Nikki Haley Lied About Race On Voter Registration Form? SC's 1st Non-White Governor! (Tea Party Hypocrisy))

Indian Nikki Haley Says She Is White

For the children of immigrants, the road to acceptance in America can be a bumpy one. There will be pain. There will be embarrassment. There will be relentless, cruel accusations from your brethren that you are assimilating at the expense of your true cultural heritage. And the stories of the children of immigrants who rise to positions of influence and power are especially inspiring given the challenges before them.

Not so inspiring?

Lying about where you're from, like South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), the American-born child of Indian parents, might have done.

The Associated Press reports that in 2001, Haley listed her race as "white" on her voter registration form.

State Democrats accuse her of being a fake-race opportunist in a state that is, according to the US Census poll, about 66% white (and just a tick over 1% Asian). From the South Carolina Post and Courier:

The state Democratic Party, which first obtained [Haley's voter registraton information], is calling Haley out on the matter and challenging whether her inconsistency on the card might have made her ineligible to voter under the state's new Voter ID law.

Dick Harpootlian, the party chairman, said whether Haley listed her race as white or not doesn’t really matter to him, but the issue is that the governor has shown a pattern of such actions.

"Haley has been appearing on television interviews where she calls herself a minority—when it suits her," Harpootlian said. "When she registers to vote she says she is white. She has developed a pattern of saying whatever is beneficial to her at the moment."

For Haley, voter fraud is a big deal.

She recently signed a new law requiring that voters present photo identification at the polls that, she says, will "improve South Carolina in terms of integrity, accountability and transparency." Voter ID laws, of course, don't actually decrease voter fraud (which is virtually nonexistent). Instead, they mostly keep Democratic voters away from the polls.

Haley hasn't yet responded to the South Carolina Democrats' accusations. But even though she didn't exactly commit voter fraud, her self-race-mis-classification seems to undermine her credibilty as someone who wants to prevent people from lying on their way to the voting booth.




Nikki Haley's Heritage & Background

Nikki Haley, an Indian-American, Sikh-turned-Methodist Republican, was elected governor of South Carolina in 2010.

Ms. Haley is the first woman and racial minority elected governor of South Carolina, one of the nation's most conservative states.

After running a primary campaign so underfinanced that it had to sell yard signs at $5 apiece, Ms. Haley became one of the brightest rising stars in the Republican Party, a Tea Party favorite, a Sarah Palin endorsee and the subject of national attention. During her campaign she held rallies across the state, linking her opponent to President Obama and bringing in big-name supporters like Mitt Romney.

For most of her first six months in office, Ms. Haley managed to keep a congenial, if tense, working relationship with the Legislature. At least, it was much improved from the bitter relationship between lawmakers and her predecessor, Mark Sanford.

In June 2011, Ms. Haley found herself at the center of a legislative standoff after she ordered a rebellious State Senate to get back to work to consider four measures that would restructure parts of the state government, including a new department enabling her to manage day-to-day operations. The Senate leadership responded by successfully asking the State Supreme Court for an injunction. In 3-to-2 vote, the court ruled that the executive order violated the Legislature’s ability to set its own schedule.

Ms. Haley, whose office filed a response to the suit with the support of several Republicans, argued that forcing lawmakers back to finish state business was not unprecedented.

The battle, however, is not over. The governor could still force the Legislature to take up her agenda later, and the entire incident is likely to have a lasting impact on the relationship between the governor and the House and Senate.

Background

In terms of her personal upbringing, Ms. Haley, who was born in 1972, is without precedent for South Carolina. The state has the lowest percentage of women elected to office of any state in America, and Ms. Haley is the only Indian-American elected official.

But ideologically, she is hardly a novelty in South Carolina.

Ms. Haley became part of a small cadre of small-government advocates who are ideologically aligned with Mr. Sanford and at odds with the rest of the state's Republican establishment, whom they accuse of abandoning conservative principles. Like the former governor, she has repeatedly taken her case to the public, sometimes embarrassing legislative leaders and helping her develop a loyal following.

Ms. Haley grew up in Bamberg, S.C., and her parents were the first Indian immigrants the small, working-class town had ever seen. Ms. Haley — born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa and always called Nikki, which means "little one," by her family — said that growing up in Bamberg was at times tough. Her father wears a turban and, though male Sikhs are not supposed to cut their hair, her brothers' was trimmed after teasing at school grew vicious.

Her father, Ajit Randhawa, was a biology professor at Voorhees College in nearby Denmark, S.C.; her mother, Raj, started Exotica International as a gift shop. From early on, Ms. Haley was involved in her family's clothing business, which sells gowns, suits and jewelry — taking over the bookkeeping at age 13.

Before she ran for office, Ms. Haley got an accounting degree at Clemson University, where she met her husband, who works for the Army and also serves as an officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard. She worked for FCR, a waste management and recycling company, and then returned to Exotica as chief financial officer and helped the company grow into a multimillion-dollar business.




NAACP calls out SC's minority governor on flag

The NAACP's top officer called on South Carolina's "first governor of color" to bring down the Confederate flag that flies a stone's throw from Gov. Nikki Haley's Statehouse office.

NAACP president Benjamin Jealous Monday pointed out a longstanding fight with South Carolina over the Confederate flag on Monday during his keynote speech for the civil rights organization's annual convention in Los Angeles.

"Perhaps one of the most perplexing examples of the contradictions of this moment in history is that Nikki Haley, South Carolina's first governor of color, continues to fly the Confederate Flag in front of her state's capitol," Jealous said. Haley is the first governor in the state born of parents who immigrated from India.

"Given the similarities between our struggles to end slavery and segregation and her ancestors' struggle to end British colonialism and oppression in India, my question to Governor Haley is one that Dr. King often asked himself: 'What would Gandhi do?'"

The NAACP launched an economic boycott of the state in 1999 about the banner that flew atop the Statehouse dome and in the chambers of the House and Senate. A compromise in 2000 moved the flag to a monument outside the Statehouse.

Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said the issue was long ago resolved by white and black South Carolinians.

"Many people were uncomfortable with that compromise, but it addressed a sensitive subject in a way that South Carolina as a whole could accept," Godfrey said. "We don't expect people from outside of the state to understand that dynamic, but revisiting that issue is not part of the governor's agenda."


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Sources: AP, Mother Jones, NY Times, The State, USA Today, Youtube, Google Maps

Tea Party's Anti-American Agenda Revealed (Videos) Decision 2012

Treason! Secret Video Reveals Tea Party's Anti-American Agenda


I've never been to a tea party. Really. Not even as a little girl. Was never my thing. So when I decided I was going to infiltrate the Tri-State Liberty Summit of Tea Party activists, my first question was: What do I wear? Unfortunately, my frilly cocktail dress was at the cleaners so I had to go with my usual "Is she a boy or a girl?" attire. Good news is, the Tea Party activists were unfazed by my gender-bending sweater vest. All they seemed to care about was that I was white.

Because in the flurry of red, white and blue sentiment that filled the Italian American Center of Stamford, Connecticut, on May 23, 2010, the most prominent color was definitely white. White people with ghostly white faces fearing that our new black President is only one sooner-than-expected sign of the approaching end of white racial dominance in America.

Now, if you're a well-to-do, older white person (as all the recent polls suggest most Tea Party activists are, compared with the rest of the population), there are only two possible reactions to the growing reality of racial diversity in America.

Option 1: You can accept that white supremacy (and the disproportionate economic, political and cultural power that has come with it) is and has always been an unjust but convenient excuse for why a few elites hold all the cards and the rest of us -- including most white people -- are left empty-handed. But I guess that would require actually accepting that you will never be one of those supreme elites under the current system and that the only way for you to get ahead is to join with everyone else who, like you, has ultimately been left behind.

That's a lot of self-awareness for a class of folks who have generally thrived on denial.



This leaves us with Option 2: Reject the United States of America, a nation that -- though formed in the spirit of racial purity and the subjugation of others -- is somehow now trying to live up to words that the Founding Fathers never actually meant but wrote down for good measure. The idea of many people joining to form one nation was fine when all those folks were white -- or even white-ish -- but Mexican immigrants and a black President is just too much to swallow. We "patriots" are starting over.

In case you're reading this and thinking, "Forming a separate nation? That's not what the Tea Party stands for!" Well, think again.



I think most Americans are suffering with economic insecurity and many white Americans are genuinely struggling with a sense of cultural displacement as well. That's real. The Tea Party, and all political movements, should be helping Americans adapt to the changing world around them -- not inciting them to hateful separation. After all, inclusion, unity, moving forward together -- these have always been core American values. Secession, on the other hand, is treason.

Follow Sally Kohn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sally kohn


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Sources: Fox News, Huffington Post, MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps

Mainstream Media Switched Jobs Crisis To Debt Debate For GOP (2012 Conspiracy)

The Invisible Unemployed: Major Media Ignore Jobless Americans And Obsess Over U.S. Debt

As Think Progress’s Lee Fang has reported, a handful of right-wing front groups and billionaires have engineered a political consensus that trumpets reducing U.S. debt rather than tackling unemployment.

But unfortunately, these front groups have had some assistance from the mainstream media outlets who seem obsessed with covering deficit reduction and debt debates in Washington, while ignoring the other problems plaguing the economy as it recovers from the Great Recession.

For instance, a Think Progress media analysis of the coverage of three major cable news networks — CNN, MSNBC, and Fox — over the last week finds that these outlets gave a much larger portion of their coverage to U.S. debt rather than the unemployed. Think Progress scanned media coverage at these outlets for the words “unemployed,” “unemployment,” and “debt.” The first two phrases put together still got 15 times less coverage than the debt.

Of course, it makes sense that the media dedicated time to the debt ceiling debate last week, as the U.S. was inching closer and closer to an unprecedented default on its obligations. However, by failing to cover the other problems in the economy — continued high unemployment, mounting foreclosures, and record corporate profits that are not translating into job creation — the media does a disservice to those who are struggling with a slew of economic problems that have nothing to do with the federal budget or congressional negotiations.

And while the mainstream press has obsessed over U.S. debt, the American people appear to have different priorities. A Gallup poll taken last month finds that only 16 percent of Americans see the federal budget deficit as the “most important problem facing the country.” Meanwhile, 27 percent of American see “unemployment/jobs” as that problem, while 31 percent name the “economy in general” as that concern.

Sources: Fox News, MSNBC, Think Progress, Youtube

GOP Allowed Tea Party To Destroy Brand; Screw Up Core Priorities (Jobs??)

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Wake up GOP: Smashing system doesn't fix it

I'm a Republican. Always have been. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation and limited government. But as I look back at the weeks of rancor leading up to Sunday night's last-minute budget deal, I see some things I don't believe in:

Forcing the United States to the verge of default.

Shrugging off the needs and concerns of millions of unemployed.

Protecting every single loophole, giveaway and boondoggle in the tax code as a matter of fundamental conservative principle.

Massive government budget cuts in the midst of the worst recession since World War II.

I am not alone.

Only about one-third of Republicans agree that cutting government spending should be the country's top priority. Only about one-quarter of Republicans insist the budget be balanced without any tax increases.

Yet that one-third and that one-quarter have come to dominate my party. That one-third and that one-quarter forced a debt standoff that could have ended in default and a second Great Recession. That one-third and that one-quarter have effectively written the "no new taxes pledge" into national law.

There was another way. There still is.

Give me a hammer and a church-house door, and I'd post these theses for modern Republicans:


1) Unemployment is a more urgent problem than debt.

The U.S. can borrow money for 10 years at less than 3%. It can borrow money for two years at less than one-half a percent. Yes, the burden of debt is worrying. Yet lenders seem undaunted by those worries.

Meanwhile, more than 14 million Americans are out of work, more than 6 million for longer than six months. The United States has not seen so many people out of work for so long since the 1930s.

2) The deficit is a symptom of America's economic problems, not a cause.

When the economy slumps, government revenues decline and government spending surges.

Federal revenues have collapsed since 2007, down from more than 18% of national income to a little more than 14%. To put that in perspective: That's the equivalent of losing enough revenue to support the entire defense budget.

Federal spending has jumped to pay for unemployment insurance, food stamps and Medicaid benefits.

Fix the economy first, and the deficit will improve on its own.

Cut the deficit first, and the economy will get even sicker.


3) The time to cut is after the economy recovers.

Businesses are hoarding cash. Consumers are repaying debt. State and local governments are slashing jobs. (Since 2009, the number of Americans working for government has shrunk by half a million, the biggest reduction in civilian government employment since the Great Depression.) Right now, there's only one big customer out there: the federal government. How does it help anybody if the feds suddenly stop buying things and paying people?

4) The place to cut is health care, not assistance to the unemployed and poor.

The United States provides less assistance to the unemployed and the poor than almost any other democracy. It spends 60% more per person on health care than almost any other democracy -- and gets worse results. The problem is not that Americans use too much medicine. People in other countries use more. The problem is that Americans pay too much for the medicine they use. Go where the money is, cut where the waste is grossest.

5) We can collect more revenue without raising tax rates.

Republicans stand for low taxes to encourage people to work, save and invest. But how would it discourage work if we reduced the mortgage-interest deduction again? Did it hurt the economy when we reduced the maximum eligible loan to $1 million back in 1986? Do Canadians and Brits -- who lack the deduction -- work less hard than Americans?

Why are state and local taxes deductible from federally taxable income? Wouldn't higher taxes on energy encourage conservation? Who decided to allow inflation to corrode federal alcohol taxes by 80% over the past 50 years?

6) Passion does not substitute for judgment.

Republicans and conservatives have worked themselves into a frenzy of rage and contempt for President Barack Obama. House Speaker John Boehner's post-deal PowerPoint for Republican House members was actually labeled "Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable" (PDF) -- as if the supreme goal of policy in this time of economic hardship were to fix the blame for all problems on the president. This exercise in finger-pointing satisfies the emotions of the Republican base. It does not accurately explain the causes of the crisis or offer plausible remedies.

7) You can't save the system by destroying the system.

In their passion, Republicans convinced themselves that the constitutional republic and the free-enterprise system were threatened as never before. Their response? To threaten to blow up the free-enterprise system and wreck the republic unless they gained their point.

Republicans have become so gripped by pessimism and panic that they feel they have nothing to lose by rushing into a catastrophe now. But there is a lot to lose, and in these past weeks America nearly lost it. Let's hope that as America steps back from the brink, Republicans remember that it's their job to protect the system, not to smash the system in hopes of building something better from the ruins.

That's how student radicals think -- not conservatives.


Sources: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, PBS News, Youtube

Tea Party Movement Morphs Into Tea Party "Mafia"! Political Terrorists

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Tea Party message becomes toxic


Fragging: To intentionally kill or wound (one's superior officer, etc.), esp. with a hand grenade.

Take names. Remember them. The behavior of certain Republicans who call themselves Tea Party conservatives makes them the most destructive posse of misguided "patriots" we've seen in recent memory.

If the nation defaults on its financial obligations, the blame belongs to the Tea Party Republicans who fragged their own leader, John Boehner. They had victory in their hands and couldn't seem to bring themselves to support his debt-ceiling plan, which, if not perfect, was more than anyone could have imagined just a few months ago. No new taxes, significant spending cuts, a temporary debt-ceiling solution with the possibility of more spending cuts down the line as well as their beloved constitutional balanced-budget amendment.

These people wouldn't recognize a hot-fudge sundae if the cherry started talking to them.

The tick-tock of the debt ceiling debate is too long for this space, but the bottom line is that the Tea Party got too full of itself with help from certain characters whose names you'll want to remember when things go south. They include, among others, media personalities who need no further recognition; a handful of media-created "leaders," including Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips and Tea Party Patriots co-founders Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler; a handful of outside groups who love to hurl ad hominems such as "elite" and "inside the Beltway" when talking about people like Boehner when they are, in fact, the elite (FreedomWorks, Heritage Action, Club for Growth, National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity); and elected leaders such as Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, head of the Republican Study Committee, and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who grandstand and make political assertions and promises that are sheer fantasy.



Meanwhile, freshman congressmen were targeted and pressured by some of the aforementioned groups to vote against Boehner's plan. South Carolina's contingent was so troubled, they repaired to the chapel Thursday to pray and emerged promising to vote no. Why? Not because Jesus told them to, but because they're scared to death that DeMint will "primary" them — find someone in their own party to challenge them.



Where did they get an idea like that? Look no further than Sarah Palin's Facebook page, where she warned freshman about contested primaries and urged them to "remember us 'little people' who believed in them, donated to their campaigns, spent hours tirelessly volunteering for them, and trusted them with our votes." Her close: "P.S. Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries." While they're at it, they also should remember that Palin came to the Tea Party long after the invitations went out. The woman knows where to hitch a wagon.



Unfortunately for the country, which is poised to lose its place as the world's most-trusted treasury and suffer economic repercussions we can ill afford, the stakes in this political game are too high to be in the hands of Tea Partyers who mistakenly think they have a mandate. Their sweep in the 2010 election was the exclusive result of anti-Obama sentiment and the sense that the president, in creating a health care plan instead of focusing on jobs, had overplayed his hand. Invariably, as political pendulums swing, the victors become the very thing they sought to defeat.

Who's overplaying their hand now?



It must be said that the Tea Party has not been monolithic — and the true grass-roots shouldn't be conflated with leaders who disastrously signed on to the so-called "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge. What is it with Republicans and their silly pledges? Didn't get enough Scouting? This pledge now has them hog-tied to a promise they can't keep — the constitutional balanced-budget amendment. As many as a third desperately want a pardon from that commitment, according to sources close to the action.

Hubris is no one's friend, and irony is a nag. The Tea Partyers who wanted to oust Barack Obama have greatly enhanced his chances for re-election by undermining their own leader and damaging the country in the process. The debt ceiling may be raised and the crisis averted, but that event should not erase the memory of what transpired. The Tea Party was a movement that changed the conversation in Washington, but it has steeped too long and has become toxic.

It's time to toss it out.

Kathleen Parker


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Sources: CNN, Fox News, McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

Tea Party Congress Creates More Poverty By Cutting Food Stamps & Medicaid (Decision 2012)

Boehner Debt Ceiling Plan Drops A 26-Year-Old Exemption That Protects The Poor From Budget Cuts

As the Republicans haggle over whether to support their own plan for raising the nation’s debt ceiling, an “unprecedented” coalition of religious leaders are urging President Obama and Congress not to sacrifice the needs of the poor in the name of debt reduction. Even the conservative U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops joined the effort, singling out House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) plan for its “disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor persons.”

In scrutinizing the debt deals, some religious leaders praised the plans for at least exempting low-income “means-tested” programs from across-the-board cuts. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities notes today, however, that Boehner’s plan does not actually exempt programs like Medicaid and food stamps from such cuts. Instead, it does the opposite.

Breaking a 26-year policy of exempting basic low-income entitlement programs from across-the-board cuts, both of the House Republican plans — “Cut, Cap, and Balance” Act and Boehner’s debt-ceiling proposal — “drop all of the low-income exemptions that have been part of every previous across-the-board cut mechanism since 1985″:

For 26 years, all budget legislation that would trigger across-the-board cuts if Congress fails to meet a fiscal target has exempted the basic low-income (or “means-tested”) entitlement programs from those cuts. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings laws of 1985 and 1990, the deficit reduction agreement of 1990, and the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — all bipartisan pieces of legislation — included that exemption.

So did last year’s “pay-as-you-go” law, which requires Congress to offset the cost of new tax cuts or increases in entitlement programs so they don’t increase the deficit. Congress has never enacted a law with an across-the-board cut mechanism that subjects core assistance for the poor to these cuts.

But in the last few weeks, House Republicans have advanced two major pieces of legislation that would do just that. Both the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,” which the House passed last week, and the new Boehner debt-ceiling proposal drop all of the low-income exemptions that have been part of every previous across-the-board cut mechanism since 1985.

“In an exercise in political cynicism,” CBPP notes that both bills include an exemption for payments to Medicare providers that was not part of previous laws. This allows Republicans to avoid another hit from the senior community “even as they subject those living below the poverty line to the risk of automatic cuts that would push them even deeper into poverty.” Earlier this week, CBPP put out an analysis showing that Boehner’s debt ceiling plan “could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.”

The Republican move to cut a long-standing bipartisan protection for the poor really brings into question exactly which Americans Republicans say they’re fighting for. Religious leaders should take note. If asked “What Would Jesus Cut,” it seems Republicans are determined to provide the wrong answer.

Sources: Blogger Interrupted, Off The Charts Blog, Think Progress, Washington Post, Youtube

Dems Lose Voters As Tea Party Demands Attention (GOP 2012 Strategy)

Why Voters Tune Out Democrats

BARACK OBAMA can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.

Perhaps the president finds solace in knowing he’s not alone. During this period of economic crisis and uncertainty, voters are generally turning to conservative and right-wing political parties, most notably in Europe and in Canada.

It’s perplexing. When unemployment is high, and the rich are getting richer, you would think that voters of average means would flock to progressives, who are supposed to have their interests in mind — and who historically have delivered for them.

During the last half-century or so, when a Democratic president has led the country, people have tended to experience lower unemployment, less inequality and rising income compared with periods of Republican governance. There is a reason, however, that many voters in the developed world are turning away from Democrats, Socialists, liberals and progressives.

My vantage point on voter behavior comes through my company, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and its work for center-left parties globally, starting with Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992. For the last decade, I have worked in partnership with James Carville conducting monthly polls digging into America’s mood and studying how progressives can develop successful electoral strategies. (I am also married to a Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa L. DeLauro.)

In analyzing these polls in the United States, I see clearly that voters feel ever more estranged from government — and that they associate Democrats with government. If Democrats are going to be encumbered by that link, they need to change voters’ feelings about government. They can recite their good plans as a mantra and raise their voices as if they had not been heard, but voters will not listen to them if government is disreputable.

Oddly, many voters prefer the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don’t trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.

When we conducted our election-night national survey after last year’s Republican sweep, voters strongly chose new investment over a new national austerity. They thought Democrats were more likely to champion the middle class. And as has become clear in the months since, the public does not share conservatives’ views on rejecting tax cuts and cutting retirement programs. Numerous recent polls have shown that the public sides with the president and Democrats on raising taxes to get to a balanced budget.

But in smaller, more probing focus groups, voters show they are fairly cynical about Democratic politicians’ stands. They tune out the politicians’ fine speeches and plans and express sentiments like these: “It’s just words.” “There’s just such a control of government by the wealthy that whatever happens, it’s not working for all the people; it’s working for a few of the people.” “We don’t have a representative government anymore.”

This distrust of government and politicians is unfolding as a full-blown crisis of legitimacy sidelines Democrats and liberalism. Just a quarter of the country is optimistic about our system of government — the lowest since polls by ABC and others began asking this question in 1974. But a crisis of government legitimacy is a crisis of liberalism. It doesn’t hurt Republicans. If government is seen as useless, what is the point of electing Democrats who aim to use government to advance some public end?

In earlier periods, confidence in the economy and rising personal incomes put limits on voter discontent. Today, a dispiriting economy combined with a well-developed critique of government leaves government not just distrusted but illegitimate.

GOVERNMENT operates by the wrong values and rules, for the wrong people and purposes, the Americans I’ve surveyed believe. Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does little for the responsible. Wall Street lobbyists govern, not Main Street voters. Vexingly, this promotes both national and middle-class decline yet cannot be moved by conventional democratic politics. Lost jobs, soaring spending and crippling debt make America ever weaker, unable to meet its basic obligations to educate and protect its citizens. Yet politicians take care of themselves and party interests, while government grows remote and unresponsive, leaving people feeling powerless.

If they are to win trust, and votes, Democrats must show they are as determined as the Tea Party movement to change the rules of the game. In our surveys and media work for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, we found that only if people thought a candidate was going to change government in fundamental ways — starting with welfare and reinventing government — would they give permission to spend their money.

The same is true today. In our recent Web survey of 2,000 respondents, voters respond strongly to Democratic messages on the economy only when a party leader declares, “We have to start by changing Washington. ... The middle class won’t catch a break until we confront the power of money and the lobbyists.”

Why is that?

You do not have to look very far. If there is an article of faith among contemporary center-left leaders, it is that investment in education will pay dividends with increased productivity and increased income. And yet the evidence is piling up that the economy is not working for the middle class. Productivity and education increase but wages do not follow.

When presented with vivid descriptions of income inequality in America, people are deflated, rather than empowered to bring change. In surveys, they tell me that they think the politicians and the chief executives are “piggybacking off each other.” They think that the game is rigged and that the wealthy and big industries get policies that reinforce their advantage. And they do not think their voices matter.



That government and the elite appear blithely to promote globalization and economic integration, while the working population loses income, makes the frustration more intense.

Our research shows that the growth of self-identified conservatives began in the fall of 2008 with the Wall Street bailout, well before Mr. Obama embarked on his recovery and spending program. The public watched the elite and leaders of both parties rush to the rescue. The government saved irresponsible executives who bankrupted their own companies, hurt many people and threatened the welfare of the country. When Mr. Obama championed the bailout of the auto companies and allowed senior executives at bailed-out companies to take bonuses, voters concluded that he was part of the operating elite consensus. If you owned a small business that was in trouble or a home or pension that lost much of its value, you were on your own. As people across the country told me, the average citizen doesn’t “get money for free.” Their conclusion: Government works for the irresponsible, not the responsible.

Everything they witness affirms the public’s developing view of how government really works. They see a nexus of money and power, greased by special interest lobbyists and large campaign donations, that makes these outcomes irresistible. They do not believe the fundamentals have really changed in Mr. Obama’s Washington.

What should Democrats do?

The Democrats have to start detoxifying politics by proposing to severely limit or bar individual and corporate campaign contributions, which would mean a fight with the Supreme Court. They must make the case for public financing of campaigns and force the broadcast and cable networks to provide free time for candidate ads. And they must become the strongest advocates for transparency in campaign donations and in the lobbying of elected officials.

IF they want to win the trust of the public, Democrats should propose taxing lobbyist expenses and excessive chief executive bonuses and put a small fee on the sale of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments. By radically simplifying the tax code to allow only a few deductions, the Democrats would generate new revenue and remove the loopholes that allow special interests to win favorable treatment. The ordinary citizen, according to our surveys and focus groups, feels there is no way to play that game and views simplifying the tax code as an important reform.

To show that government can protect the nation’s interests, Democrats should advocate policies that would control the borders and address problems of undocumented workers.

Dealing with this is even more important in Europe, where anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic parties are surging at the expense of the mainstream left and right parties in France, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, site of the recent slaughter for which an extreme right-winger has claimed responsibility.

In the face of such madness, it is tempting to view the issue as illegitimate, but mainstream parties do so at great cost. Our work in Austria and Britain shows that it is possible for progressives to champion immigration policies that protect the labor market and promote and require integration, beginning with language and schooling.

In the United States, those who advocate comprehensive immigration reform are demonstrating that they consider responsibility a primary value. My surveys show that voters want comprehensive immigration reform rather than half measures. They would like to see strong enforcement at the border and in the workplace, and the expulsion of troublesome undocumented immigrants. While favoring toughness, they also want to find ways to put undocumented workers on a path to citizenship.

These measures, if pushed by Democrats, would show that government operated by the right values. Just as Mr. Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996 required efforts to make work pay and expand child care, immigration reform can show how progressives punish irresponsibility and reward responsibility.

Finally, progressives have to be serious about reducing the country’s long-term deficits, constraining special interest spending and tax breaks and making government accountable to the ordinary citizen. The deficit matters to people and has real meaning and consequences. A government that spends and borrows without the kind of limits that would govern an ordinary family is going to have big troubles. Voters I’ve studied say things like, if “we keep spending like this, we’re going to be bankrupt and there won’t be anything for anybody,” especially “our children.” The final straw is the government’s decision to continue spending and to put the country deeper into debt and more dependent on China.

President Obama understood this essential lesson when he decided to unveil his own plan for long-term deficit reduction. The fog of the debt-limit debate has obscured that commitment, and his determination to raise taxes on the most fortunate to reduce our indebtedness and fund his priorities. Polls show that the public is with him, scornful of the Republican demand for no tax increases. Rather than treating deficit reduction as an “eat your peas moment,” progressives should embrace the liberal think tanks’ bold deficit plans, which would raise taxes more and defend progressive priorities.

That would be in the spirit of President Clinton’s first economic plan, which used a 50-50 mix of tax increases and spending cuts to cut the deficit. That laid the groundwork for a restoration in trust in government later in the 1990s.

Recently, it has been the conservatives, the Tea Party members and the anti-immigrant groups who understand the anger with government, and rush in to exploit it. Perhaps now, with the debacle in Washington, liberals will become instinctively angry with this illegitimate government and build their politics from there.

Sources: CNN, Fora TV, Fox News, NY Times, Youtube