Everyone is asking the same question: Have Democrats Failed the White Working Class?

Democrats seem to be winning the majority of minority voters and losing white voters and not just in the South.  The question keeps getting louder from all corners. how do the Democrats win back their votes?

Remember the so called "Reagan" Democrats?  Today many with roots to the same White middle class working folks who are responding to economic and cultural forces that serve to drive these voters away from their New Deal Democratic home.  

Black, Latino and White workers are facing diminishing work opportunities.  Since the 1970s federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination started to be seriously enforced as jobs declined.  Jobs shipped overseas for lower paid wages, new robotic plant modifications requiring fewer workers and lets face it, more women and elderly in the work force have all contributed to less hiring as the population continued to grow.  

The globalization, automation of production coupled with millions of workers from all over the world seeking work have one way or another found their way into jobs and an underground work force.

Times have changed and more families find they need two incomes to stay in even the lower middle class.  People are living longer and Social Security retirement ages have been lifted forcing workers to remain in the work force longer to receive maximum benefits.

As all these forces led to diminishing jobs, organized labor and the unions lost membership and the push on their members to stick with the Democratic party.
The question should not be have the Democrats failed the White working class, the question is how do the Democrats win back those lost voters without "turning off" the new voting block of "voters of color".

I want to add in my opinion the movement of workers away from their families and the support that is given has led to the breakdown of working-class families.
Flowing from that breakdown the consequences of family splits, spiritual support with family support and pressure have left big holes and additional financial burdens on these folks.

As younger workers scattered across the country to seek jobs it has taken a huge toll on that network of moral support and resources for those White working-class people that felt comfortable with the values of the Democratic party.

So I feel the question is, how, when and where do Democrats put their coalition of working class voters back together?  Is someone like Senator Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Senator Sherrod Brown or Senator Bernie Sanders up to the task of rebuilding the Democratic Party?

What really burns my toast here in Arizona.
The statement from Robert Graham, Chairman of the Arizona Republican Party:
"Democrats had an underwhelming primary. Untested candidates means an unenthusiastic electorate. Even the media had little to report during the Democrats' process of secretly hand-picking nominees, and no publicity in a statewide election means doom. Everyone likes a good fight, even within the party. Democrats could only find one candidate for the biggest seat in the state. Republicans, in contrast, were able to watch a thoroughly competitive primary involving six candidates have a healthy discussion about the issues. In addition, Democrats handed the treasurer’s seat over to the Republicans by failing to produce a nominee."
<Note as well as the State Mine Inspector a statewide elected office where Democrats failed to have a candidate.>

What Chairman Graham points out and Democrat should take notice and start working now for the 2016 Arizona elections.

You can't win a game if you don't field a team!

Start building the bench by recruiting and training candidates over the next year. Starting with the Legislature in 2016 and building for the next statewide election in 2018.

{Isn't it telling that in Arizona every state official with the exception of two Corporation Commission members out of five are elected in the non-presidential, "off-year", low voter participation elections.}

Can Democrats Crawl and Scratch Back by 2016?

Democrats across the country stood for Nothing and Lost Everything!

No surprise Democrats lost this last election, they were campaigning on a losing strategy.  Since when does running against the leader of your party, President Obama, campaigning against your values and accomplishments equal electoral victory?

Stepping back blaming a disappointing voter turn-out, the worse since 1942 when we were fighting World War II, without looking at the message we were delivering to all U S citizens just doesn't wash.   <"That dog don't hunt, North or South.">

Here in Arizona we had the best ground operation that we could throw money into, dedicated, educated and well-financed young workers from around the country were transported here to protect candidates unwilling to acknowledge Democrat's progressive agenda and accomplishments.

We need to remember and remind the Republicans that President Obama was elected and re-elected by far greater number of people than accepted Republican candidates this election.

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress were STOPPED time and again by the far-right Republicans determined to defeat Obama by spending taxpayer dollars for useless lawsuits.  The Republican Congressional machine in the House were making laws, over 50 alone to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which if ever reaching the Senate and passed would have been seen a Presidential Veto with no hope of a legislative override.

President Obama and the Democrats offered programs that would have spent money helping the economy expand and grow, against extremist Republicans talking about impeachment and actually shutting down the Federal Government throwing money away without any plans to help the country.

The Republicans were elected but didn't win the 2014 off-year election.  The Democrats lost because they didn't present enough reason to kill voter apathy which led to lack of voter turn-out.  Democrats ran from President Obama, used ill-advised strategies, lacked leadership on progressive issues and did not standby the Democrat Party's principles.

Running from election victories two years previous was the same as campaigning against yourself.  Success denied is confessing to a crime you didn't commit.

Line up the real wins for the American people:
•    That there was 55 months of job growth under Obama versus multiple years of job loss under Republican leadership.

•    That even though the economy is doing better, it isn't doing as well as it could be because Republicans continually block job bills that could put millions back to work rebuilding America's decaying roads, bridges, etc.

•    That Democrats strongly support scientists and their work to stop the man-made destruction of our planet by controlling air and water quality, but the Republican Party does not even address the issue.

•    That Republicans want to proceed with their oil and gas donors' plans to construct the Keystone Pipeline, even though it would damage the environment and have minimal job growth.

•    That the millions of people who have healthcare and access to doctors outside of the emergency room for the first time, would lose their coverage if Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act.

•    That Republican governors blocked Medicaid Expansion in numerous states, keeping their state from getting billions of federal dollars in addition to bankrupting many hospitals.

•    That Democrats are fighting for a minimum wage increase, while Republicans are opposing giving employees a raise.

•    That while Republicans say they want to lower the deficit, they consistently increase it under their leadership in contrast to Democrats who decrease it when in office.

•    That old, white, Republican men feel that controlling women's health decisions, economic equality and family planning is their job, not the woman's right.

•    That Democrats fight for the programs American citizens want and need such as Social Security and Medicare, while Republicans want to privatize them, and eventually eliminate them.

Where in the list of real accomplishments do the Democrats need to hold their head in shame?  Time after time when pollsters ask the American Voters where do they stand on these important issues, the voters overwhelmingly support the Democrat positions.

Right here in Arizona where the Democrat registered voters are now in third place behind Republicans and "other" voters, Independents, what is the road to winning again?  It certainly isn't following the same old worn-out slogans and finding leadership willing to hit the streets as proud supporters of Democrat values.  There is plenty of work to be done so we best get started.

Democrats across the state need to use our resources and people to engage our friends, neighbors and family members registered as Independents and find out where their political views actually fall.  We know how to use the information, collect and input into the VAN, prepare ourselves for meaningful contact door to door in 2016.

At the same time every area in the state needs to hold "mini Democrat conventions" adopting local platforms allowing our voters the opportunity to express themselves and direct our candidates the values that are important to us.
Issue conferences, talking and adopting resolutions and directions for future election discussions.

It is time to listen and bring together our fellow citizens seeking to broaden our base, using the opportunity in the next few months to engage and involve otherwise "bystanders" into our political tent based on a broad cross-section of hopes and visions for Arizona's future.

Getting right down to it, as an experienced Democrat activist is pleading, now is the time to start the 2016 campaign.  It is two year's work that can't be done in less time!

Sorry state of Public Education in Arizona

Do you really need to think twice about the rank of Education in Arizona?

Read this copyrighted story.  Search really deep, which candidate for Governor do you really think has some answers and determination to improve public education in Arizona.  One who has been working along those lines for years, Fred Duval or ethically challenged businessman Doug Ducey.  <Google:  Doug Ducey and COLD STONE CREAMERY: Failed Franchisees Attack.>

Arizona’s teacher salaries rank among the lowest

By: Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services October 6, 2014 , 8:32 am

Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/10/06/arizonas-teacher-salaries-rank-among-the-lowest/#ixzz3FwHvty9T

If the ongoing political debates about education funding have not convinced you, a new study might: Arizona is the sixth worst place in the nation to be a teacher.

The report by WalletHub says the average starting salary for teachers, listed as $31,874 for 2012-13 school year by the National Education Association, is the 44th lowest of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. And that ranking comes even after accounting for the lower cost of living here than many other places.

It’s also not great for those who stay in the profession, the study says, with median salaries for all Arizona teachers at No. 48, also measured against the cost of living.

The pupil-to-teacher ratio, listed at 21.3 according to the National Center for Education Statistics, is worse than anywhere but Utah and California. And it compared with a national average of 16.7.

And WalletHub cites NEA figures showing that Arizona spends only about $1,250 per state resident on education. Only Idaho comes in lower.

About the only thing in the WalletHub rankings that kept Arizona from being lower than 46th overall is that there’s probably good job security here.

The personal finance website figures that Arizona will have among the higher percentages of school-age population of all the states by 2030. More children equals more demand for teachers.

Jill Gonzalez, a WalletHub staffer, said there’s a reason these statistics matter.

Consider class size.

“If I have a child I know struggles with learning, then that’s definitely something I want to take into consideration,” she said. But Gonzalez said for some parents, class size won’t matter.

Teacher salaries present a different issue, particularly in Arizona’s ability to recruit.

“If this is a teacher right out of school looking for somewhere to teach, it might matter more to them than someone with a family and who can support themselves in other ways,” Gonzalez said.

One place Arizona is not in the bottom 10 is in what WalletHub calls teacher wage disparity. Gonzalez said this is the difference between salaries at the 90th percentile level — near the top — and those at the 10th percentile level. That measures whether there’s room for wage improvement.

Arizona is No. 38 nationwide.

The report comes as questions of school funding have taken center stage in courtrooms and the gubernatorial race.

Key is the ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court that during the recession state lawmakers ignored a 2000 voter-approved mandate to adjust aid to schools each year for inflation.

The exact amount missed is still being litigated. But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Katherine Cooper said just resetting basic state aid to what it should have been had legislators complied with the law all along totals $317 million.

If and when the state comes up with that cash, that will make another $279 per pupil available, on top of the approximately $7,550 a year per student from all sources.

That does not count an additional $1.3 billion that schools claim they are owed for the years the state ignored the inflation funding formula. While that would be a one-time infusion, it translates out to close to an additional $1,150 per student.

Both Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Fred DuVal and Republican Doug Ducey say they want to put more money in the classroom though they differ on how to do that.

Read more: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/10/06/arizonas-teacher-salaries-rank-among-the-lowest/#ixzz3FwHOIgOB

Just wish they would oppose hate

GOP tax cutters are like snake oil salesmen at a medicine show.

Just cut taxes and we'll defeat the terrorists and cure ebola, at least that is what the followers of Congressman Paul Ryan, R-WI and Governor Sam Brownback, R-KS would like us to believe.

Governor Brownback has taken Kansas for a very bumpy fiscal ride downhill, it just hasn't worked. Period, No question!  The very Republican state of Kansas has so many statewide GOP elected and former officials coming out for Democrats on the ballot this year.  Right now it looks like a "local wave" for the ouster of Republicans and the election of Democrats unheard of since the great depression of the 1930's.  Read the Brownback "crazy experiments"

Respected fiscal analysts are proving one myth after another of the "cut taxes" gang wrong.  The story has been small business is the creators of jobs.  No, job creators are the new startups businesses.  Another myth cutting taxes moves down and helps the middle class and low income workers. "Trickle down" economics, just makes the top income earners keep more money to hide in overseas bank accounts.

What Congressman Ryan needs to do js get through this one more election with the Republicans in control of the House allowing Speaker Boehner and his Tea Party wing of the party another two years fighting President Obama at every turn and holding back the improving economy.

Want some really enlightening discussion on tax cuts?
Read this now:  Click here

It's the Republican Record

You can throw anything you like. Dirt, facts, wishes, it all boils down to the record. What have the Republican done to this state, what do they have in store for us next? Time for a comparison in real time, the GOP record shows what is in store for our future.

It's not Koch brothers or special interests.   

They have dug their hole.

It a Vision, stupid.    
CHECK THE RECORD


Paint a picture of the Republican record with a vision of the future based on their Congressional actions.

Multiple attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act throwing millions off of health care back to the mercy of profiteers of the insurance monopolies.
More government shut-downs, medicare vouchers, ending Social Security as has been in place 75 years.  We have seen their actions!  It's a threat hanging over our heads.  We have had a taste of Republican plans looking at the Paul Ryan Budget.  We have seen and suffered the Tea Party control of the Republicans in Congress.
  
Just compare the record of where the Obama Administration has taken us. 
Constant growth in jobs, forward steps in education, rebuilding industry and infrastructure, enforcing environmental and occupational safeguards. 
Stock Market at record levels, retirement accounts regaining value, property values coming back, working our way out of the great recession.

Obama and the Democrats have proud records of accomplishment or the GOP record of doing nothing and stonewalling progress. Fighting for equality or dividing the spoils among the very rich, that's the Republican record. Keeping people working with pay below the poverty line or the Democrats attempts to move folks to decent wages with an increase in the Minimum Wage.  

Moving forward with President Obama and the Democrats or more doing nothing and following Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and make war.
  
The Republicans have a record, is that what any of us want for our future?  Time to ask ourselves, what's in it for us?

The GOP Loves to Scream about the National Debt

Answer the Question, is the country better off today than six years ago when President Obama became President?

By Jerry Webman, Ph.D., CFA

Chief Economist

Oppenheimer Funds BLOG

https://www.oppenheimerfunds.com/advisors/article/us-deficit-shrinking-and-debt-stabilizing

Public opinion polls consistently name the federal deficit and resulting debt among the top problems facing the nation. 1 And just a couple of months ago, a nationwide poll showed that 94% of Americans believe the deficit is growing or unchanged. 2 In the aftermath of the Great Recession, these views were understandable as revenue dried up, automatic stabilizers kicked in and the Obama administration pushed a large fiscal stimulus package through Congress. When President Obama was sworn in for his first term, the federal deficit as a percent of GDP had already grown from an average of 2% during the Bush administration, to a monthly run rate of 5.5% by January of 2009, based on monthly U.S. Treasury numbers; it would swell to a peak of 10.4% by the end of December 2009. 3 And higher deficits translated into a growing debt burden. Around the time of the debt ceiling debate in the summer of 2011, the U.S. was on track to accumulate, by the end of 2022, debt in the public hands equal to nearly 90% of total output – a level where, the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff had (in)famously told us, growth dies. 4

But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming the next developed country with a debt crisis- the deficit started shrinking rapidly. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts that, under current law, the deficit will shrink to 2008 levels – $642 billion or 4% of GDP – by year end and continue to fall until 2016. 5 How did that happen?

For one, while the press bemoaned Washington’s failure to achieve a “Grand Bargain” for the $4 trillion deficit reduction ratings agencies requested – Simpson-Bowles, Super Committee, Gang of ‘insert number here’—believe it or not, Congress – with its mere 15% approval rating 6 – acted.

As my political science professor taught me years ago, American politics doesn’t produce grand bargains, we do things incrementally. And this incrementalism, however unlovely the process, has worked. The Budget Control Act of 2011 (which put caps on discretionary spending), the American Taxpayer Relief Act (which, though poorly named, resulted in $600 billion in new tax revenue), and the sequester (the full effects of which we have yet to see) have had a real impact on the nation’s fiscal situation.

Improving economic conditions have also been helping the deficit equation. Consider revenues. On average, revenues account for 18% of GDP, but at the end of 2012 revenues were only 15.8% of GDP. 3 As the economy improves the government will collect more revenue and, according to congressional budget office projections, revenues will likely return to 18.3% of GDP in 2014. 7 In fact, April tax revenues were $100 billion higher than they were for the same month a year ago. 8The near-term fiscal problem is on the mend.

We and our elected officials, however, had better not grow complacent. As I noted in a previous post, the aging U.S. population is poised to add an ever-growing burden to the government and its taxpayers. Today the average Baby Boomer is 55 years old. 9 And, in 10 years, when she turns 65, the nation’s debt-to-GDP will likely resemble a hockey stick if current on entitlement policy is unchanged. As a country, to prevent an ever greater share of the nation’s yearly output from funding Social Security and Medicare benefits, to the neglect of defense, education, and infrastructure investment, we will have to make very difficult decisions in determining who receives what benefits, when they receive them, and at what cost to the recipient.

For now, however, policymakers’ actions and the improving economy have bought us time. We have gotten close to the target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction. And, per the CBO, we have stabilized debt-to-GDP around a level of 70% for the foreseeable future. 5 Not bad for a country once considered doomed by its debt.

Digging out from under the pile of unfinished business Speaker Boehner and his cronies left behind when the House went on vacation again!