It's a new day in politics. Issues are now everywhere, impossible to ignore, as everyone is constantly immersed in the water of political life.
Ethnography is no longer electoral destiny. Jews used to be liberals first and Jews second. NY-09 is set to prove that they are intelligent pragmatic people who follow the issues of the day, and, though they are centered on the left, they are not politically immovable.
The Obama administration's whacking on Israel and Netanyahu's energetic defense of its diplomacy is having an effect on them, as is the failure of the progressivists' economic snake oil.
In the case of the economy Al Hunt says Republicans are the party of "trickle down." He's right, of course, that all economic effects of central planning start with the entrepreneurs, capitalists, and the employed, because they are the ones paying the most attention. When you promise to stiff them on the rewards of their risk-taking with higher taxes, mandated higher employee costs, and rule-of-law theft by ex post facto changes to investment contracts, they go into their shells and wait for the lickin' to stop before they start tickin' again. The effects of their withdrawal from the economy are disastrous for the less fortunate who have no cushion of savings to fall back on. So it's actually the Democrats who are the party of trickle down... trickle down poverty, that is.
What Republicans must now advocate is a shower of prosperity for all. The middle class recognizes that if they risk their money to prime the pump and expend their own effort and energy to organize the efforts of others, they deserve to stand closer to the shower of reward.
The rhetorical class-warfare arguments of days gone by just don't rouse the envy they used to.
