Third Way Dispatch

May 16, 2006

Editors Note:

On May 12, Sean was seriously wounded in an ambush in Fallujah. While we do not yet know the details of the attack or if others in his unit were hurt, Sean was shot in the neck, treated in Iraq and quickly evacuated to Germany and then to Bethesda Medical Center in Maryland.

His current condition is stable but serious. With the swelling and other trauma from his wounds, doctors still cannot predict the full extent or permanence of his injuries. His family is by his side, and his many friends and colleagues are keeping close tabs on his condition.

We will update this page with further information as it is available.

Third Way

(This arrived as a letter from Sean dated May 1, 2006)

Well, one month down, six months to go. Time is moving fairly quickly here. The days that we are patrolling or conducting other operations are hectic, so time flies. The days we are on the FOB security move more slowly, but they provide us a chance to rest our bodies.

When you believe that government ought to be “small enough to be drowned in a bathtub,” expect some spillage over the side. In this case, the spillage comes from the Mexican border, where more than a half million illegal immigrants enter each year.

Today, Third Way released a report showing that under Bush, enforcement of immigration laws at the Mexican border is down by more than 30% from the Clinton years. That’s right, Mr. Dobbs —down 30% from the Clinton years! It gets worse. Once they make it into the interior of the country, you might as well put out the welcome mat. It would take 228 years to deport all of the illegal immigrants already in the country, under the Bush enforcement rate (coincidentally the year in which the dividend tax break expires).

What’s going on?

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.

Every day, untold thousands of new pornographic websites are created, and every day more kids are lured to them. But, as they say in the cartoons, “meanwhile, back in the Halls of Justice,” the superheros who run Congress sit around in their tights and their capes and do nothing.

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.