[lbo-talk] Bartels on Frank, etc.

[Seth Ackerman]

Doug Henwood wrote:

> I've gotta say that after reading Bartels stuff I've had to revise my 
> thinking about the DLC strategy. I used to think, like many others, 
> that a full-throated populist appeal might reverse their electoral 
> decline, and that it was suicidal to go after upscale voters. But if 
> middle-income whites don't respond to the populism, and upper-income 
> whites do respond to the social liberalism, then maybe it makes 
> electoral sense after all. Esp given all the absention at the low end. 
> Mobilizing nonvoters is very hard work; luring middle- and 
> upper-income voters may be a lot easier.
>
> It doesn't make me happy to say this.


To say that middle-income whites don't respond to populism means that 
Dems have already tried a populist strategy directed at middle-income 
whites. But where and when have they done it? Lower-income whites vote 
Democrat because Dem rhetoric evinces concern for "those left behind." 
But in their policy-rhetoric the Dems never evoke any conflict of 
interests between the rich and "everybody else." So how could mid-income 
whites possibly recognize themselves in it?

Seth