>In Bartel's original paper -- where he divides the electorate into
>third by income -- he says that the lower third -- the working class
>in his definition -- mainly cares about economic issues and holds
>economic policy preferences that are to the left of the other two
>classes. So by that analysis, going left on the economy should have
>the potential to pull in lots of votes.
New votes? I doubt it; they're probably voting Dem already. So if the middle third is indifferent and the top third hostile, they've got little to gain with this strategy. In the second paper, with the education-based def of w.c., the white masses rate the Dem party to their left on econ issues. Phantasmically, perhaps, but that's what they say.
Surveys aside, where are the successful candidates who purused an economic populist agenda? Congressman Kucinich, maybe, but certainly not presidential candidate Kucinich - and Dem primary voters are the leftest of all.
Doug