Democrats: Opposed to the American Dream?

First a couple of comments. I have a friend (Damon Lease) who is doing a 100 mile footrace this weekend. I am not, yet it is unclear as to who will be in more pain; him or I. The reason is that my wife is making me go to dance lessons with her (at our church). Yuck!

Next, I am a Notre Dame football fan and they are playing USC. The game is being hyped up. What this reminds me of is the first time a Lou Holtz Notre Dame team played Miami, who was ranked number 1 at the time. Miami had a couple of lack-luster games prior to the ND game and some thought that they were ripe to be upset. The result was a 24-0 rout in Miami's favor. Seeing that ND was down 38-17 to Michigan State prior to mounting a late rally; well, I can see something similar happening this time. Right now I have ND + 11.5 points; I might go to Yahoo "pick'em" and change my mind. I see something like USC 41, ND 24.

Now back to politics: Tom posted an interesting reply to a previous post; it raises some issues that I have to respond to.

Tom says (in part): (he is responding to my words:

"What bothers me is that we are still only getting 51% of the lowest group. We should be getting 60% or more."

Tom's response:

Ollie, I think there are probably a couple of bad assumptions here. Dems have tried to frame everything as class warfare for so long that it is easy to miss.

Let's assume that the difference is even as the democrats have painted it. They are for helping out the less fortunate with more welfare, more social security, higher minimum wages, free health care, and every other program they can finance by taxing the rich. The republicans are just greedy, rich, Christians who want keep their own money and not help their fellow man by paying their fair share.

Now, if my plan is to always be poor, clearly the democrats offer a much more comfortable option. But if I have dreams of something more, suddenly those who claim to be on my side become hostile toward my goals. If my goal is to work hard and become wealthy, maybe I âm better voting republican now.

But more important are probably the individual's own economic views. You are probably more swayed by the democrat's economic position because you believe it is right than because there is any financial benefit to you. I stopped voting republican while trying to provide for a family as a full-time MBA student because I felt their economic policies were too liberal creating corruption and dependence. Since I was only making about $800 a month between the GI Bill and my assistantship at the time, I fit into that bottom group of poor you are talking about.

If the democrats want to make progress with people on economics, they should talk responsibility and abandon the class warfare. The liberal spending of the republicans has opened a door. Talking about the tax cuts for the wealthy only holds it closed. It indicates to those who are economically conservative that they have nowhere else to go but the republicans. Speak of responsibility, tough choices, and debt we are leaving for our children. I don't actually expect those to stay priorities once they are elected, but those traits are consistent with both democrats and republicans."

I really appreciate this post. Here is my reply: unfortunately, it sometimes appears that we (liberal Democrats) are opposed to the American dream. But no, I have no interest in keeping poor people poor.

Here is my background: My schools were mostly funded by the Department of Defense. I lived in base housing. I had military medical care. I went to a service academy. I had military medical care to repair my damaged knees. I had a federal fellowship and Vbenefitsts to help pay for my graduate school.

So, yes, I worked very, very hard, but I had some help along the way. What bothers me is that there are many, many of my fellow citizens who are trying to play by the rules and work hard. They have no interest in staying poor. But what happens?

A lay-off as their job gets outsourced. Maybe one gets seriously ill but doesn't have insurance (or adequate insurance).

Or perhaps they are born into povertreceiveee little in standard preventive medicine or dental care and have poor nutrition. They go to a substandard school.

For many, the American Dream is a myth that is not based in reality. And for many who have made it; we'll let's just say that they notice only their work (very real) and perhaps dismiss the role that good luck had (luck of being born to a good family, luck of not having gotten a horrible illness, etc.)

And don't even mention that coke-head, drunk driving, sorry excuse for a human being that we have as a president. Had he been born poor, he'd have ended up in prision.

And there are those who had good manufacturing jobs that have been lost. Many of these simply don't have the ability to learn the high tech stuff. What becomes of them?

Yes, I know that we all have different abilities. Not all of us will drive BMW's or have plasma TV's. I am fine with that. And yes, some will fail no matter what; there are irresponsible people who constantly behave in self destructive manners.

But darn it, I am not willing to throw people on some "garbage heap" just because they got caught up in hard times or because they got some megaexpensiveee illness. And if that attitude makes me unpopular with yuppies, so what?

As far as class warfare: that is what the Republican's themselves have been waging. Jobs for cronies (while whining about affirmative action!!!!), no bid contracts for their friends (while whining about set-asides for minority businesses!).

Anyway, I know that we aren't going to win the economic conservative voter (though we can talk about responsible spending) nor are we likely to win the upper income white voter. But we can do better with the lower income voter by stressing that we are seeking for ways to make hard work pay off again. We are working to make the American Dream more than a highly improbable myth for many. And we are working to get to a time where a seriously ill person can focus in getting well rather than on trying to get well AND keep their family afloat financially.