it, “of course,” yet somehow dodging personal responsibility for what his campaign is doing? That just seemed dishonest to me. If his campaign is doing it - HE is. I’d much rather see the candidates own their positions and actions, than try and appear above the fray, when their actions don’t match the perception they’re trying to falsely portray.
Posted by: Teri B. | April 16th, 2008 at 10:44 pm