On Wed, 22 Oct 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
> I know this is the Internet, where it's sometimes hard to read a whole
> paper, so I'll just quote some more from Bartels. Reading these papers,
> and reading Jeffrey Stonecash's book, has forced me to rethink a lot of
> things I used to believe. E.g., 1) the Dems would do better by taking a
> more "populist" economic position
How does reading Bartels persuade you that's not true? IIRC, he says:
1) the working class cares more about economic issues than social issues, and they are liberal on economics and conservative on social issues; and
2) the professional classes care more about social issues than economic issues, and they are liberal on social issues and conservative on economic issues.
It seems to follow from that the Dems would be better going left on both -- each group would gripe about one (as they do now), but they'd both be getting what they want on the issue that is more determining for them.
Michael