Third Way Dispatch

Gas could hit $7 a gallon. Iraq could collapse into anarchy. Kim Jong Il could sell nukes to Iran. But as bad as things get, conservatives are betting that one thing scares voters more—having “tax and spend liberals run Washington.”

This year, three Floridians were attacked and killed by alligators. It made national news – in fact, it was a bit of a national obsession for a few days. There were all sorts of helpful tips published by reputable newspapers about how to avoid a ‘gator attack. (Tip #1: Avoid remote swampy tropical areas.) But the truth is that most people will never see an alligator, let alone die from one. In fact, your chance of being felled by an alligator is about the same as your likelihood of having to pay the estate tax this year. You see, the estate tax – excuse me, the DEATH tax – that the conservative leadership is gunning to repeal applies to people deep into the 2-comma income range. That is, people who have more money when they die than I will earn over an entire lifetime (not that I am bitter about it).

It’s May 2006. The polls for the reigning champs are dismal. The base is dissipating; the middle dissolving; and the left is fulminating. Nancy Pelosi is measuring the drapes in the Speaker’s office. Chuck Schumer is stacking gold bricks in his war chest. The K-Street project has been suspended.

So what does the conservative leadership in Congress do? They pull out an old chestnut—the tax cut.

Democrats see themselves as the party of the middle-class. It’s a long-held, deeply cherished belief, but there’s one tiny little problem—the middle-class, especially the white middle-class—increasingly is voting for Republicans.

John Kerry lost the heart of the middle-class—voters with household incomes of between $30,000 and $75,000—by 6-points in 2004. He lost white middle-class voters by a whopping 22-points. And it wasn’t all about Kerry wind-surfing and ordering Swiss on his cheesesteak —down the ballot, white middle-class voters opted for Republican congressional candidates over Democrats by 19-points.

What’s the matter with the middle-class? Hot-button culture issues and national security no doubt draw away some voters, but they don’t tell the whole story.

April 20, 2006

Dear Mr. President,

We write to express our shared concern over a profound threat to America’s economic well being: the persistent violation of American intellectual property rights in Chinese markets. We urge you to continue to assure that the protection of American intellectual property from theft, piracy, and counterfeiting receives the attention it warrants. President Hu Jintao’s visit is an opportunity for you to protect America’s economic security by addressing these serious infringements.

“Good intentions and good beginnings are not the measure of success. What matters in the end is completion: performance and results. Not just making promises, but making good on promises.”

— President Bush’s 2003 Budget

Next week, the President submits his fiscal 2007 budget to Congress. Like his State of the Union Address, the budget will include a long litany of promises—mostly old, some new, almost all of them already broken. By Bush’s own standard—“performance and results”—his administration and his friends in Congress would get a failing grade.