> He makes a good case that the basic assumption of most political
> junkies -- that the average citizen cares about "issues" and bases
> her/his vote on them -- is wrong. It is high time that we PJs realize
> that most people in fact vote on their gut senses of what kinds of
> persons the candidates are. If this were not so, there is no way in
> hell that Bush would be even with Kerry in the horse race. The working
> class is far larger in numbers than the owning class, and any worker
> who has her/his head on straight should be able to see in a minute or
> two that Bush and his crew are fundamentally opposed to the health and
> welfare of their class.
(snip)
> If the left is ever going to get real political power it will have to
> stop messing around with the intellectual types and the lawyer consumer
> advocate types which we love so much and find a leftie Lone Ranger as a
> symbol. Sorry, but that's the name of the game, pard'ner.
---------------------------
I've seen several references to this article, and will read it. The
attention to personalities rather than issues is certainly true of the
present, and makes sense to me in relation to periods when living standards
are fairly constant, or even slowly and not too visibly eroding, and people
are more concerned with work and family politics than with national politics
which seems far removed from their daily concerns.
But I wonder if this also applies to periods of abrupt change like depression and war, when people are shaken and forced to think. That is when they abandon their traditional parties, and move to extremes of left and right, which suggests an interest in political programs that address their lost jobs and income and their other newly awakened social concerns. In the Montreal neighbourhood where I grew up after WWII -- the only one to send a Communist MP to the federal parliament (he was later deported to Poland for spying) -- I recall groups of workers standing outside the local branch of the public library debating socialism. This was the generation which had experienced the depression and two world wars, and the accompanying growth of the international left. But maybe that was then -- when the rise of a socialist working class and social revolutions fostered great hopes -- and this is now, when these have all but disappeared from the historical memory of more recent generations which have grown up in more secure conditions.
Marv Gandall