Referendum on Trickle-Down

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 31, 2008; A19

SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful. Daywalt said she likes that Palin "hunts and that she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman."

But ask the 19-year-old from South Mountain, Pa., why she is voting against Barack Obama, and she homes right in on John McCain's closing argument. Obama, Daywalt said, "wants to spread the wealth," which she interprets as meaning that he'd "give it to people who don't do anything."

For all of the McCain campaign's relentless use of guilt-by-association techniques, the 2008 campaign is concluding on a remarkably substantive argument. It is a debate about what constitutes social fairness and whether a top-down or a bottom-up approach to economic growth will define the country's future.

Obama is often described as cautious, but he has been bold and unrelenting in his criticism of trickle-down economics and tax cuts concentrated on the wealthy. He used yesterday's negative numbers on economic growth to press his case against theories that conservatives have been touting for decades.

"The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident," Obama said. "It is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down, Wall Street-first, Main Street-last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years."

Yes, economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and McCain's claim that a more egalitarian approach to growth constitutes "socialism." McCain's attacks on Obama's thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

Obama has presented McCain with a problem. By endorsing tax cuts for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year -- i.e., the vast majority of taxpayers -- Obama has complicated the typical Republican claim that Democrats always support raising taxes.

Obama is candid in saying that he thinks the wealthy should pay more so that most Americans can pay less. He also thinks government can help vulnerable members of the middle class and the poor secure health care and go to college.

This has complicated McCain's effort to root his argument on taxes in middle-class self-interest, since Obama already has that covered. So McCain has actually had to defend giving large tax benefits to the wealthy and to business, and engage in a wholesale argument against any sort of redistribution.

McCain regularly charges that Obama wants to be the "redistributor in chief." Speaking at the rally here at Shippensburg University, Palin was forced to say this about Obama's support for a variety of tax credits aimed at helping the poor and middle class: "He says that he is for a tax credit, which is when government takes your money in order to give it away to someone else."

That is, of course, a mighty peculiar definition of tax credits. It is also an odd argument from a ticket that itself is committed to a research-and-development tax credit for corporations.

It's true that Obama favors "refundable" tax credits to help low-income workers, including some who may pay no income taxes but do pay many other taxes. McCain has argued that Obama's refundable tax credits amount to "welfare." That, too, is a strange claim, since McCain favors refundable credits as part of his health plan. But the whole idea is to convince voters such as Emily Daywalt that Obama really is just out to help those "who don't do anything."

And that is why Obama's 30-minute advertisement on Wednesday night was targeted directly to voters such as Daywalt, or at least to those like her who are still persuadable. It was Obama's tribute to the country's working people who seek nothing more than decent incomes, health care and a chance to see their children succeed. It was less a political ad than a documentary about the value of work and the responsibilities of family life.

For years, Republicans have argued that the way to help struggling working people is to give more money to the wealthy. Obama is saying that we should cut out the middleman and help working people directly. My hunch is that Obama's argument will prevail, and that conservatives will then work overtime to try to deny the judgment that the people have rendered.

postchat@aol.com

McCain Losing Support with Working Class Whites in Western PA and Elsewhere

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Saturday, October 10

KITTANNING -- The steel mills and coal mines of western Pennsylvania helped fuel the nation's economic engine. Today, old factory shells and boarded-up storefronts stand as bleak reminders of those once-prosperous times.

But the voters in working-class enclaves such as this still are a sought-after prize in presidential politics, and many are belatedly backing Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In the Democratic primaries, working-class whites consistently backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Later polls showed them overwhelmingly favoring Republican nominee John McCain.

Now, driven by fears that their personal finances could further deteriorate, many see Obama as the better choice -- their thinking in some cases driven more by concern about how McCain would handle the economy than any growing admiration for his rival.

"I don't know that there's anything I particularly like about him (Obama), but I dislike McCain, and I dislike the way the country is, and Republicans need to change," said lifelong Republican Ruth Ann Michel, 64, a retiree shopping in a market in Butler on a recent day. She said her vote for Obama would be her first for a Democratic presidential candidate.

While talk in these parts is mostly about the economy, a prominent -- if not unspoken subtext -- is race. A study of the impact of racial attitudes on the election conducted by The Associated Press with Yahoo News and Stanford University found that whites without a college education were much more likely to hold negative views of blacks than those with a college education.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell says a drowning man doesn't care what color the person is who throws him a life preserver.

"This election is going to be decided when a husband and wife sit at a kitchen table, or a single parent sits at the kitchen table, looks at their bills and figures out who is most likely to help them with their financial condition," Rendell said. "If the answer's Barack Obama, nobody's going to care whether he's black, green, orange, purple, fuchsia or whatever."

In April, Rendell backed Clinton in the primary and had to answer questions after saying some whites in his state were likely to vote against Obama because of his race.

Darryl Hendon, 50, of Beaver Falls, who is black and on disability, said he thinks some white Democrats are reluctant to back Obama because of his race.

Since early September, growing numbers of whites who have not finished college have been expressing the view that Obama cares about people like them, even as fewer say so about McCain, according to AP-GfK polling.

In early September, McCain had a 26-point advantage among white voters without a college degree who were likely to vote, according to the poll. But by late September, the advantage had dropped to 7 points, with McCain leading 46 percent to 39 percent among this group.

For Obama, that's far better than Democrats have done in recent presidential elections. President Bush carried whites who haven't finished college by 23 points in 2004 and by 17 points in 2000.

In Pennsylvania, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain, compared with a close race after the political conventions. Clay Richards, a Quinnipiac pollster, said that's because support among working-class voters in the state is growing, and he suspects many former Clinton supporters are moving to Obama's camp.

The candidates' campaign schedules make clear the importance they attach to Pennsylvania's working-class voters.

McCain and running mate Sarah Palin staged a rally Wednesday in the former steel town of Bethlehem in northeast Pennsylvania. On Friday, Palin was stopping in Pittsburgh, then heading for Johnstown in Western Pennsylvania, where unemployment recently topped 7 percent. The self-described hockey mom planned to drop the ceremonial first puck when the Philadelphia Flyers open their season against the New York Rangers on Saturday.

Obama, for his part, will be in Philadelphia on Saturday. And on Sunday, his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, will be joined in his blue-collar hometown of Scranton by Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton.

In Western Pennsylvania, Republican and Democratic voters alike tend to be socially conservative, pro-gun and anti-abortion rights. Many are so-called Reagan Democrats willing to vote for a Republican because of social issues.

While some pockets in this region have recovered and flourished after hard times in the 1980s, many never did. Populations have dwindled and many of those left are elderly.

"The ones who can get a good education ... they leave, which I don't blame them because there's nothing here, really," said Georgia Lutz, 55, who was eating breakfast at a diner in Beaver Falls recently with Hendon. "The economy is absolutely horrible and we're going into a depression right now."

The working-class vote is particularly important in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, where the percentage of adults without a college degree ranks exceeds the national average.

They also are a key voting bloc because those personally affected by the current economic woes appear to be among the more persuadable voters, according to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll. Among them is Michelle Smith, 41, who works retail during the day at a surplus shop in Kittanning and tends bar at night. Combined, she and her husband have six kids.

"Decent working families can't survive. It's very sad," Smith said. "They raised minimum wage, but now you're paying triple in gas to get to work. It evens itself out."

A Democrat, Smith said she's leaning toward McCain. While she said she likes Obama on a personal level, she wonders if Obama has what it takes to fix the economy.

Obama's already won over Don Melochick, 58, a construction worker from Whitehall in northeast Pennsylvania. A registered Democrat who's voted Republican in the past, Melochick said he plans to vote for Obama because he's "somewhat better" than McCain.

If McCain "hasn't changed nothing in his 30 years ... he's not going to change anything now," Melochick said, from the counter of a diner outside Philadelphia. But he adds: "I don't think Obama will either."