See if you can guess who wrote the following in an opinion piece for the Washington Post:
…for all the talk of change in Washington and in states where one party is taking over from another, one thing has not changed: The stock market and gross domestic product keep going up, while families are getting squeezed hard by an economy that isn’t working for them.
The solution to this isn’t a basket of quickly passed laws designed to prove Congress can do something — anything. The solution isn’t for the president to cut deals — any deals — just to show he can do business. The solution requires an honest recognition of the kind of changes needed if families are going to get a shot at building a secure future.
It’s not about big government or small government. It’s not the size of government that worries people; rather it’s deep-down concern over who government works for. People are ready to work, ready to do their part, ready to fight for their futures and their kids’ futures, but they see a government that bows and scrapes for big corporations, big banks, big oil companies and big political donors — and they know this government does not work for them.
If that sounds like it might have been part of our current issue that is because it is hitting on the same themes. In the aftermath of the midterm debacle you can expect more and more Democrats to pick up on our themes.
The answer to the question, though, is that that opinion piece was written by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who has been making these arguments for quite some time now. Does she get credit for being ahead of the curve in the same way that Barack Obama got credit for being ahead of the curve on Iraq?
It’s certainly possible.
Or maybe we should get credit for being ahead of the curve and putting out a magazine with the cures the left (and the country) needs before the pain of the midterms made a self-examination trendy.
Here’s more Warren, still echoing our themes:
The American people want a fighting chance to build better lives for their families. They want a government that will stand up to the big banks when they break the law. A government that helps out students who are getting crushed by debt. A government that will protect and expand Social Security for our seniors and raise the minimum wage.
Americans understand that building a prosperous future isn’t free. They want us to invest carefully and prudently, sharply aware that Congress spends the people’s money. They want us to make investments that will pay off in their lives, investments in the roads and power grids that make it easier for businesses to create good jobs here in America, investments in medical and scientific research that spur new discoveries and economic growth, and investments in educating our children so they can build a future for themselves and their children.
Rhetoric is one thing and solutions are another. Winning back enough political power to implement solutions won’t be easy but we need a new rhetoric to go with new solutions or we’ll have no chance.
Mark Penn?
Oh, I should have read further.
It’s fine to run a woman in 2016, but I’d much rather have this woman than HRC. I just wish she had executive experience.
The only practice for being POTUS is POTUS.
Strangely, in spite of getting trounced in the midterms, I’m very optimistic about our chances in the future, as soon as 2016, provided we’re willing to be bold about standing up for widely popular positions.
So I think all we need to do to get not just a win, but a landslide, in 2016, is to have a clear vision of action to help typical Americans and credibly promise to actually do this in 2017. I’d take the 2006 “New Direction for America” as a model. It wasn’t all that extensive; it wasn’t all that bold, but just that was enough to bump up turnout with the young by about 10%. Duplicating that is all we need for a landslide at this point.
So what are the answers? Obviously change won’t happen quickly, but folks would like to see things going the right direction. Something has to be done about the cost of higher education. My wife, who has a bachelor’s degree, looked into a Master’s for Social Work degree. A one year + online effort cost $46k – 69k. WTF!!! Kids coming out of college with $30k or more in debt is ridiculous, and that is dragging families down the hole. A bigger emphasis on apprenticeships would help. Still good wages and work to be found in the trades. What else? But when you have one party whose purpose is to f**k things up, what can be done?
Warren (and others) have been saying the same thing for many years. Terry Gross had Warren on her show in 2007. And must give Harry Reid credit for begging her to chair the Congressional Oversight Panel.
Andrew Sullivan just said this.
Heeding anything from Sullivan is like listening to Sullivan.
This bar graph tells the larger story. And it’s based on data and not the “guts” of pundits.
I dont deny it, but voters aren’t rational or rather may value other things more. And if Dems had been more apt to side with Obama than run, the economy would in most cases be a little more equal.
Right. She’s echoing you. Uh huh.
Three possibilities occur to me out front:
We will not know which of these three possibilities is closest to the truth until she gets more deeply involved in the 2016 campaign.
How will we know?
If it’s #1 she will get some version of the Perot/Dean/Paul treatment from the major media. It will be interesting to see how they try to non-person her if that’s the case. Probably as a pie-in-the-sky Harvard egghead. It worked on Adlai Stevenson.
If it’s #2 and she has already thoroughly signaled her intention to surreptitiously maintain the status quo to the controllers (Think Barack Obama), the media will praise her to the skies and then use her as some part of the Good Cop/Bad Cop, Champion/Tomato Can fix.
And if it’s #3?
If it’s #3 and she has the natural political chops of say FDR, then we have a really interesting character on our side. If it’s #3 and she doesn’t have those natural political chops then we’re back in Perot/Dean/Paul country again.
We shall see, won’t we.
Later…
AG