The Democrats' New Red Meat
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3989850/
A potent GOP weapon since the New Deal—that Democrats can't be trusted
with money—may have to be sheathed this time around
By Jonathan Alter
Newsweek
Jan. 26 issue - Even before Howard Dean began his stump speech, before
he thrashed President Bush for giving tax cuts to "Ken Lay and the
boys at Enron" (a jab he repeated three times), Dave Pitz, a retired
teacher sitting in the audience in Newton, Iowa, had the message down
cold. "Bush has become the CEO of corporate America," Pitz told me
matter-of-factly. A central question of the 2004 campaign is whether
enough voters agree with Pitz that Bush is a fiscally reckless
president devoted not to them but to wealthy special interests. If the
issue is framed that way and the frame sticks, a responsible populist
message could work, though it would be the first time in modern
political history that it did so. The Democratic candidates differ
little on domestic issues. Theirs is essentially a contest to see
which one has the best variation on that theme.
Jonathan Alter
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