Dear Democrats: Please All and You'll Please None

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/anat-shenker-osorio/59049/dear-democrats-please-all-and-youll-please-none

Dear Democrats: Please All and You'll Please None
2014 Elections | Democrats
by Anat Shenker-Osorio | October 17, 2014 - 10:19am

With mid-term election season in swing, it's time to play DC's favorite game: whack a poll -- or advice on what to say to get elected. Sadly, very few of these suggestions are ever new. Especially not in an industry where one big idea, shuffled endlessly, can generate an entire career. Provided that idea is convivial to the most affluent among us. The details vary but there's a signature and unchanging brand of advice handed to Democrats for the last 25 years: be milquetoast. From triangulation, to creation of the now defunct Democratic Leadership Committee, to railing against the incredibly effective "Bain attacks" on Mitt Romney, many have argued against populist progressivism.

The Wall Street Journal recently used a cursory view of electoral polling to recycle old canards as new insights for would-be Congress people. According to their read of the top lines in one poll, the winning phrase for the blue team is to "promote an agenda of economic growth that will benefit all Americans." This is the political equivalent of "free pie." Although we haven't sunk money into testing how many Americans dig this idea - we'll risk a guess to say it's a winner.

Democrats are to take head -- "growth" in any permutation is the winning word of the season. A candidate focused on "more economic growth" wins out big time over one pushing "less income inequality" just as "growing the economy" beats "increasing wages."

For those of us in the reality-based world, we've already seen enormous "economic growth" since the supposed end of the recession. While GDP has gone soaring, that has meant next to nothing for most Americans -- 33 percent of whom are now a paycheck away from the poverty line.