> 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