Froma Harrop
Democrats the Party of ‘Normal Americans’
DAVENPORT,
Iowa — One of Newt Gingrich’s favorite verbal firebombs was calling
Democrats "the enemies of normal Americans." We will ignore the nasty
code contained in the former GOP House speaker’s remark. But suffice it
to say, Democrats used to spend much time catering to narrow interest
groups at the expense of the middle-class masses.
That was then, and then is clearly not now.
Democrats have emerged as champions of horse sense and competent
governance. And they’re on the offensive, accusing Republicans of
downright weirdness in their fiscal recklessness and seeming obsession
with the interests of the richest few.
Nowhere was this turning of tables more evident than at a recent
AARP forum on health care and economic security held in this scenic
city on the Mississippi River. Smack in the middle of Middle America,
five Democratic presidential hopefuls ridiculed the Republican
leadership and promised to put ordinary Americans back on Washington’s
agenda.
They made no specifically racial appeals or references to sexual
matters. Iraq was only briefly discussed — mostly in terms of what the
money spent on that unnecessary war could have bought at home. And the
Democrats’ audience went well beyond Iowa caucus voters. Iowa is a
battleground state. A third of the electorate here identifies as
independents, and they’ve been strongly trending Democratic.
The candidates jumped on the outrages against working folk that were
allowed to flourish in the Bush era. Delaware Sen. Joe Biden suggested
a way for government to protect private pensions. Citing American
Airlines’ decision to "wipe out" its workers’ pensions while giving top
executives $100 million in bonuses, Biden proposed: "I’d change the
bankruptcy code to say, hey, look, you go ahead and take away a
pension, you lose all those benefits, you, the CEOs, are going to have.
… You’ll change their minds quickly."
New York Sen. Hillary Clinton on Social Security: "When my husband
left office with a balanced budget and a surplus, the projection was
that Social Security was solvent until 2055. … Now after seven years
of President Bush and an irresponsible Republican Congress, the life of
the Social Security Trust fund has been cut to 2041. We’ve lost 14
years in seven years because of their fiscal irresponsibility."
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards talked of setting a 36
percent interest cap on the notorious payday loans. "They charge 300,
400, 500 percent!" he said. "They’re preying on our most vulnerable
families."
On the subject of predatory lending, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson
addressed the mortgage crisis. "I’m blaming the president," he said.
"I’m blaming a situation where mortgage lenders, because they’re not
regulated, they’ve become loan sharks."
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd joined the others in blasting
Republicans for not letting Medicare negotiate drug prices. "That would
have saved $330 billion," he said. "Just that one provision alone would
have done a lot to shore up the cost of Medicare.
Iowa Democrats are echoing this righteous anger over what they see
as the Bush con job. "All my life, I’ve heard of tax-and-spend
Democrats, tax-and-spend Democrats," Mike Liebbe, a party activist,
told me. "Why don’t I hear that now?"
While Bush was the target, he made his own contribution to the
discussion from Washington. After nearly seven years of spending like
there’s no tomorrow, he finally decided to draw the line: He vowed to
veto the expansion of government health coverage for children of the
working poor.
Well, like the French Revolution before it, Gingrich’s so-called
conservative revolution was eventually taken over by bizarre ideology.
That leaves Democrats fired up and unapologetic. And they are happily
selling themselves as the best friends normal Americans ever had.