New Year's Resolution for Progressives

My father has told me for years that the history of the American Left amounts to this: Whenever the left decides to form a firing squad, it stands in a circle. It's hard to disagree.

I thought about that adage watching the reaction to Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural convocation. The whole episode, I suspect, will pass after January 20, but the teapot tempest the selection has created among "progressives" does not do us much credit. It suggests that some, at least, on the left are simply going to recourse to the old habits rather than embrace the opportunity we have to change the direction of the country.

A quick, potted history: Since the late 1960s the American left has been defined by two commitments. On the one hand, a politics of personal identity - identity being defined largely on the basis of biological essentialism (race, gender, sexual orientation); on the other, opposition and critique rather than the exercise of real political power. The left fell in love with losing, felt comforted by it, addicted to it. (Winning, after all, suggests power and power corrupts). Not coincidentally, the left has been largely irrelevant to American politics for a generation. (Todd Gitlin, among others, has written quite perceptively about all this).

This was the left I grew up in, through the late 1970s and 1980s, and it all came home to me early in the Clinton administration. As the Clinton health-care plan died an agonizing Congressional death, as welfare "reform" was fought, as Newt Gingrich closed the government not once but twice, and as Congressional Republicans attempted a coup d'etat by impeaching Clinton over a tawdry sexual affair (yes, Hillary was right - it was a vast, right-wing conspiracy) this issue that most motivated grass-roots progressives was. . .gays in the military!

To the best of my recollection, the largest public demonstration to take place during the Clinton years was 1993's gay rights march which was designed, among other things, to generate support for permitting gay Americans to serve openly in the military. I was at that rally - along with several hundred thousand of my closest friends - and I remember having a queasy feeling.

As a kid, I grew up in the anti-Vietnam, anti-military left. I grew up believing that the Pentagon was the problem (I still believe that) and that it needed to be shrunk, not expanded (I still believe that too). I spent my college years talking people of all kinds out of joining up, and yet here I was on the mall with people who wanted in. Meanwhile, health care reform vanished, and Newt Gingrich took out a contract on America.

The lesson of the Clinton years for me was this: Clinton was no progressive, but he was certainly better than the alternative and he got precious little support from us. After 12 years of Reagan-Bush, we had a chance to get some of what we wanted, but we didn't know what to do.

The reaction to Rick Warren feels a bit like that 1993 rally to me. Angry opposition based on the easy reflex to the old identity politics. For the record, I'm disgusted by Rick Warren too, not simply because of his vile homophobia, but because I resent bitterly any intrusion of religion into our public life - whether it is Warren's brand of feel-good ol time Christianity, Lieberman's Judiasm or Scalia's catholicism. Why do we need a religious invocation at all??!!

So here we are, after 8 years that have made the Reagan-Bush years look positively utopian and how will we respond? The question I pose here is not whether Obama will disappoint some on the left - he will. Rather, I wonder if what constitutes the left is prepared to trade purity for victory, compromised accomplishment for lost causes.

I propose this New Year's Resolution for progressives. Say it out loud with me: In 2009 I will not pit "better" against "best." I will concede some in order to achieve more. I will not fall on my sword just because some piece of legislation or some presidential appointment does not score 100% on my ideological purity test. I will enjoy winning, even if the victory is incomplete.

Change was the mantra of the Obama campaign. Were progressives listening? Are we prepared to change as well?

LOL

I am a sucker for political satire--and the folks at JibJab have given us this hoot of a video. It's got something to offend everyone--and it will--but it's also really funny. My favorite: the unicorn scene. So take a moment on this hot summer day and LOL.

OBAMA REACHES OUT TO WOMEN

I don't have much time this morning, but this just arrived in my email box. It's part of Obama's effort this week to reach out to Hillary Clinton supporters and to build a base among working women. It's a little glimmer of hope--one of the positive results of the insistence by Hillary supporters that women's issues get attention in the campaign. From my vantage point, the paid leave (still too small, but better than what we have now) and the minimum wage increase are the most important. What do you think?

Obama to Unveil Plan for Economic Security for America’s Working Women

As President, Obama will provide a tax cut to 71 million working women, guarantee seven days of paid sick leave for 22 million additional women, and make childcare more affordable for 7.5 million working mothers

CHICAGO, IL—Over the next two days, Barack and Michelle Obama will hold campaign events to highlight Obama’s plan to provide economic security for America’s working women. Obama’s plan directly addresses the challenges that women and families face affording quality child care, juggling personal and professional commitments, and coping with soaring prices.

“I don’t accept an America where a woman earns less than a man for the same work, or an America that makes women choose between their kids and their careers. It’s unacceptable that women are denied jobs or promotions because they’ve got kids at home. It’s unacceptable that 22 million working women don’t have a single paid sick day,” Senator Obama said. “When I’m President, we’ll take these critical issues head-on and help women and families thrive in a changing economy.”

On Thursday, Senator Obama will attend a women’s fundraiser in New York with Senator Hillary Clinton and focus on his economic security plan at a town hall meeting with women in Fairfax, Virginia. Michelle Obama will hold women’s roundtables in Pontiac, Michigan and Kansas City, Missouri today and tomorrow to discuss the challenges facing working women and families—and the relief they’d see under an Obama presidency.


Obama’s Plan for Economic Security for America’s Working Women


Ø Tax cut for working women. Barack Obama will provide 71 million working women with a tax cut of up to $500—or $1000 per family—to help offset the impact of stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs.


Ø Balancing work and family. Obama will help address the challenge of balancing work and family by guaranteeing seven days of paid sick leave to the 22 million working women who currently have none. Obama will also expand child care tax credits, double funding for afterschool programs to serve 1 million more children, and will create a summer learning program to serve an additional 1 million young people.


Ø Health care for every American. As President, Obama will reduce health care costs by $2,500 for a typical family, while providing affordable health care for every American.

Ø A secure retirement guaranteed. Obama will strengthen retirement security for working women, who currently enter retirement with less than half the retirement savings of men. Obama’s plan will automatically enroll workers in retirement accounts (with the option to opt-out) and make these accounts portable to help working parents save while balancing their family obligations.


Ø Equal Pay. Obama will fight for paycheck equity and to close the pay gap that leaves women earning only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. The pay gap is even more pronounced for minority working women—with Hispanic women earning only 53 cents and African American women only 62 cents for every dollar of male earnings.


Ø Affordable college. Obama will put the cost of college in reach for by providing a $4,000 refundable tax credit available at the time of enrollment in exchange for community service.


Ø Raise the minimum wage. Obama will help low-wage working women move into the middle class by increasing the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and indexing it to inflation—and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).


Ø Support Women-Owned Small Businesses: Obama will help women-owned small businesses innovate, grow and create jobs by cutting their capital gains tax rate to zero, and implementing the Women Owned Business contracting program that has been abandoned by the Bush Administration.

BITTERNESS WATCH

Just as I had surmised, the supposed uprising of bitter women, implacable in their anger at the Obama triumph over Hillary Clinton, is the product of sleazy Republican machinations. Of course, many feminists were justifiably angry at the misogyny directed toward candidate Clinton--and for good reason. But the idea that they would rush to the embrace of anti-feminist, sexist, and retrograde John McCain is yet another perverse example of MSM women-bashing (women are SO irrational and emotional that they would support sexist McCain) and lazy reporting. It took blogger Amanda Marcotte just a few minutes to do what major newspapers and the broadcast news--too credulous and too feckless--could not do. She unearthed the Republican roots of the supposed feminist avengers of Hillary. But this is just the beginning. It's just a matter of time before we hear from "civil rights" leaders for McCain...and so on. Let the swift-boating and ratfucking begin.

GRIM PROGNOSIS

The grim consequences of racial and economic inequality in the United States are especially visible in our health care system. By every measure, the health gaps between blacks and whites are stark. And to a great extent in the United States, where you live determines your access to goods and resources, the quality of social services, and the accessibility of affordable and decent health care. That America is still balkanized by race, despite the gains of the long struggle for civil rights, plays an important role in the maldistribution of resources by place. But just as important are wide disparaties in health, social services, and education by state and, within states, by locality, the long term consequence of America's distinctive form of governance that relies on the states to bear much of the cost of social provision.

As for the impact of place on health care, George Washington University researcher Bruce Siegel has it just right: “health care is local, just like politics, so you’re going to see a lot of differences in what communities do.”

Two pieces in today's NY Times make clear the high costs that being born the wrong color or being born or living in the wrong place have for health care. One reports on a Dartmouth medical school study of medical disparities found that "blacks typically were less likely to receive recommended care than whites within a given region" and also that health care outcomes ranged widely from state to state. Not surprisingly, some of the grimmest outcomes are in those Southern states that have spent relatively little on medical care. For you real wonks, the 2008 Dartmouth Atlas is available here.

The other Times piece offers a bleak report from California--a stark reminder that health care opportunities vary widely from place to place. LA hospitals, like USC, Cedars-Sinai, and UCLA, offer some of the best medical care in the world. But for residents of the mostly black and Hispanic South Central neighborhood, health care has gotten worse. Since 2000, 15 hospitals have closed, most of which serve the city's poorest and sickest residents. The result is that sick and often uninsured people have flooded local health clinics. Adding insult to injury, Governor Arnold Schwarznegger is threatening to cut state Medicaid funding, which will both limit health care options for the poor and cut revenue into the dwindling number of hospitals that serve them. California's Medicaid payments are already low.

These stories highlight the need for universal health care. One difference between the Obama and Clinton campaigns was that her health care reform proposals were more far reaching than his. I'm hoping that candidate Obama visits an inner-city hospital or two, talks to some of the doctors and nurses serving impoverished communities, and puts forth a set of reforms that looks more like Clinton's. It's the least he and we can do for places like Mississippi and South LA.

RACE AND THE POLITICS OF RESENTMENT

The forever bitter Geraldine Ferraro has done it again. In a Boston Globe op-ed published on Friday, she argues that the Dems should launch an investigation of sexism and racism in the primary campaigns. Maybe this would be useful, but I worry a lot more about the Republicans' anti-women, anti-family policies and the GOP's long and sordid history of race baiting than I do some vile Hillary haters and nasty Obama baiters. But, though Ms. Ferraro couches her argument in the high-minded rhetoric of healing, her piece is really just another chance for her to pontificate on what she thinks is the justifiable "racial resentment" of working-class, white voters.

She writes: "As for Reagan Democrats, how Clinton was treated is not their issue. They are more concerned with how they have been treated. Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.

Whom he chooses for his vice president makes no difference to them. That he is pro-choice means little. Learning more about his bio doesn't do it. They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind."

Let's unpack this a bit.

1. "If you're white, you can't open your mouth without being accused of being a racist"? Well, in my experience, it depends on what you say when you open your mouth. In the 1980s, Ferraro argued that the only reason Jesse Jackson was a national candidate was because of his race. In 2008, she made nearly the identical argument regarding Obama. I think it's too much to take these utterances as evidence of Ferraro's racism. We waste too much time fretting about the "hearts and minds" of alleged white racists and not enough time ferreting out real institutionalized, structural racism, in places like the mortgage market, in real estate practices, and in hiring decisions. Compared to these deep-rooted injustices, Ferraro's ill-chosen words are minor.

But did Ferraro inject racial politics into the race in a divisive way? Of course. And she should be criticized for doing that.

2. "Obama's playing the race card..." In fact, what is noteworthy about this campaign is how little Obama has mentioned race, except in the context of calling for unity and the bridging of racial divisions. Stanford Law professor Richard Thompson Ford has written a smart little book, The Race Card, in which he argues against the misuse of charges of racism, which he argues divert attention from the larger issues of deeply entrenched, institutional racism. In my opinion, Obama hasn't spoke enough about deep-rooted racial inequalities in America, probably because of the fear of being branded as a "black" candidate who will pander to the supposed "special interests" of black folks. And Obama has refrained from calling out his critics for being racially insensitive. On the race card, Ferraro really has it wrong. Obama has played his hand close rather than resorting to the race-baiting that Ford so powerfully demolishes in his book.

3. "...as frightening..." I can understand how some white Americans (particularly those who have never set foot in a black church or had anything resembling a meaningful conversation about politics and religion and everyday life with a black person) could find Reverend Wright or Father Pfleger's words frightening.

Ms. Ferraro what, what has Obama said that is the least bit frightening?

4. "They are not upset with Obama because he's black..." I'm afraid, to some extent, this is wishful thinking. I spend a lot of time every summer sitting around the campfire with my Reagan Democrat relatives. Most of them think that Bill Clinton was a far-out socialist. But after a few beers, it's hard for them to contain the barely beneath the surface racial resentments. If I want to rile em up, I just have to evoke the memory of the late Detroit Mayor Coleman Young--the "Coal Man" is the least of the harsh epithets that fly his way.

The sum of anecdote is not data. The statistics on racial inequality are grim. Today, the fifteen most racially segregated metropolitan areas in the US are in the North. It's important to remember that the Rustbelt North has a long and troubled history of racial conflict. Northern whites fought fiercely to keep their neighborhoods racially pure. They picked up and fled when even a few blacks moved in. Segregation prevailed--in movie theaters, amusement parks, and restaurants--well into the 1960s in many parts of the North. This is the world in which I came of age. Things have changed a lot in the last forty years, but there are still deep, deep currents of racism and racial resentment that we can't wish away, and not just in the deep South.

Ms. Ferraro (and other politicians and pundits who opine about race) need to confront the forgotten history of racial inequality in the North and the unfinished struggle against it. To deny the existence of racism does not help.

5. "They don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School..." This is a version of the Obama as out-of-touch elitist argument. Versus what? Wellesley and Yale, the White House and upper, upper class Chappaqua married to a Georgetown and Yale graduate who gets $250,000 a speech? Or a privileged son of military brass who surrounds himself with lobbyists, and is married to a beer-distributor heiress? Or our current president, Yale, Skull and Bones, and Harvard? My parents, who have not voted for a Democrat since 1964, loved that Harvard-educated, Hyannisport sailor, and international jetsetting president elected in 1960. My bus-driving Irish immigrant grandfather and hard-working Irish immigrant grandmother had portraits of the truly elite John and Jackie hanging in their kitchen. It's not the pedigree that should matter. It's the politics.

By playing up the charge that Obama is an elitist, Ferraro is playing into the hands of Republicans who have spent most of the last forty years accusing Democrats of being out-of-touch, even as the GOP pushed through all sorts of policies that benefited the elites and screwed people like my grandparents.

To Ferraro et al: Enough of this politically problematic, historically inaccurate discussion of race and elitism. It's time to focus on the issues.

COCK OF THE WALK

It will a long while before Barack Obama selects his running mate, though the speculation is already running wild. The current fad, more robust and long-lasting than most, is that Obama should balance his ticket with a white male who is well to his right. Someone like Virginia Senator, ex-Reaganite, former Navy Secretary Jim Webb.

A number of assumptions, all of them dubious, are embedded in this argument.

First is a belief, stoked by the right, but also by a number of Hillary-ites, that Obama is effeminate and that he needs to have a manly man at his side--"a real man's man full of anger and testosterone." The argument goes that Obama can innoculate himself against charges of elitism by choosing a tough guy who can appeal to America's auto mechanics and firefighters.

Second is the related argument, one that has circulated in Democratic circles since the early 1970s, that liberals will only win if they attract alienated white men back into their fold. The meme began with the 1970 hard hat riots and continued through Reagan Democrats and NASCAR dads. All of them, the argument went, could be won over to a ticket that included a tough guy. Frankly, I don't think that the performative masculinity of the VP candidate matters much. If it did, why did the GOP pick George H.W. or Dan Quayle, neither of whom were the belly-scratching, beer swilling types. And Dick Cheney might be a good duck hunting companion, so long as you stand behind him, but he's too sour and reclusive to appeal to anyone other than Haliburton executives and wingnuts. And the tough-as-nails Lloyd Bentsen was not enough to redeem Michael Dukakis.

Third is the post-9/11 argument that the United States needs to project a tough, masculine face to the world in service of the war on terror. A confident, swaggering America will strike fear in the heart of our foes. Counter-argument: we've have George W. "Mission Accomplished" Bush in office for the last seven and a half years and his bravado has only stoked the flames of resentment among our allies and our enemies alike. Alas, chest thumping is not strongly correlated with effective diplomacy. Recasting America as Marlboro Man makes for good photo ops, but not effective alliance building.

But the outcome of the Democratic caucuses and primaries suggests something quite different. It's the need to win over women voters. Obama has been doing quite well among male voters, but he has been struggling to win the support of women. Current polls show Obama still struggling to gain the support of Democratic women. And national match-ups show that a sizeable percentage of white women voters support McCain over Obama. A recent Gallup poll found that "Obama loses to McCain by nine points among white women, while Clinton wins by three points. Clinton does better than Obama among both blue-collar and white-collar white women." Other polls show Obama doing better among women, but he can't afford to take their votes for granted.

Democratic women have gravitated toward Hilary for a number of reasons, in part as a reaction to misogyny directed toward her, in part because Hilary has addressed head-on many of the concerns of women voters with specific recommendations rather than high-minded rhetoric. Perhaps most important is the deep but mostly unnoticed strain of blue-collar feminism that explains much of the bitterness of Rustbelt women voters and their attraction to a strong woman like Hillary.

I am a skeptic of Hillary and of the Clintons for many reasons--and remain to be convinced that she should be on Obama's ticket. But it's in Obama's interest to look for a veep candidate who will appeal to women voters, whether it is a man or woman. (There are good arguments for picking a woman candidate). In 2000, women voters split more or less evenly between Bush and Gore, but in 2004, they went decisively for W. Obama and the Democrats will get some of them back, but they need to widen the gender gap as far as they can. It is unlikely that women voters are going to be seduced by Webb's macho, Tailhook-attending, antifeminist, cock-of-the-walk style.

PROFESSOR HILLARY CLINTON'S LESSON IN POLITICAL HISTORY

Down in Boca Raton, Florida, Hillary Clinton is doing her best imitation of, well, people like me. Politico reports that "Clinton, at times sounding like a modern history professor, praised the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights pioneers and talked about her own efforts to fight legislative redistricting and voter identification initiatives that she said dilute minority voting power."

She analogizes her effort to count the contested results of the premature primaries in Michigan and Florida to the actions of courageous activists who "refused to accept their assigned place as second-class citizens. Men and women who saw America not as it was, but as it could and should be, and committed themselves to extending the frontiers of our democracy. The abolitionists and all who fought to end slavery and ensure freedom came with the full right of citizenship. The tenacious women and a few brave men who gathered at the Seneca Falls convention back in 1848 to demand the right to vote."

I am all in favor of voting rights--and I agree that it is in the interest of the Democratic Party to figure out how to handle the unresolved mess of the Florida and Michigan primaries. But Hillary's analogy is history as hyperbole. With all due respect to candidate Clinton, she is no Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Lucretia Mott. If she were, she would have long ago figured out a way to let the Michiganians and Floridians revote, after a full campaign with both candidates represented on the ballot. For the sake of the Democratic Party, I do hope that she and Obama reach some sort of amicable agreement that allows the seating of those two states' delegations. But ultimately, their fate does not rise of the level of enslaved African Americans or disenfranchised women.

NEOLIBERALISM IN THE UNION HALL

"At the union hall in Gary," writes today's Times, Hillary Clinton "grew so animated in describing the plight of old-line industrial workers that she described them in language from the oft-repeated poem, attributed to the German pastor Martin Niemoller, about the victims of Nazism. 'First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist,'" etc.

Clinton's version: "They came for the steel companies and nobody said anything. They came for the auto companies and nobody said anything. They came for the office companies, people who did white-collar service jobs, and no one said anything. And they came for the professional jobs that could be outsourced, and nobody said anything."

Good speechmaking. Props to Hillary's writers for coining some nice phrases. But my question is this. Who is the they? Let's start with steel. It's been on the decline in the U.S. since the late 1950s, its diaspora encouraged by federal trade policies that rewarded off-shore investment. Gary was already a shell of its former industrial self by the early 1960s. And the auto industry? Well its decentralization began apace in the supposedly prosperous postwar years. Detroit alone lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs, most in the auto industry and in auto-related production, between 1947 and 1963. Further encouraging the rusting of the Rustbelt: federal defense, highway construction, and tax policies that rewarded job creation in outlying suburbs, small towns, and increasingly in low-wage regions of the South and West. New Deal and post-New Deal growth politics played a key role. The process of disinvestment from the Rustbelt enjoyed bipartisan support.

That process accelerated in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, in part because of the rise of global competition, but also because of treaties, trade policies, and financialization that encouraged, indeed rewarded, disinvestment. Companies that had decamped for the non-union South now moved even further afield to the Maquiladora region of Mexico, the Caribbean, and increasingly East Asia. Free floating, unregulated international capital flooded into places like Malaysia and China, in search of cheap labor and freedom from environmental regulation.

All of these changes were part of a process that Republicans and Democrats alike presided over. Much of the offshoring of capital and business happened in the 1990s under the watch of none other than the Clinton administration.

Unions and community groups did speak out when they came for the steel and auto companies, but their voices were drowned out by the tidal wave of neoliberalism that remade the economies of America and the world, benefiting the few at the expense of the many. But who was silent? Who was actively complicit in the economic transformation that led to the rusting of Gary? I won't name names, but you know who. There's a lot of blame to spread around.

WHAT ARE THE DRUMS SAYING, BWANA?

Phil at Poly Sigh offers this important corrective to Bill "I Work in Harlem, so I know what the drums are saying, Bwana" Clinton.

"You’ve got to really go some to play the race card with me,” Mr. Clinton said. “My office is in Harlem, and Harlem voted for Hillary, by the way.”

Putting aside Clinton's assumption that having an office in Harlem is conclusive evidence that he's not a racist, did Harlem really vote for Hillary? Harlem's geographic boundaries are rather fuzzy, but the heart of the area is bounded by 125th Street on the south, 145th Street on the north, Frederick Douglass Boulevard on the west, and 5th Avenue on the east. This area largely overlaps with the 70th State Senate district. Furthermore, Bill Clinton's Harlem office is located in the 70th district. According to the New York City Board of Elections, Barack Obama carried the district with 13,738 votes to Hillary Clinton's 9124 votes.

Oops. I guess Hillary is not on the way to following Bill's footsteps as our next black president.

BITTER-GATE

I am not naive when it comes to the media and politics, but I was still appalled that last night's Democratic debate wasted nearly forty minutes of our time on Bitter-gate, Reverend Wright-gate, flag pin-gate, Bosnian sniper fire-gate, and ex-Weathermen-gate. I know that these ostensibly burning questions are determined by the narrow preoccupations of the news media and their insatiable desire for a "gotcha" moment. (Since Nixon and Watergate, reporters and readers alike have become incapable of separating scandal from pseudo-scandal.) Personal innuendo passes for political insight. Trivia masquerades as substance. And all too many Americans tune out substantive policy discussions as boring and prefer the "reality TV" politics of name-calling, guilt-by-association, and smarmy apologies.

In my ideal political world, both candidates would have told Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to shut up and change the subject. Obama tried in his cautious way to point out that these issues are a distraction from what really matters. But he was way too much on the defensive to come out strong, for fear of being accused of dodging questions that he's already answered again and again and again and again and again. And Clinton sees these petty flaps as her last chance to grasp the ring and prove her electability. Fortunately, the debates finally turned to matters of substance. What worried me most was the assumptions that both candidates made about taxation and class. Both Hillary and Barack were painted into the corner of pledging not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $200K. But both cling to the dubious, wholly inaccurate assumption that people making over $200,000 or $250,000 per year are "middle class." By any measure, these are not ordinary, middle Americans. They are not just rich. They are, by any sensible economic measure super rich. I'll post more on our strange assumptions about class later.

For now, I'll just keep screaming at my television.

EARN BIG MONEY, BECOME A HISTORIAN

In my basement, along with my Brunswick Black Beauty bowling ball, is a ratty old t-shirt given to me by a friend in graduate school, emblazoned with a picture of Karl Marx and the slogan "Earn Big Money, Become a Historian." It's one of the many things that I just can't throw away. The humorous slogan aside, I'm fortunate that I am not one of the army of adjuncts who dominate our profession. That I get paid for speaking and writing about things that I care about is great remuneration. But my comfortable existence is nothing compared to Bill Clinton's.

Between 2001 and 2005, our former president earned $31 million dollars in speaking fees. With a few exceptions, he charged between $100,000 and $300,000 per speech. It's quite a roster of speaking engagements. I'm sure that Bill's sponsors at Oracle, Credit Suisse First Boston, and Goldman Sachs and dozens of other banks, corporations, and business groups had no problem coming up several hundred grand to lure Bill to their events. Many CEOs lose that much change in their couches each year. But non-profits, including religious congregations, colleges, hospitals, and universities, also ponied up big bucks for a few hours of Bill's time. Salem State could have hired two assistant professors with full benefits and change to spare for the $125K that Bill charged. Tufts could have covered tuition, fees, room, and board for three needy Rustbelt-born history majors. And UC Davis could have increased the stipends for a hundred teaching assistants by $1000 dollars per head. OK, I know that bringing in marquee speakers can enhance an institution's reputation, persuade proud alumni to open their wallets and donate to alma mater, and maybe even attract a little favorable press attention. But six figures is an absurdly high price to pay, even for a golden-tongued former denizen of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No speech is that good.

I don't have anything against remuneration for hard work. Out-of-town speaking gigs are time consuming and exhausting, even if they are also usually invigorating. But when the fee for a single afternoon's talk puts someone into the top tier of income earners, then I have a problem.

Inspired by Bill, I'm upping my own speaker's fee. (Reality check: that tattered t-shirt keeps me honest. My fee is on a sliding scale, to each host according to his or her means.) Alas, even if I double or triple my average fee, it will take me tens of thousands of talks to reach Bill's $31 million. But I've given my share of barn burners. I promise you'll get your money's worth. And Oracle and Credit Suisse: I'm waiting for an invitation. I'll take your $200K any day.

A BITTER PILL

“Late Friday evening, the Indiana Republican Party accused Mr. Obama of belittling ‘Midwestern values.’” Barack’s sin: in response to a question at a fundraiser in San Francisco, he noted that those white, working-class voters who have been left behind in the Bush and Clinton years have been embittered by their experiences.

There are two parts to Obama's comment: the first that Rustbelters are bitter, the second that their bitterness has attracted them to the divisive cultural politics.

“So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion, or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” stated Obama.

Hillary’s response: “It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter: well that’s not my experience.” Well maybe if Hillary actually took a few minutes to talk to some Rustbelt voters rather than pretending to be one by dusting off old pictures of her parents’ summer cottage near Scranton, telling us that her father taught her how to use a gun, or donning her bowling shoes and pretending to enjoy the Reagan Democrats’ sport of choice, she’d think differently. But then again, pulling in over a hundred million dollars in household income over the last several years and living in Chappaqua, the land of hedge fund managers and deer-proof shrubbery, doesn’t exactly put you in touch with the working-class and their resentments.

I’m loathe to besmirch the reputation of Hubert H. Humphrey by comparing him to Hillary, but it sounds to me like she’s resurrecting his hapless 1968 slogan: “The Politics of Joy.”

And John McCain, tribune of the Rustbelt working-class? Steven Schmidt, McCain’s senior advisor, accuses Obama of “an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking.” That from the spokesman of a candidate who blames the home foreclosure crisis on personal irresponsibility rather than on predatory lenders. The very premise of G.O.P. social policy for the last forty years has been to blame poverty on the poor, unemployment on the unemployed, and hardship on the hard-hit.

My friend Liz, who, in her capacity as a policy advocate and organizer, has been to more small and mid-sized Pennsylvania towns than Obama, Clinton, and McCain combined, tells me that Obama's diagnosis of bitterness is "truthy," even if she concurs that it was not particularly artful.

Putting the issue more more artfully is Lancaster, Pennsylvania mayor Rick Gray. “I don’t think he’s demeaning religion or guns,” Mr. Gray said. “He’s saying the use of those issues as wedge issues plays on the bitterness that people have and diverts attention from the real economic issues, like the disparity between the wage earner and the rich.” Amen.

By nearly every measure, working-class Midwesterners and Pennsylvanians, black and white, have been left behind for the last thirty years. They were failed by Clinton and Bush administration policies that allowed major corporations tax breaks for sheltering their money in offshore havens. They were stiffed by a wild-West subprime mortgage market whose collapse has forced many blue-collar homeowners into foreclosure. They lived in places that have been ravaged by sixty years of systematic federal disinvestment. They were left behind by the Republican evisceration of labor laws that once protected the rights of workers to organize. They have watched their wages have stagnated, as their pensions and benefits have been cut, and as their once decent jobs have been replaced by McJobs.

And the hits are coming especially hard this year. Check out the three maps above from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The economy is tanking everywhere, but has been hitting the Rustbelt particularly hard, as the first map shows. The second two maps, of Pennsylvania, give a good sense of the geography of bitterness. The second shows current unemployment rates by county in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is the dark blue spot in the right hand corner. The dark blue arc passing through the left hand third of the state corresponds to Pennsylvania's real Rustbelt, the old mill towns, steel manufacturing centers, and coal mining communities that have been laid waste by decades of disinvestment, places like Johnstown and Altoona. To the far Northeast (the upper right) are the exurban counties about two hours west of New York City whose residents are catching pneumonia from New York's sneeze. And to the far left (geographically, not politically) are the counties that border down-and-out Ohio. The third map shows 12 month trends in unemployment rates. A few counties excepted, most of Pennsylvania has seen unemployment rise steadily in the last year.

An even more revealing indicator of economic distress is rising joblessness--not to be confused with unemployment. The unemployed are actively seeking work. The jobless are no longer attached to the formal labor market, as either workers or jobseekers. Unfortunately, I don't have maps of joblessness by state or county, but the aggregate trends are not heartening.

As the Times reports in an important article buried in Saturday's business section,:

In the latest report, for March, the Labor Department reported the jobless rate — also called the “not employed rate” by some — at 13.1 percent for men in the prime age group. Only once during a post-World War II recession did the rate ever get that high. It hit 13.3 percent in June 1982, the 12th month of the brutal 1981-82 recession, and continued to rise from there.

It is noteworthy that white men are particularly vulnerable to joblessness this year.

The government breaks down the figures by race, and those figures show that over the last year almost all the jobs lost by men in the 25 to 54 age group have been lost by whites, with most of those losses affecting men ages 35 to 44. There have been just a small number of losses by black men in the 25 to 54 age group, and employment for Hispanic men is still growing, albeit at a much slower pace than it was a few months ago.

Good reason to be bitter.