quote:

Among the many dark tidings for American conservatism, there is one genuine bright spot. Over the past five years, a group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers has emerged on the scene.

These writers came of age as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude. Most of them were dismayed by what the Republican Party had become under Tom DeLay and seemed put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter. As a result, most have the conviction — which was rare in earlier generations — that something is fundamentally wrong with the right, and it needs to be fixed.

Ross Douthat and my former assistant, Reihan Salam, are two of the most promising. This pair has just come out with a book called “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”

There have been other outstanding books on how the G.O.P. can rediscover its soul (like “Comeback” by David Frum), but if I could put one book on the desk of every Republican officeholder, “Grand New Party” would be it. You can discount my praise because of my friendship with the authors, but this is the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head.

quote:

The key is to understand the peculiar anxieties of America’s contemporary working class—Sam’s Club voters, as the authors call them—and tailor a new agenda to their needs. According to Messrs. Douthat and Salam, Sam’s Club voters are non-college-educated but not impoverished, socially conservative but also convinced that government should play a role in their lives. They’re outraged at the sight of people in New Orleans on welfare, but even more outraged by what happened to these same people during Katrina. Most of all, they’re worried—about health care, college tuition, vanishing jobs, unchecked immigration and rising crime. Win them, and a permanent majority can be born, just as F.D.R. was able to create a 50-year supremacy for Congressional Democrats by speaking to the hopes and fears of their grandparents.

For Messrs. Douthat and Salam, the cornerstone of this conservative revival is the family. It should be noted that they’re not indulging in the reactionary rhetoric of the Falwellian troglodytes here, but simply recognizing that members of the working class fare much better when part of a nuclear family than when they go it alone. Anticipating howls of outrage from progressives, they point out the current "marriage gap," in which many of those doing the howling—college-educated, upper-middle-class members of the new meritocracy—are far more likely to live in long-lasting, child-bearing marriages than the working class. "Pick a social indicator," they assert, "and you’ll find that parents and children alike do far better in stable families."

Having established the primacy of family, the authors then float a raft of policies that sails into the tricky waters between conservative and progressive doctrine. Take employment. Although Messrs. Douthat and Salam are contemptuous of welfare in its Great Society incarnation, they also understand that some fairly hefty government incentives are going to be needed to keep the working poor from sinking into an underclass. Their answer is a program of wage subsidies, wherein "less-educated single men with low-paying jobs make ends meet, thereby making them more desirable marriage partners. Given the right boost, poor young men could become working-class fathers" and, presumably, Sam’s Club voters with a lifelong fealty to the G.O.P. In education, they moot a modified voucher system in which working-class children will be granted more credit than their more affluent neighbors as they search for a good school, so that "poor kids, who will have the most money strapped to their backs, would attract the most attention from entrepreneurial principals eager to expand their bailiwick."

quote:

Like which one? Like Enron?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Level

quote:

Win them, and a permanent majority can be born, just as F.D.R. was able to create a 50-year supremacy for Congressional Democrats by speaking to the hopes and fears of their grandparents.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Thadius

I would change the source of the stereotype, to allowing people to repeat the nonsense over and over.

What is the last thing a democrat did for minorities, working class,  everyday folks?

Care to discuss who or who did not block the civil rights movements of the 1860s-1960s... or look at a few of the wonderful icons of the Democratic party?

Nah it is just easier to throw around stereotypes, and accusations, because something might stick.

Have a great night,
Thadius

P.S. I do not belong to either of the major parties.  I choose to look at individuals, and their own merits.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Level

Ken, there are those that do just want to win, and at almost any cost.
 
But, there are also those that just want to see this nation prosper, no matter what party is in power. They see good ideas coming from both sides, and from the center, bad ones, too. I wonder if that group of people make up a majority?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Level

quote:

Among the many dark tidings for American conservatism, there is one genuine bright spot. Over the past five years, a group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers has emerged on the scene.

These writers came of age as official conservatism slipped into decrepitude. Most of them were dismayed by what the Republican Party had become under Tom DeLay and seemed put off by the shock-jock rhetorical style of Ann Coulter. As a result, most have the conviction — which was rare in earlier generations — that something is fundamentally wrong with the right, and it needs to be fixed.

Ross Douthat and my former assistant, Reihan Salam, are two of the most promising. This pair has just come out with a book called “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.”

There have been other outstanding books on how the G.O.P. can rediscover its soul (like “Comeback” by David Frum), but if I could put one book on the desk of every Republican officeholder, “Grand New Party” would be it. You can discount my praise because of my friendship with the authors, but this is the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27brooks.html?em&ex=1214798400&en=faf51c7bb1d6a3ab&ei=5087%0A

quote:

The key is to understand the peculiar anxieties of America’s contemporary working class—Sam’s Club voters, as the authors call them—and tailor a new agenda to their needs. According to Messrs. Douthat and Salam, Sam’s Club voters are non-college-educated but not impoverished, socially conservative but also convinced that government should play a role in their lives. They’re outraged at the sight of people in New Orleans on welfare, but even more outraged by what happened to these same people during Katrina. Most of all, they’re worried—about health care, college tuition, vanishing jobs, unchecked immigration and rising crime. Win them, and a permanent majority can be born, just as F.D.R. was able to create a 50-year supremacy for Congressional Democrats by speaking to the hopes and fears of their grandparents.

For Messrs. Douthat and Salam, the cornerstone of this conservative revival is the family. It should be noted that they’re not indulging in the reactionary rhetoric of the Falwellian troglodytes here, but simply recognizing that members of the working class fare much better when part of a nuclear family than when they go it alone. Anticipating howls of outrage from progressives, they point out the current "marriage gap," in which many of those doing the howling—college-educated, upper-middle-class members of the new meritocracy—are far more likely to live in long-lasting, child-bearing marriages than the working class. "Pick a social indicator," they assert, "and you’ll find that parents and children alike do far better in stable families."

Having established the primacy of family, the authors then float a raft of policies that sails into the tricky waters between conservative and progressive doctrine. Take employment. Although Messrs. Douthat and Salam are contemptuous of welfare in its Great Society incarnation, they also understand that some fairly hefty government incentives are going to be needed to keep the working poor from sinking into an underclass. Their answer is a program of wage subsidies, wherein "less-educated single men with low-paying jobs make ends meet, thereby making them more desirable marriage partners. Given the right boost, poor young men could become working-class fathers" and, presumably, Sam’s Club voters with a lifelong fealty to the G.O.P. In education, they moot a modified voucher system in which working-class children will be granted more credit than their more affluent neighbors as they search for a good school, so that "poor kids, who will have the most money strapped to their backs, would attract the most attention from entrepreneurial principals eager to expand their bailiwick."

http://www.observer.com/2008/elephant-vanishes

Is this really conservatism? Or is it pandering in order to try to win votes? Is it a show of wisdom, a moving away from failed policies? Plain good sense, or plain foolishness?

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ORIGINAL: celticlord2112

quote:

Like which one? Like Enron?

Enron started unravelling in late 2000--on Clinton's watch.

All of their shenanigans took place between 1996 and 2000--on Clinton's watch.

If a President is responsible for Enron, it ain't Bush.  The chronology is categorical on that point.

quote:

ORIGINAL: candystripper


Overall it's good news -- the Republican Party has clearly come lose of its moorings and it'd be great to see someone challenge the Executive Committee mind-think and perhaps attain enough sway to move them further away from the corrosive effects of the Religious Right.
 
Unfortunately, whether it's to build a consensus or not, the 'new writers' assumptions about how to aid the working poor -- or flat out poor -- seem deeply flawed to me.  This country cannot sustain continued expansion of government, particularly entitlement programs.  Our experience as a nation since the 1930's shows these programs do not work and have debiliating effects on everyone involved.
 
If government is going to furnish assistance directly to the working poor, I'd much rather see a revival of the WPA and CCC.  Though I have strong reservations about the ability of modern government to run such programs effectively, I'd much rather see government stimulate job opportunities that pay a living wage than to pay cash 'supplements' to the working poor.
 
Enforce the usury laws and repeal all the exceptions to it that have sprung up in recent years. Protect the working poor from the proliferation predatory lending businesses.  Car dealers who target the poor and 'people with bad credit', check cashing businesses, payrol loans, title loans, pawn shops, and rent to own businesses just to name a few.  The common theme of their lobbyists -- that such businesses actually serve the interests of the working poor and the poor because they meet needs banks are unwiling to address -- is utter bullsh*t. 
 
How is a single parent without transportation any better if she pays $14k for a car with a blue book value of $5k, and then pays 29% ARP or more on the loan?  How is deluding her into thinking she can rely on the car to run, or make the payments, of any use to her? 
 
Instead, address her needs by increasing public transportation back to needed levels and resuming the programs of the past, such as free bus passes for students.  Reduce the cost of public transportation so that it isn't burensome to the working poor.  Stimulate the taxi business -- thus making more jobs -- and regulate it so that working poor neighborhoods are served and costs are contained.

Barriers to upward movement of the working poor also need to be removed.  The real unmet need of the poor and the working poor is the deterioration in opportunity to become members of the middle class.
 
Public universities and college should be funded at higher levels and tuition levels rolled back substantially.  Student loan programs should be revamped and all predatory lending should be prohibitted. Grant progams should be funded at such a level as to permit working poor students to fund their educations primarialy through grants, not loans. 
 
Some public universities and colleges which produce graduates with no access to middle class income jobs should be closed, so that total graduation rates are scaled back to meet the falling employment market segment they serve.  Trade schools and communty colleges should be better funded and more should be opened. 
 
Private schools which lack any real accredidation and produce graduates without marketable schools should be viewed as the predators they are, and every effort should be made to force them to close. 
 
There are certainly other measures that should be taken, but the traditional route for upward mobility in this nation has been through higher education, and in recent years this route has been virtually foreclosed to the working poor and poor. 
 
In this vein, the old G.I. Bill should be readopted, with its open-ended educational benefits and home ownership program.  We are screwing our young people who join the military out of more and more benefits every year -- and these service men and women traditionally come from working poor and poor backgrounds.

I make no assumptions about the new writers' position on access to health care for the workng poor or poor, but I think it is a pressing issue every bit as important as income levels.
 
The 'emphasis on family' and belief 'that parents and children do better in stable homes' seems almost sinster to me.  Efforts by government to engage in social engineering have failed in the past. What specifically is being proposed?  Better access to health care to reduce the number of illegitimate births?  Or changes to family law, trapping people in marriages they desparately want to escape?
 
I think we'd do better to recognise that social norms have changed.  Embrace the single parent, the blended famiily, the same sex couple, etc. Address the loss of adequate child care; reinstitute before and after school programs, etc.
 
A member of my family has taught here in both parochial schools and magnet schools, and while the magnet school does seem to address some of the students' needs, the fundamental problem remains the loss of quality education at neighborhood public schools where the working poor and poor live. 
 
The wholesale collapse of the public school system in tis cuntry should be openly acknowledged and treated as the natioanl emrgency that it is.  Drastic measures must be taken to revitalise these schools.  No matter how much funding voucher programs and the like receive, the overwhelming majority of working class poor and poor students will always attend their neighborhood public school, because most parents are unable to overcome transportation issues and other barriers, the volume of alternative schools is not sufficient to absorb the entire public school population, and some parents are not equipped or enhanced with educational values that would move them to seek quality education for their children.  There have been some interesting experiments in privatizing public schools, and while results have been mixed, the initative seems worth exploring. 
 
Something must be done, and immediately.
 
candystripper    

quote:

For more than a year, Vietnam veteran and Democratic senator James Webb has been pushing for a new GI Bill comparable to the original. It would guarantee funding to cover a four-year state university tuition, plus living expenses. It also extends benefits to reservists and National Guard troops.

"When you look at today's military, even though people say this is a volunteer military, they forget that the majority of the people who go into the military get out on or before the end of their first enlistment," Webb said. "And they deserve the same opportunity to readjust into civilian life and a first-class shot at the future."

But the Pentagon was initially lukewarm about Senator Webb's proposal.

Cost wasn't the issue: The estimated price-tag for an expanded benefits program, $4 billion a year, is the equivalent of about one week of combat costs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, until this past Thursday, the Bush administration and the Pentagon were balking because of concerns the new bill could encourage forces to leave the military.

"We in the department want to be careful that any changes to benefits don't undercut retention," said Undersecretary of Defense for manpower issues David Chu. "In other words, if you are very generous about post-service education, you're creating a draw away from continued military service, which we would need to counter-act."

But confronted with evidence that Senator Webb's proposal was gaining bipartisan support, on Thursday President Bush withdrew his opposition.

Historically, one of the major byproducts of American wars is politicians.

...

... there’s a strong pattern of non-career junior officers serving in combat returning to civilian life to become successful politicians. John Kerry, though he failed to win the presidency, has had a successful enough political career to count as one of the most recent examples.

I expect the Iraq war will produce a bumper crop of future politicians from its junior officer corps — men like David Lucas who are already making public names for themselves. So it’s worth asking what these people believe, and how the lessons they’re learning in Iraq will affect the attitude they bring to careers in civilian politics.

Recent surveys showing that 80% of the serving military officer corps voted Republican in 2004 combine with exceptionally high in-theater re-enlistment rates and op-eds like Lucas’s to paint a picture of a military that believes very strongly in the rightness of the Iraq war — a belief which appears to be strong not just among careerists but among short-timers who expect to return to civilian life as well. A related piece of evidence is negative but almost equally strong; the anti-war wing of U.S. politics has failed to discover or produce any returning veterans of Iraq who are both able to denounce the war effectively in public and willing to do so.

We already know, because they’re telling us themselves in mil-blogs, that the military serving in Iraq has developed a bitter contempt for the mainstream media. Biased, shoddy, and selective reporting with a heavy sensationalist and anti-war slant has had consequences; it has played well among bicoastal liberals in the U.S. but angered and alienated the troops on the ground. They know that reality there is greatly different from what’s being reported, and increasingly they’re willing to say so.

The Washington Times story shows that anti-war posturing by leading Democrats is angering and alienating the serving military as well. An increasing number seem to think they are seeing what is in effect a conspiracy between the mainstream media and the Democrats to make a just war unwinnable in order to score domestic political points. In the longer run, this is a disaster in the making for Democrats. It means that this war’s crop of successful politicians and influence leaders probably going to trend Republican and conservative to an unprecedented degree.