From The Hill's front page this morning, Brent Budowsky is still livid, fighting mad, and, poor thing, living somewhere in the rarefied retreat of textbook rationality: "Democrats ... should cancel the week of recess before Labor Day, go to the floor of Congress and fight for American jobs, rally the party base, and go to the country with a campaign worthy of the Democratic Party.
"I am fed up with the lack of fight, lack of spirit, lack of energy and lack of cojones of a party that must renew its right to call itself the party of the people, and renew its fight to stand up for the hardworking, law-abiding, good-hearted patriotic men and women who have been shut out of the corridors of power for far too long."
Now flash to the Hill's main stories, where we encounter vox populi:
"In an ominous sign for Democrats, a new poll has found that people trust the GOP more on the economy and jobs.... In a USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday, 49 percent of respondents said Republicans would do a better job handling the economy than Democrats; only 38 percent said Democrats would be better. On jobs, Republicans held a statistically significant 46-41 advantage over Democrats."
Those "trusting" respondents, Mr. Budowsky, are your hardworking, law-abiding, good-hearted patriotic men and women who wouldn't know the monstrous peril of GOP economics if it crushed them like the frivolous proles they are -- oh wait, GOP economics already did that; add blind and woefully ill informed -- and who remain at the helm of this national road show to a deflationary hell.
They are in large part, Mr. Budowsky, your swing-district voters, the ones who wanted to have a beer with George and thought John was the elephant's meow; they're the ones who put Dems in the Congressional majority with the caveat that the latter should think, behave and vote like Republicans.
They're the ones, my cojones-seeking friend, who castrated the Democratic Party and would now interpret that party's energetic "fight for American jobs" -- achievable only through the bugbear of higher deficits -- as a betrayal of hardworking, law-abiding, good-hearted patriotic men and women.
Crazy? You bet your commentariat's membership card it is. But Brent, that's what Congressional Democrats are dealing with. If all the polling said "fight," there'd be no need to fight because the Dems already would be passing jobs bill after jobs bill, per the polling.
And that, Mr. Budowsky, swings us back to what you and your fellow textbook progressives see as a cajones-less strategy, but others -- others just as progressively minded as you, Mr. Budowsky -- see as merely circumstantial necessity: In lieu of "fighting" for jobs bills to nowhere, the Dems must remind voters, since they seem to have forgotten, what the recent GOP majority did for -- to -- them.
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