Jobs, jobs jobs
by digby
Can you see what’s wrong with this picture?
“The president is the president; we can’t control him. Good, bad or indifferent. I think the Democratic Caucus, we can be loyal to the president, we can be part of the team, which we should to the best of our ability. But we need to focus more on middle-class issues,” said Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts. “We now have lost three elections in a row based on those themes [health care, immigration, minimum wage, pay equity for women] — all of which I agree with, all of which I can run on in my district, they’re fine — but middle-class Americans are not hearing that message. When was the last time the Democratic Caucus as a caucus — not individually — really talked about jobs? For me, we don’t do that enough.”
Other Democrats, though, believe it’s a mistake to adopt a more centrist message or to try to run away from Obama.
A couple of things. First, since when are the issues of minimum wage and pay equity for women not about jobs? I don’t think they relate to leisure time activity do you? Evidently, when he says “jobs” he means high wage jobs for men. Which is fine. They do need high wage jobs. So do women. So does everyone. The working poor have “jobs” as do women who are paid less than men. Both of those groups would like “jobs” — that pay more.
Second, (and this isn’t Capuano’s fault, it’s Politico’s) since when is the issue of jobs exclusively “centrist?” I don’t think it is. Good There’s a reason why labor unions gather on the left of the Democratic Party and it isn’t because they don’t care about good paying jobs. In fact, the centrist position is to care about “business” not jobs which requires lowering of regulation and taxes to make the rich get richer so they’ll spend more money and which will create more jobs. Also too: the deficit.
In any case it’s a little bit unfair to call it centrist simply because everyone “talks about” jobs on all sides of the ideological spectrum. The question is what to do about it. Liberals at least have some specifics on the table about pay equity, minimum wage, infrastructure etc that would directly help workers. Centrists and conservatives on the the other hand just keep blathering on about taxes and “incentives” and regulations even though the last 30 years have shown that none of that actually helps “jobs.” In fact, we’re watching the result of all that fetishizing of business destroy the middle class.
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