Why we lost our working class base, what we need to do to get it back

[Sandpiper]

It used to be that blue collar and working class Americans voted Dem by a substantial margin, but that just isn't the case anymore.

The truth is though, we haven't given them much reason to vote for us in recent times. During our slide into minority party status, we've really stabbed them in the back in a number of ways:

1) Sold them out on Clinton's push for universal healthcare

2) Sold them out on Gingrich's punitive welfare reform

3) Sold them out on NAFTA

4) Sold them out on GATT

5) Sold them out on Bush's tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare packages


If we want to win back this decades old base of the party, we need to elect leaders who will show them that the Democratic Party really is fighting for their interests, and not just paying lip service to the idea.

Not supporting more Free Trade agreements is a start, supporting living wages is even better, supporting universal healthcare is even better still.

[info being]

1. Just let Republicans starve them. That's all we have to do.

[Sandpiper]

2. It still won't matter

If the Dems won't fight for them.

[Warpy]

4. Dump the DLC

Those conservative old farts are the ones who took blue collar issues off the table in favor of squabbling over yuppies. That left the working class ripe for the plucking by the people who preached the safety of a moral world plus tax cuts.

[Cat Atomic]

5. I agree.

I come from a thoroughly blue collar background, too. Alot of my old pals seem anxious to date the rapist. There are things we can do in the meantime, but I think their attidues may be different in the morning anyway. So to speak.

[MidwestTransplant]

3. After their healthcare is up 70% four years from now

I don't think Gay Marriage will be a salinet issue for them anymore.

[sandnsea]

6. Link please

I checked the exit polls and that's not what I found at all. I think there's alot of assumptions flying around here today and I'm not liking what I'm seeing.