Cliff Evans
2008-11-01 17:15:41 UTC
McCain's Big Backfire: Majority of Americans Like the Idea of
Spreading the Wealth
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2008.
It must come as a surprise to the Republicans that the public favors
Obama's style of wealth spreading by a whopping margin.
John McCain and Joe the Plumber are campaigning for Barack Obama, and
they don't even know it. The more McCain has ramped up his attacks on
Obama as a "spreader of wealth," the more the country has lined up
behind the Democrat's plan to spread the wealth. If McCain's economic
agenda was a gun and his attacks on Obama's agenda the bullets, the
old soldier would have shot both his feet clean off a long time ago.
Watching the GOP's coordinated if increasingly delirious attacks on
Obama's economic plan, it's clear that the party is even further out
of touch with the America of 2008 than previously imagined. After
eight years of establishing and then extending America's lead as the
most unequal of all industrialized countries, Republicans thought they
could deflect a national groundswell of righteous anger by dusting off
and hurling every insult in the conservative arsenal, including old
favorites "extremist," "radical," "Marxist" and "socialist." One
suspects they are saving "anarchist" and "Hessian" for McCain's
last-gasp speech on Monday.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Republican
hammer-and-sickle-themed haunted house: Nobody showed. The McCain
campaign's attempts to smear Obama as a Trojan donkey for socialistic
un-Americanism have belly-flopped, if not backfired. Obama has not
only maintained a stable lead under the Republican barrage, he has
increased his positives in the traditionally Republican territory of
taxes. The final national polls before Tuesday all show a national
hunger for national wealth redistribution downward. An Ipsos/McClatchy
poll finds that likely voters prefer Obama's tax plan to McCain's by 8
points. Pew says Obama added to his edge on taxes and the economy
between mid-September and mid-October by 6 points, jumping from 44 to
39 earlier to 50 to 35. On Oct. 30, Gallup released results showing
Americans favor Obama's style of wealth spreading by a whopping
58-to-37 margin.
It appears the nation's sanity and sense of fairness has reasserted
itself to wipe the floor with condescending GOP red-baiting.
It hasn't hurt that the GOP attacks have been absurd on their face. A
3-point increase in the top marginal income tax rate to 39 percent is
not easily morphed into the face of Pol Pot. For much of the 20th
century, the top income tax rate in the United States slid between 50
percent and 90 percent, peaking at 94 percent during the final two
years of World War II. Most Americans would agree that the mid-century
rates were excessive, but support for some kind of progressive tax
curve remains widespread. Both Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran winning
campaigns promising to raise taxes on the rich.
"The public has always supported moderately progressive taxation, so I
don't think McCain's pitch had much resonance unless he could convince
people that Obama would raise their taxes," says Dean Baker,
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Obama
inoculated himself against this attack by saying that he would cut
taxes for 95 percent of the public. Basically, McCain was trying to
make things up, and most people didn't believe him."
Charges of socialism are especially discordant coming from the McCain
campaign. The top marginal income tax rate held steady at 50 percent
for five years under McCain's hero, Ronald Reagan. His other hero,
Teddy Roosevelt, was a fierce and early booster for federal income and
estate taxes. And Sarah Palin? It wouldn't be all that surprising to
see her turn up at a commemoration of this year's 70th anniversary of
the Fourth International. As Hendrik Hertzberg noted in one of many
recent New Yorker pieces debunking the newest GOP attack line, the
redistributive principle is practiced with particular gusto in Palin's
Alaska, where the governor spreads the oil wealth like creamy butter
around the state's absorbent white bread. "One of the reasons Palin
has been a popular governor," notes Hertzberg, "is that she added an
extra $1,200 to this year's (government) check, bringing the
per-person total to $3,269." Earlier this summer, Palin boasted to
journalist Philip Gourevitch, "Alaskans collectively own the
resources. We share in the wealth."
Like Alaskans, we're all socialist now, to an extent, and have been
for a long time. It's just a question of daring to speak the
adjective's name, which happens to describe hugely popular programs
like Social Security and Medicare. Watching McCain's socialist attack
line flop, it's tempting to think that the country is edging closer to
the day when the word, stripped of its Cold War baggage, no longer has
the power to frighten Ohio. Another element is the further eclipse of
the culture war by economics. As the country's shifting demographics
grow over the divides opened up during the 1960s and '70s, attempts to
bundle pinko economics with fears of godless agents of chaos become
increasingly meaningless.
The Right is aware of and worried about this growing
de-contextualization of the word "socialism." The counterrevolution
against the New Deal was aided by the presence of the Soviet Union as
a running counterpoint. But it's now almost 20 years after 1989. A
generation has matured that never soaked up any of the old propaganda.
This generation has studied abroad and knows you can Super-size it in
Sweden. It has no memory of "Better Dead Than Red" and can't imagine
an elderly British logician making international headlines for saying
he'd rather crawl to Moscow on his hands and knees than die in a
nuclear war. Conservatives worry about this group much as arms
controllers worry that kids today don't understand the dangers posed
by nuclear weapons. The right's fright over the post-Cold War
generation's immunity to cries of "socialism!" was expressed clearly
in an Oct. 27 editorial in the Investor's Business Daily titled
"Defining Problems With Socialism for the Post-Cold War Generation."
"John McCain has finally called Barack Obama's agenda by its proper
name," it begins. "But if he assumes voters understand what he means
when he uses the word 'socialism,' he assumes too much. Sadly, most
people under 60 in this country went to schools and universities where
socialism isn't considered a bad thing."
Actually, those are two distinct groups -- those who don't understand
the word or its gradations, and those who do and wouldn't mind living
under most of them. What they have in common is that together they
constitute a future United States where the word "socialist" carries
an ever-weakening stigma.
Whether we choose to reclaim or dispense with the word, its days as a
conversation stopper appear to be over. Over the last eight years, 90
percent of the new income generated has accrued to the top 10 percent,
while average family incomes have dropped $2,000. These numbers have
engendered bitterness on top of anxiety that has shifted the economic
debate. If Democrats get a chance to seek forceful redress in the
coming years, Republicans are sure to call Obama a socialist and much
else besides. But that's OK. Tuesday's election is going to show that
when people are hurting, they don't mind a little "socialism" -- just
as long as it's pointed their way.
Spreading the Wealth
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted November 1, 2008.
It must come as a surprise to the Republicans that the public favors
Obama's style of wealth spreading by a whopping margin.
John McCain and Joe the Plumber are campaigning for Barack Obama, and
they don't even know it. The more McCain has ramped up his attacks on
Obama as a "spreader of wealth," the more the country has lined up
behind the Democrat's plan to spread the wealth. If McCain's economic
agenda was a gun and his attacks on Obama's agenda the bullets, the
old soldier would have shot both his feet clean off a long time ago.
Watching the GOP's coordinated if increasingly delirious attacks on
Obama's economic plan, it's clear that the party is even further out
of touch with the America of 2008 than previously imagined. After
eight years of establishing and then extending America's lead as the
most unequal of all industrialized countries, Republicans thought they
could deflect a national groundswell of righteous anger by dusting off
and hurling every insult in the conservative arsenal, including old
favorites "extremist," "radical," "Marxist" and "socialist." One
suspects they are saving "anarchist" and "Hessian" for McCain's
last-gasp speech on Monday.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the Republican
hammer-and-sickle-themed haunted house: Nobody showed. The McCain
campaign's attempts to smear Obama as a Trojan donkey for socialistic
un-Americanism have belly-flopped, if not backfired. Obama has not
only maintained a stable lead under the Republican barrage, he has
increased his positives in the traditionally Republican territory of
taxes. The final national polls before Tuesday all show a national
hunger for national wealth redistribution downward. An Ipsos/McClatchy
poll finds that likely voters prefer Obama's tax plan to McCain's by 8
points. Pew says Obama added to his edge on taxes and the economy
between mid-September and mid-October by 6 points, jumping from 44 to
39 earlier to 50 to 35. On Oct. 30, Gallup released results showing
Americans favor Obama's style of wealth spreading by a whopping
58-to-37 margin.
It appears the nation's sanity and sense of fairness has reasserted
itself to wipe the floor with condescending GOP red-baiting.
It hasn't hurt that the GOP attacks have been absurd on their face. A
3-point increase in the top marginal income tax rate to 39 percent is
not easily morphed into the face of Pol Pot. For much of the 20th
century, the top income tax rate in the United States slid between 50
percent and 90 percent, peaking at 94 percent during the final two
years of World War II. Most Americans would agree that the mid-century
rates were excessive, but support for some kind of progressive tax
curve remains widespread. Both Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran winning
campaigns promising to raise taxes on the rich.
"The public has always supported moderately progressive taxation, so I
don't think McCain's pitch had much resonance unless he could convince
people that Obama would raise their taxes," says Dean Baker,
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Obama
inoculated himself against this attack by saying that he would cut
taxes for 95 percent of the public. Basically, McCain was trying to
make things up, and most people didn't believe him."
Charges of socialism are especially discordant coming from the McCain
campaign. The top marginal income tax rate held steady at 50 percent
for five years under McCain's hero, Ronald Reagan. His other hero,
Teddy Roosevelt, was a fierce and early booster for federal income and
estate taxes. And Sarah Palin? It wouldn't be all that surprising to
see her turn up at a commemoration of this year's 70th anniversary of
the Fourth International. As Hendrik Hertzberg noted in one of many
recent New Yorker pieces debunking the newest GOP attack line, the
redistributive principle is practiced with particular gusto in Palin's
Alaska, where the governor spreads the oil wealth like creamy butter
around the state's absorbent white bread. "One of the reasons Palin
has been a popular governor," notes Hertzberg, "is that she added an
extra $1,200 to this year's (government) check, bringing the
per-person total to $3,269." Earlier this summer, Palin boasted to
journalist Philip Gourevitch, "Alaskans collectively own the
resources. We share in the wealth."
Like Alaskans, we're all socialist now, to an extent, and have been
for a long time. It's just a question of daring to speak the
adjective's name, which happens to describe hugely popular programs
like Social Security and Medicare. Watching McCain's socialist attack
line flop, it's tempting to think that the country is edging closer to
the day when the word, stripped of its Cold War baggage, no longer has
the power to frighten Ohio. Another element is the further eclipse of
the culture war by economics. As the country's shifting demographics
grow over the divides opened up during the 1960s and '70s, attempts to
bundle pinko economics with fears of godless agents of chaos become
increasingly meaningless.
The Right is aware of and worried about this growing
de-contextualization of the word "socialism." The counterrevolution
against the New Deal was aided by the presence of the Soviet Union as
a running counterpoint. But it's now almost 20 years after 1989. A
generation has matured that never soaked up any of the old propaganda.
This generation has studied abroad and knows you can Super-size it in
Sweden. It has no memory of "Better Dead Than Red" and can't imagine
an elderly British logician making international headlines for saying
he'd rather crawl to Moscow on his hands and knees than die in a
nuclear war. Conservatives worry about this group much as arms
controllers worry that kids today don't understand the dangers posed
by nuclear weapons. The right's fright over the post-Cold War
generation's immunity to cries of "socialism!" was expressed clearly
in an Oct. 27 editorial in the Investor's Business Daily titled
"Defining Problems With Socialism for the Post-Cold War Generation."
"John McCain has finally called Barack Obama's agenda by its proper
name," it begins. "But if he assumes voters understand what he means
when he uses the word 'socialism,' he assumes too much. Sadly, most
people under 60 in this country went to schools and universities where
socialism isn't considered a bad thing."
Actually, those are two distinct groups -- those who don't understand
the word or its gradations, and those who do and wouldn't mind living
under most of them. What they have in common is that together they
constitute a future United States where the word "socialist" carries
an ever-weakening stigma.
Whether we choose to reclaim or dispense with the word, its days as a
conversation stopper appear to be over. Over the last eight years, 90
percent of the new income generated has accrued to the top 10 percent,
while average family incomes have dropped $2,000. These numbers have
engendered bitterness on top of anxiety that has shifted the economic
debate. If Democrats get a chance to seek forceful redress in the
coming years, Republicans are sure to call Obama a socialist and much
else besides. But that's OK. Tuesday's election is going to show that
when people are hurting, they don't mind a little "socialism" -- just
as long as it's pointed their way.