The book received a lot of praise from David Brooks of the NY Times. Rush Limbaugh ripped the book on his show, but that is always good reason to read the book, in my opinion.
kittu..
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Grand New Party
I recently read the book "Grand New Party" written by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, two young conservatives. It is a recipe for how the GOP can win back the working class of America. Although intended for Republicans, I believe the Democratic Party can gain more from the recommendations of the authors. They essentially recommend an interesting combination of social conservatism and fiscal liberalism (that's not a typo). It chronicles working class America from the "New Deal" 1930s to the present.
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3 comments:
Welcome Kittu! This book sounded intriguing when I heard about it but I haven't read it yet.
I hope it's more than a Karl Rovian take on how to get working folks to vote against their financial self-interest.
Any strategy that has "social conservatism" as one of its pillars makes me expect the worst - false piety and demagoguery.
But I guess I shouldn't judge a book before I've read it! :-)
I have read with interest about the shrinking gap in the polls between Obama and McCain. Obama's reluctance to hit back ferociously has probably hurt him. Republicans have historically always tried to paint the Democratic nominee as an 'Elitist' to destroy him in the eyes of that working class. This has been going on for several elections. The Grand New Party talks some about this.
Over the past couple of days we've seen a more feisty and 'testy' Obama. Just when Steve Schmidt and his cohorts were succeeding in painting Obama as an 'Elitist', McCain gift-wrapped the 'houses' gaffe.
Ezra Klein thinks Obama may have found his line of attack.
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=08&year=2008&base_name=a_unified_message_on_mccains_e
But let's not fool ourselves. Race is playing a big role in keeping this election close. I'm tired of all the talking heads trying to think of different reasons why Obama is not ahead in the polls without including race amongst them.
I agree that racism is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about!
These polls in West Virginia during the primaries sent a chill down my spine. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080514/news_1n14primary.html
2 in 10 white Democratic voters said race was a factor in their vote. Made me wonder - if 2 in 10 Democrats are willing to self-identify as racist, what's the real percentage among the general populace?
No question Obama has a big hill to climb. In fact I think it's wise to discount the polling for him by a few percent to account for latent racism.
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