He starts by making the point that class is something that American politicians don't normally discuss, but this year we have not one, but two "Huey Longs" funning for the Presidency - John Edwards and Michael Huckabee. One reason is that social mobility in the U.S. economy has come practically to a stop, while CEO's are making obscene incomes, even when they fail. Then he looks at how the Populist political message is being received by the electorate.
"Open attacks on the business elite are seldom heard from mainstream White House candidates in America," the news service reports, "despite skyrocketing CEO pay, rising income inequality, and a torrent of scandals in corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street."Beyond Republican nativism, militarism, and their fascistic[*] belief that action and violence matter while careful thought and the advice of experts is to be ignored, there is also the major problem that the corporations dominate the Republican Party along with many in the senior ranks of the national Democratic Party.
This reality exists because such full-throated populist politics is almost impossible in a campaign system that typically rewards candidates with the most money. It's difficult to indict corporate greed and the elite's war on the middle class, and then convince those same corporations and that same moneyed elite to contribute to your campaign. So, as I've said before, the fact that both Edwards and Huckabee are even competing for their parties' respective nomination in spite of such Establishment anger and financial disadvantage that comes with populism shows just how powerful their message is.
Some will cite Edwards' trailing his competitors as proof that his message isn't working. That's just silly. He's trailing for two reasons: 1) He's being grossly outspent by two corporate-funded candidates and 2) His opponents are starting to co-opt his message in an attempt to blur the distinctions between themselves and him. We have to look no further than Clinton's New Hampshire victory speech to see what I'm talking about. She is the top recipient of health industry campaign cash - a person who has publicly defended lobbyist influence in Washington. And yet, with a straight face, she is berating "the drug companies [and] health insurance companies." Similarly, even though he is the top recipient of Wall Street campaign cash, Obama has taken to railing on lobbyists and Big Money.
It is hard to watch the federal government approving corporate union-busting and refusal of managers to even deal with unions, let alone negotiate fairly, and the federal government refusal to act on the clearly needed increase in the minimum wage and not recognize that America is currently ruled by wealthy aristocrats who have no time for the peons who do the real work of the nation.
I am rather surprised to find how much the push-back against corporatism is effecting the election already - especially I am surprised by Huckabee carrying the message in the Republican Party. What does not surprised me is the angry antipathy that Huckabee's message has received from the Republican big-money classes.
2008 is going to be a very interesting year. In fact, it already has been.
[*] A term now made legal for political use by Jonah Goldberg.
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