Chicago Daily Observer

Democrats speak up for the less prosperous; they have well-intentioned policies to help them; they are disturbed by inequality, and want to do something about it. Their concern is real and admirable. The trouble is, they lack respect for the objects of their solicitude. Their sympathy comes mixed with disdain, and even contempt.

Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and ... Read More...

I thought his speech was disappointing. He played it very safe. What he said was insubstantial even by his standards, and sometimes painfully banal. And it seemed to me to lack the flair in delivery that usually makes up the deficit. There were no memorable lines. All that stuff about tearing down (metaphorical) walls was predictable and lame. It was a mistake to evoke memories of “Tear down this wall,” an unrepeatably dramatic stroke. And who thought it was a good idea to recycle “This is the moment”? Old hat by now in the US and entirely without resonance in Germany. He seemed subdued and a little nervous, too, which would be understandable, since it is difficult to please two such different audiences–the one in Berlin, and the one back home–at the same time.

Not long ago John McCain was almost boasting that he knew little about economics. That kind of candor, a distinctive McCain trait, is likable but has its limits. His days of making jokes about his ignorance appear to be over. Worries about the economy began to dominate public opinion even before the current slowdown was properly under way.

Why confine the choice to eliminating the Bush tax cuts entirely or preserving them as they stand?

Between now and November, those worries will only mount: The faltering economy is likely to get worse before it gets better. McCain is going to need an economic program, and he had better get used to talking about this subject as though it matters.

Avidly seeking the blue-collar vote–in Wisconsin today and Texas and Ohio on March 4th–Obama continues to pump up the anti-trade populism, and to tack even further to the left. Ed Luce reports in the FT:

Barack Obama on Monday made an aggressive pitch at Ohio’s blue-collar workers by proposing a “Patriot Employers” plan that would lower corporate taxes for companies that did not ship jobs overseas.

The proposal, which came two weeks before the critical Ohio primary and just before on Tuesday’s nominating contest in Wisconsin, is the most radical any presidential candidate has put forward so far to mitigate the perceived effects of globalisation on US manufacturing…