One of our viewers asked us to write down some compelling facts, or so-called “killer lines,” that Obama could use possibly to put an end to the McCain contention that he is on the side of ordinary American voters.
This viewer said to us, “I don’t mean gentle lines like, ‘John, I agree with you
but . . . .’ I mean lines that could put a stake in the heart of the McCain campaign.”
Here are our suggestions: (Click Here to Read More)
Michigan has an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, the highest in the nation. Scores of factories in Michigan have closed. Tens of thousands of autoworkers have lost their jobs.
More than 1.4 million people in Michigan, 14 percent of the total population, are living below the poverty line. In each year of George Bush’s presidency, the poverty rate in Michigan has increased. One third of all residents of the cities of Detroit, Flint, and Kalamazoo are poor.
The crisis in Michigan is best viewed in the data on food stamps. Over the past four years, the number of people in Michigan using food stamps has increased from 838,000 to more than 1.2 million. That’s an increase of 43 percent.
Let’s draw an analogy from emergency medicine. If all 50 states were competing for economic rescue in a hospital emergency room, Michigan would be the first to require attention. (Click Here to Read More)
Over a long Senate career, John McCain has voted at least 18 times against extending benefits of the federal unemployment insurance program to Americans who have lost their jobs.
With generous tax cuts McCain now rewards corporations that move factories out of Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, while opposing any relief for the millions of jobless workers who are left behind.
Desperate conditions of unemployment and poverty now affect many millions of Americans, particularly in three of the nation’s industrial belt states — Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Workers and their families are suffering on an unprecedented scale.
Here are details:
• In Michigan the unemployment rate of 8.5 percent is the highest in the nation. The rate has increased from 7.1 percent a year ago. Today, there is a huge bloc of 423,000 unemployed workers in Michigan. This number has increased by 70,000 over the past year. In the cities of Detroit, Kalamazoo, and Flint, all ravaged by lost jobs, the unemployment rate is even more severe. (Click Here to Read More)
The federal minimum wage is now $6.55 per hour. This will rise to $7.25 an hour in July 2009. Many states have their own minimum wage laws. In California, Massachusetts, and Washington, the minimum wage is $8 or more.
A worker employed at minimum wage who has a 40-hour workweek would earn $262 a week. On a yearly basis this amounts to $13,624. The official poverty rate in the United States for a four-person family is $20,614. Therein lies a powerful voting weapon for Barack Obama and Democratic candidates everywhere.
Minimum wage workers are concentrated in service industries. Fast-food workers, waitresses, car washers, hotel chamber maids, janitors, and retail clerks are some of the jobs where you will find large numbers of minimum wage workers. About half of all minimum wage workers are below the age of 25. More than 62 percent of the American workers who earn the minimum wage are women.
Throughout his legislative career John McCain has been a relentless opponent of raising the minimum wage. Without fail McCain has followed the wishes of industry while ignoring the economic interests of the nation’s lowest-income workers. (Click Here to Read More)
Over the past half-century, Ohio has been the nation’s most reliable bellwether state. In each presidential election since 1960, Ohio has backed the winning candidate. In 2004 the voting percentages for Bush and Kerry exactly matched the nationwide vote totals. And Ohio is especially important because it carries a major prize — 20 electoral votes.
Today, polls show that the race between Barack Obama and John McCain is neck and neck in Ohio. The polling trend has been moving in McCain’s favor.
Obama enjoys monolithic support among black voters in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other Ohio cities. But Obama’s polling numbers in rural Ohio are very weak. In the Democratic primaries, he was beaten badly in these areas by Hillary Clinton.
The election in Ohio — and quite possibly the entire nation — could hinge on Obama’s success in convincing white working-class voters that he would be a better president than John McCain. In securing these votes, Obama must hammer home to voters the fact that Ohio has been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs over the eight years of the Bush presidency. (Click Here to Read More)
Wal-Mart has launched a nationwide campaign indoctrinating company managers on why an Obama presidency would harm the company’s employees. These charges could reach 1.4 million company employee voters as well as another million or more spouses and friends.
There may be a temptation for the Obama campaign to lash out at Wal-Mart’s dismal record in providing employee benefits and living wages. OEW suggests that the Wal-Mart bashing be left to others.
Recently it was revealed that Wal-Mart held required-attendance meetings for thousands of store managers and supervisory staff.
The purpose of the meetings was to warn Wal-Mart employees that the election of Barack Obama would lead to greater pressures for unionization at the company’s more than 4,000 stores in the United States. As is usual when a company is fighting unionization, Wal-Mart raised the standard bogey that organized labor will force its workers to pay hefty union dues and get little or nothing in return. Wal-Mart also warns that employees may be required to go out on strike for indefinite periods when they would receive no compensation whatsoever.
Undoubtedly, these Wal-Mart managers are expected to relay this information on to store employees. The clear message is that an Obama victory would be bad for Wal-Mart and therefore bad for Wal-Mart employees. (Click Here to Read More)
Barack Obama charmed Europe and its leaders. Let’s not allow this to divert our attention. The fact that five Frenchmen out of six would vote for Obama is irrelevant. The election is not in Europe. It’s in the United States.
It’s in the United States where for millions of voting Americans the economic sky is falling.
In 1992 the governor of a small southern state who had no experience in foreign policy challenged an incumbent president of the United States who a year earlier had accomplished the spectacular feat of liberating Kuwait and who was riding to reelection on popularity ratings of 80 percent or more.
But the country was in a deep recession. Knowing that their candidate was no match for George H.W. Bush on foreign policy credentials, Bill Clinton’s advisers kept reminding him, “It’s the economy, stupid.” (Click Here to Read More)
For a century or more, many American voters have been influenced, if not controlled, by a deep-seated myth that the election of a Democrat is bad news for the stock market.
Once again the myth is being used to political advantage. The U.S. stock market has declined precipitously. Since October 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has plummeted by 20 percent or more.
This opens up a superb opportunity for the GOP to bring old ghosts out of the closet.
McCain swiftboaters are making two charges:
• They charge that the decline in the market is due to national polling results showing that Obama is likely to be the next president.
• They say, too, that the election of Obama will inevitably produce a further sharp decline in stock markets after he is in the White House.
But both statements are false. (Click Here to Read More)
Update: On Friday Phil Gramm resigned his position as co-chair of the McCain presidential campaign. However, Gramm will undoubtedly continue to offer advice on economic policy to McCain. And there still may be a top economic post in government for Gramm if McCain is elected president.
This past week former U.S. senator from Texas Phil Gramm said that the United States is in a “mental recession.” Gramm added, “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspapers. We have sort of become a nation of whiners.”
It might be easy to dismiss these insensitive and stunningly false remarks except for the fact that Phil Gramm is the top economic adviser to John McCain. The GOP nominee has publicly admitted that the economy is not his strong suit. On economic issues McCain generally turns for advice to Gramm. It is generally assumed that Gramm will be offered the position of secretary of the Treasury or another top post in the executive branch if McCain wins the presidency. (Click Here to Read More)
