Obama has his big 30 minute prime time TV special tonight. Not sure what is going to be in it, but we will find out soon enough. And it could not come at a better time. Of course, that assumes he addresses head on the issue that is giving McCain a badly needed lift in the polls. Taxes
In my previous two posts, I discussed the issue of conservative populism. On the one hand, conservative populism rallies people around cultural issues, people who feel their conservative values are under attack from urban, popular culture and the general progress of civilization. On the other, conservative populism stokes fears of taxation, that ‘big government’ will take people’s hard earned money away and give it to those who did not earn it, or to some special interest project that does not deserve it.
John McCain has found his voice the last two week on precisely this leg of conservative populism. It is a leg he had avoided all campaign, and even in the first few weeks of the financial crisis, he ignored this key conservative principle. Now he is not, and his language and populist fervor is catching fire in the conservative community.
You can see this in the polls now. McCain’s numbers are up; Obama’s are relatively unchanged. Conservatives and right leaning independents are coming home to McCain.
I am actually glad this is happening, and hope that Obama tonight uses this opportunity to tackle head on the conservative populist notion of taxation. It is the one area the Democrats have not tackled head on.
Why? Because the conservative notion on taxation, that the money you earn is yours and yours alone, makes intuitive sense to most people. You have to explain to people why the government needs taxes. You do not have to explain to people why their money is theirs.
Conservatives embrace the outdated American notion of self-reliance. None of us are self-reliant anymore, modern day society and economics do not allow it, but it is still an iconic American value. Progressives have a far more community, societal view of the world, and to them it makes sense that the government has to do things for the good of the people, that we cannot build roads for ourselves, for instance. As such, the government needs to tax us to get the money to provide the entire country and society with certain things beyond our individual control.
Can Obama make that sale? I think he can, and he needs to. Otherwise, he could lose the election on this issue alone. Still unlikely, but if he can show America that it is indeed American to tax the rich in order to provide for those things that benefit us all and ultimately give us a better chance to become rich, then he should win in a landslide.
If he does not, then he will not have changed the political landscape all that much. We will come out of this election as divided as before. What we need is a political realignment, and until Democrats embrace progressive taxation, we will not get there.