The Vanishing Middle Class

The middle class holds a declining share of American wealth (see chart). But left and right differ on what to do about it. New York Times house conservative Ross Douthat writes

Across the left and center-left, there’s agreement that an unequal society requires a thicker social safety net, and that as technological changes undercut low-wage work, government should help those left behind. But [liberals aren’t] clear whether this larger welfare state is supposed to promote a link between work, security and mobility, or to substitute for work’s gradual decline. [We see] a growing tendency toward both pessimism and utopianism — with doubts about the compatibility of capitalism and democracy, and skepticism about the possibility for true equality of opportunity, feeding a renewed interest in 1970s-era ideas like [guaranteed annual] income.

Douthat believes conservatives are agreed on how to help the middle class: create jobs. Libertarians who like guaranteed annual income want it only as a substitute for the welfare state, not as a new government program. And both “rugged individualist” right-wingers and “communitarian” conservatives see work as essential to dignity, mobility and social equality, and fiercely resist its decline.

Joel Kotkin, in Forbes looking at the same figures in the above chart (“the middle 60% of earners’ share of the national pie has fallen from 53% in 1970 to 45% in 2012”), points out that

the gradual descent of the middle class into proletarian status has worsened considerably over the past five years.  Not only did the income of the middle 60% of households drop between 2010 and 2012 while that of the top 20% rose, the income of the middle 60% declined by a greater percentage than the poorest quintile.   .   . In the four decades since 1971 the percentage of Americans earning between two-thirds and twice the national median income has dropped from 61% to 51% of the population.

Kotkin has little use for progressives who seek out “urban density” and “green jobs” while limiting growth in manufacturing, energy and housing.  Such efforts, he believes, will create a “permanent underclass of .   .   . part-time workers, perpetual students, and service employees living hand to mouth,” requiring taxpayers to subsidize housing, transportation, and other necessities.

Kotkin reminds us that

the Industrial Revolution saw a similar societal decline, as once independent artisans and farmers became fodder for the factory lines. Divorce and drunkenness grew as religious attendance failed. But a pattern of reform, in Britain, America and even Germany, helped restore labor’s place in the economy, and rapid growth provided the basis not only for the expansion of the middle class, but remarkably improvements in its well-being. 

Kotkin would uplift today’s middle class by encouraging construction, energy and manufacturing, by reforming taxes to fall lighter on employers and employees, heavier on those who profit from asset inflation, and by pushing practical skills training for both youth and those this “recovery” is leaving behind.

We lie for our party. So what?

Rice on "Meet the Press"

“A [diplomat] is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country.”

--Henry Wotton, Sr. (1568-1639)  


 "[Politics] is . . . a continuation of [war] by other means."

--adapted from Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)

From the above two quotations, we understand why politicians calmly go before the media to lie for their leader. Politics, after all, is war without death. And both sides play for keeps. As David Lewis, a Vanderbilt University political science professor, frames it,

to get something done, people have to fear what will happen to them if they don't toe the line, or know they'll be rewarded if they do. You have to let people know that if they do what you want, [they’ll] be rewarded, and if they don't, [they’ll] be punished.

Lying for your leader is one’s best proof of loyalty. It’s also a basic tool in political warfare. Listen to former George Bush aide Karl Rove, who escaped being charged with perjury in the Valerie Plame affair, discussing Susan Rice’s role in the Benghazi disaster:

The worst part of National Security Adviser Susan Rice's comments on Sunday's "Meet The Press" was that she expressed no regret for saying that the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on U.S. outposts in Benghazi were "absolutely" the result of protests against a "very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world." Almost as bad was Ms. Rice's statement that she was merely sharing "the best information that we had at the time." That is a contemptible falsehood.

The truth: Rove is hardly upset. Catching Rice in a lie is proof she’s covering up something big. Rove is practically dancing. He knows Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were both working for Obama’s re-election when the 9.11 anniversary attack on our Benghazi diplomatic outpost--resulting in an ambassador’s and three other Americans’ deaths--threatened to undermine what Obama had said accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination just 5 days earlier, “A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al-Qaida is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead. (Cheers, applause.)”

Obama could not tolerate a true version of what happened, especially because it also would have required a vigorous American response against al-Qaida, wreaking on election eve peace and Obama’s only foreign policy success. Better to blame a video. Better to lie. The Obama administration lied, Obama won, it’s politics, and Rove knows it.

Benghazi still poses a danger for Hillary Clinton, and that’s partly why Rove and company work to keep it alive. Meanwhile, Republicans are chipping away at a bigger scandal--the use of the IRS against Obama’s conservative opponents in the run-up to 2012. The IRS scandal most closely resembles Watergate--unleashing governmental power against domestic political enemies, in violation of the U.S. constitution. The administration’s absolute determination to stonewall on the IRS front seems obvious, highlighted by Obama’s recent statement just before the Superbowl that the scandal hadn’t revealed “even a smidgen of corruption.” Obama knows. Breech the IRS scandal wall, and Humpty Dumpty falls.

Of course, Republican schadenfreude is most conspicuously on display in their “regret” and “concern” about administration problems with Obamacare. Scandals can be minimized, especially while a compliant media ignores them. Lies combined with poor performance affecting millions, on the other hand, are harder to ignore.

Did the Left take down Jay Leno?

“Jay, you’ve made a whole lot of jokes about me over the years but do not worry:  I’m not upset. On a totally unrelated note, I’ve decided to make you my new ambassador to Antarctica. Hope you got a warm coat, funny man.”

--Barack Obama, Leno Farewell Show (2.7.14)

Ha Ha. Jay Leno began his monologue on the same show saying, “I don’t like goodbyes, NBC does. Tonight is our last show for real. I don’t need to be fired three times. I get the hint.” Ha Ha.

So did NBC fire Leno because he upset “POTUS”? Some hints:

• Leno was beating all competition, yet NBC reportedly offered him $15 million to leave the “Tonight Show” early, eight months before his contract expired. 

• Leno talked about “Benghazi-gate,” and after a CBS News reporter finally probed Obama on Benghazi, Leno “joked” that should a journalist “suddenly start asking real questions,” this would be “very dangerous to the White House.” 

• Leno was critical of Obama’s handling of the IRS and NSA scandals; few others would even mention them. 

• Leno writes his own jokes. 

• Leno said that he would continue hosting the “Tonight Show” until he keeled over. 

POTUS AND FLOTUS will be much happier with Leno’s New York City-based replacement. In a column titled, “Jimmy Fallon, Democrat Political Asset,” conservative media critic Brent Bozell writes:

"Saturday Night Live" boss Lorne Michaels. . . is helping to run both the Fallon show and the new Seth Meyers show after him on NBC. When asked about the rules for political satire, Michaels replied: "Republicans are easier for us than Democrats. Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it's funny." Republicans can laugh at themselves, even when they're being mocked. Not Democrats. They have thin skin because they expect every comedian to fall at their feet -- like Fallon does with the Obamas.

Leave it to Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan-Bush 41 speechwriter, to remind conservatives where they (don’t) stand in the real world of our national elite. Noonan recently wrote the Netflix show “House of Cards”

is all about the behavior of our elites, our upper classes, which we define now in a practical sense as those who are successful, affluent and powerful. This group not only includes but is almost limited to our political class, Wall Street, and the media, from Hollywood to the news divisions. They’re all kind of running America. They all seem increasingly decadent.

Surprise: look who supports traditional families!

We wrote about how progressive David Brooks of the New York Times won’t name marriage as a solution for our disintegrating families problem. Of course, there are liberals--non-conservatives anyway--who openly defend marriage. Here are a few:

Williams

1. Juan Williams, Hill columnist and FOX News contributor.


Williams is house Democrat on several FOX news shows. He’s also known as a strong proponent of active, involved fathers forming two-parent families. Williams offers these pro-marriage statistics:  
  

 U.S. poverty rate:
 --single parents with children: 37.1%
 --married couples with children: 6.8%.
∴a married family reduces child’s chance of living in poverty by 82%.  

 babies born out of wedlock:
--72.2% of African-American babies
--53.5% of Hispanic babies
--29.4% of white babies

71% of families living in poverty are single-parent families.

Patton (w/Princeton)

2. Princeton grad Susan Patton.

Patton is the author of Marry Smart: Advice for Finding “The One” out in March from Gallery Books, and is already controversial for recommending women grab their man at university, where the eligible pool is as large as it will ever be. Patton writes:

you have to start listening to your gut and avoid falling for the P.C. feminist line that has misled so many young women for years. There is nothing incongruous about educated, ambitious women wanting to be wives and mothers. Don't let anyone tell you that these traditional roles are retrograde; they are perfectly natural and even wonderful.

Parker

3. Kathleen Parker, Washington Post columnist.

Parker strives to be a true middle-of-the-roader. But when it comes to two-parent families, her bias comes through loud and clear:

[we live with] a continuing erosion of the traditional family and, consequently, what is best for children and, therefore, future society.

single mothers are more likely to be younger, black or Hispanic, and less educated. . . and they have a median family income of $23,000. In those families where married women earn more than their husbands, the woman is more often white, older and college educated and the median household income is $80,000.

children need a father. That not all get a good one is no argument against what is true and irrevocable and everlasting. Deep in the marrow of every human child burbles a question far more profound than those currently occupying coffee klatches: Who is my daddy? And sadly these days, where is he?

Kaus

4. Micky Kaus of “Kausfiles,” supposedly the first political blog.

Kaus used to write for the left-wing “Slate,” ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 2010, but is a well-known contrarian. Kaus is unhappy with single-parent families, but more upset that meritocracy is creating a permanent underclass:

the rise of single-parent families. . . may in part be the product of Larger Forces. For example, it’s not crazy to think that prosperity itself enables more people to get by without traditional families in the shorter term (with possibly damaging long-range consequences). But it’s hard to blame government inaction, and Republicans, for that. It’s more what Marxists would call in internal contradiction–we want prosperity but then we get the problems of prosperity. . .

as inequality grows it becomes harder to climb the ladder because the rungs are further apart. The problem, for this argument, is that declining mobility is also what you would expect if the meritocracy were working perfectly, without race or class prejudice (and inequality were stable or even shrinking). In a meritocracy, after all, the best rise to the top, the least talented and industrious wind up at the bottom. At some point, after a number of decades, maybe most of the talented will be at the top and the untalented at the bottom! Or at least, once the meritocratic centrifuge has sorted everyone out, there won’t be that many talented people at the bottom to rise in heartening success stories (and those stories that do turn up will mainly involve immigrants). Worse, if you grant that a reasonable share of “merit” is inherited, then you are going to wind up with a more static class structure.

If you think I’m overdoing the point that progressives lack interest in marriage, I again give you the Post’s Kathleen Parker:

Democrats avoid the M-word for fear of trespassing on important constituent turfs, especially women’s. For many women, the push for marriage is seen as subterfuge for reversing their hard-won gains. [Republicans] shy away from the M-word for fear of being tagged Neanderthals who are wedded to old-fashioned gender paradigms and nurse secret desires to keep women pregnant, subjugated and in the kitchen where they belong (speaking as alleged, not as is). Or, God forbid, that they be accused of waging war against women.

But marriage, besides being the best arrangement for children, has the added benefit of being good for grown-ups. Half the pain, twice the joy. What’s not to love? [B]eing unmarried is one of the highest risk factors for poverty. And no, splitting expenses between unmarried people isn’t the same. This is because marriage creates a tiny economy fueled by a magical concoction of love, selflessness and permanent commitment that holds spirits aloft during tough times. In the absence of marriage, single parents (usually mothers) are left holding the baby and all the commensurate challenges and financial burdens.

we live in a culture that devalues and mocks marriage, reducing the institution to a buffet item. The lucky can hire a pedigreed baby sitter en route to the next dinner party, dropping a buck in the beggar’s cup, while the unlucky are strapped to a welfare check or low-paying job and a no-hope future. . . rebuilding a culture that encourages marriage should be part of the arsenal.

Progressive View: "Marriage Great. . . for Gays"

David Brooks, in the New York Times, caught my attention with a column that failed to connect family to uplifting the next generation. Brooks writes that

we [place] too much emphasis on early education. . . What happens in the early years is crucial. But human capital development takes a generation. If you really want to make an impact, you [need] a developmental strategy for all the learning stages.

For Brooks, it begins with birth control:

children need parents who are ready to care for them. But right now roughly half-a-million children are born each year as a result of unintended pregnancies, often to unmarried women who are not on contraception or are trying to use contraceptives like condoms or the pill. As the University of Pennsylvania’s Rebecca Maynard and Isabel Sawhill and Quentin Karpilow of the Brookings Institution have argued, if these women had free access to long-acting reversible contraceptives like I.U.D.’s, then the number of unintended births might decline and the number of children with unready parents might fall, too. [emphasis added]

So there’s Brooks pushing free IUDs, basic to the Democrats’ Obamacare strategy of giving women free contraceptives including the controversial “morning after” pill; pushing that pill in order to box the (pro-religion) GOP into a “war on women.”

Next, while Brooks acknowledges that “Once born, children are generally better off if they grow up within a loving two-parent marriage,” he cautions, “It would be great if we knew how to boost marriage rates, but we don’t.”

Brooks’ giving up on marriage flies in the face of conservatives’ --especially all organized religions’--efforts to make a sound marriage culture’s bedrock. Brooks gives up even as liberals elsewhere boost the gay rights movement's strong endorsement of marriage.

The former conservative continues in a similar 100% progressive vein. Brooks endorses yet another Sawhill prescription, those of two other liberal experts on parent-children problems, and five different programs, mostly New York City-based, all involving the elite administering to the masses and getting paid to do so.

Brooks’ entire “uplifting children” pitch, it turns out, was targeting Obama, seeking a place in the president’s State of the Union address. Strange the way Brooks panders to Obama, strange how he wants to raise up the next generation by throwing government money at elite professionals who would attempt to uplift the masses. Strange that David Brooks has become an apostate conservative.

By way of contrast, listen to an actual conservative, Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner, discussing how to uplift children via marriage and families:

holding growth down. . . the widespread disintegration of the family structure. As Utah Senator Mike Lee noted in speeches at the Heritage Foundation, "the problem of poverty is linked to family breakdown and the erosion of marriage among low-income families and communities." [Lee points] to the uncomfortable but undeniable fact that economic outcomes for their children have been far worse than those for children raised in two-parent families.

Government policy can't force people to get or stay married. But it may be able to encourage them to do so. That happened in the years after World War II. A steeply progressive income tax combined with generous dependent deductions [helped stimulate] the Baby Boom and family stability for a generation after the war. Lee proposes a $2,500 child tax credit applied to both payroll and income taxes.

He also proposes allowing employees to claim flextime when they have worked overtime. . . wants Congress to hack away at the marriage penalties embedded in various benefits programs and Obamacare. . . talks about devolving gas taxes and transportation policies to the states (to reduce commute times) and allowing states to accredit alternative forms of higher and vocational education (to help upward mobility). . . we need tax and other policies not just to encourage entrepreneurs but also. . . to help bolster family formation.

Conservatives believe marriage is important, and that government can help support marriage.

Washington Post Challenges President

"That's the good thing about being president, I can do whatever I want."

--Barack Obama (2.10.14)

President Obama’s imperial style is drawing notice from even his friends. In an editorial that raised eyebrows around the nation’s capital, the Washington Post chided Obama with these words:

The Obama administration on [2.10.14] announced that it was delaying, once again, enforcement of the [Obamacare] “employer mandate”[, continuing] President Obama’s increasingly cavalier approach to picking and choosing how to enforce this law. Imagine how Democrats would respond if a President Rand Paul, say, moved into the White House in 2017 and announced he was going to put off provisions of Obamacare he thought might be too onerous to administer.

Stressing the law says business must provide health coverage to full-time employees by January 1, 2014 or pay fines, the editorial noted the administration last summer delayed enforcement for a year. Now, they have changed the rules again, giving medium-size businesses another year before they face fines, and lowering the coverage target for large businesses, actions the editorial says that delay any Obamacare “bad press or bad feelings” until after the 2014 election.

According to the editorial:

the administration is unilaterally making distinctions between large businesses and medium ones; the latter group, which will get hit hardest and scream loudest when [fines kick] in, will be treated more leniently. The law is also explicit that the government should be enforcing penalties already; that’s . . . Congress’s intent. The administration shouldn’t dismiss that without exceptionally good reason. Fear of a midterm shellacking doesn’t qualify as good reason . . .Congress should repeal the employer mandate. Until then, the president should implement the law.

Is the Washington Post slowly edging out of Obama’s camp? We just covered the Post’s Chuck Lane’s assault on public sector unions, an Obama coalition core component. And it’s my belief the Post’s power-crazed home town watches the “RealClearPolitics” combined presidential job approval rating the way stock brokers follow the Dow. So it’s no coincidence that the day the Post ran its blast at Obama’s “increasingly cavalier approach” to following the law, the president’s job approval score was again negative by double digits.

We noted as early as last November that Washington is already treating Obama as yesterday’s news. It’s on to Hillary 2016.

Breaking Ranks: Washington Post’s Lane Blasts Govt. Unions

Peter Sarsgaard as Lane in Shattered Glass

He’s just one columnist, one known to go off the reservation (he’s a FOX News regular). But Chuck Lane is a former New Republic editor (see Shattered Glass), currently opinion writer at the liberal Washington Post, thus part of the mainstream media rampart protecting our national elite and its minorities-unmarried women-government workers-youth base.

So it’s news when Lane, presumably after much thought, unambiguously takes on government unions, huge in the Democratic Party base:

America’s public-sector unions are on the defensive. Wisconsin has stripped them of most collective-bargaining rights and ended mandatory dues payments. Union-negotiated pension benefits are linked to the fiscal plight of cities from San Jose to bankrupt Detroit.

It may be . . .time [to] pose the question that lies at the root of them all: Is public-sector collective bargaining in the public interest? The answer is no. All members of the public use schools, roads, parks and other government services — and pay taxes to support them. Their interest lies in receiving the highest-quality services at the lowest feasible cost. Period.

Public-sector unions interfere. They demand more pay and benefits, and more control over the workplace, than the people’s elected representatives might choose if they were answerable only to voters. Indeed, political war chests accumulated through dues checkoffs . . . give public-sector unions more influence than ordinary voters in many states and counties. At contract time, they face their political allies across a bargaining table. That table, by the way, is behind closed doors; collective bargaining is often exempt from “sunshine laws” that cover other public business.

Lane scoffs at the argument public sector unions ensure that “labor peace” prevents any repeat of the “devastating” 1,400 work stoppages that hit the country between 1965 and 1970. He points out that “even well-paid unionized public workers still strike,” as did Chicago’s teachers in 2012 and Bay Area transit workers in 2013.

Then Lane zeros in on what most bothers progressives, asking, “Can anyone who looks at this country’s urban school systems seriously maintain that unionization makes for an efficient workforce?” Liberals put up with bad schools because

public-employee unions, with their large campaign donations and political staffs, have become “the all-around linchpin of the modern Democratic Party” and the progressive causes for which it stands[, especially] the public schools, which employ almost half of all local government employees but which Democrats dare reform only at the risk of war with teachers unions.

Lane adds that California’s powerful prison guard union fought for the “three strikes and you’re out” mandatory life sentence law, a decidedly un-progressive battle. Lane concludes:

dependence on unions [hasn’t] been healthy for the Democratic Party or for the robust public sector it espouses. . . The fundamental problem is collective bargaining. . . In the public sector . . . it means higher costs, lower efficiency and, worst of all, less democracy.

Lane’s attack is particularly noteworthy because Democrats’ blind support for government unions has so long been at odds with the meritocracy’s faith in quality education. Yet how do Democrats hold power without their public sector unions?

Should Republicans fight big problems with “small ball”?

Ponnuru                     Levin

Scholars say Karl Marx brilliantly analyzed capitalism’s shortcomings, then invented a terrible fix (communism). That may be why conservative Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin’s lengthy National Review article dwells on problems, not solutions as it examines how Republicans can refocus on working class America.

Ponnuru and Levin want the GOP to realize that:

Voters are worried about stagnating wages, inadequate mobility out of poverty and through the middle class, weak growth, and the high costs of raising a family. [Therefore] conservatives must offer the public an agenda that addresses people’s actual concerns in a way that liberals, because of their ideology and their electoral coalition, will be hard pressed to do.

And Ponnuru-Levin call for:

a broad conservative agenda that would lift burdens off the shoulders of parents and workers, strengthen the market economy while making its benefits accessible to more Americans, and better enable the poor to rise. [It would] undermine the damaging perception that the Republican party is interested in helping only the rich and big business.

Perhaps because Ponnuru-Levin worry about bridging a split conservative movement, their agenda seems limited, cautious. They call for:

• conservative solutions to [healthcare] problems involving the intelligent deployment of the same forces — competition, cost-conscious and empowered consumers — that spur innovation and improve value in other sectors of the economy. 

Obamacare is a big, not little, issue. Still, the Ponnuru-Levin solution is light on details, and impossible while Obama remains president.

The two also recommend:

• reforms that create and expand alternatives to a traditional college education, open opportunities for people who follow these alternative routes, and in other ways put competitive pressure on colleges to restrain costs. 

• tax relief for families. . . by creating and then expanding the child tax credit. 

Clinton (1996)

That’s it. Small stuff, but Bill Clinton turned around his fortunes in 1995-96 by emphasizing “triangulation” and “bite-sized achievements.” Are Ponnuru and Levin suggesting a Clinton-paved path? If so, they should tell us directly.

Has the Feminist Cause, Hillary’s Cause, Come and Won?

“Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.”

--Barack Obama, 2014 “State of the Union”

Christina Hoff Sommers, in the liberal “Daily Beast,” forcefully corrects our leader:

What is wrong and embarrassing is the President of the United States reciting a massively discredited factoid[:] the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. [When] differences in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or hours worked per week. . .are taken into consideration, the wage gap narrows to about five cents [emphasis added]. . . the Washington Post included the president’s mention of the wage gap in its list of dubious claims. “There is clearly a wage gap, but differences [relate to] the life choices of men and women.”

Women don’t want these jobs:

And women love these jobs:

Sommers writes that early childhood educators and social workers earn around $36,000 and $39,000, petroleum engineering and metallurgy, $120,000 and $80,000. Yet--of course--most early childhood educators won’t change course after learning they can earn more in metallurgy or mining. Face it, women are drawn to jobs in the caring professions, and Sommers says (I agree), men want “people-free zones.”

So why the bogus statistics? Sommers quotes the American Association of University Women saying that “Women’s personal choices are . . . fraught with inequities,” and that women are being “pigeonholed” into “pink-collar” jobs in health and education. Similarly, the National Organization for Women claims powerful sexist stereotypes “steer” women and men “toward different education, training, and career paths.”

In truth, “powerful sexist” organizations have invested heavily in women as victims, and have no plans to change their missions. Adds Sommers, “American women are now among the most educated, autonomous, opportunity-rich women in history.” So while in 2000 following pressure from feminists, women earned 19% of engineering and 28% of computer sciences degrees, by 2011 the numbers had fallen to 17% of engineering and 18% of computer science degrees. We are living the early, post-feminist years.

Still, Hillary Clinton is available to ride a feminist-fueled victory wave back to the White House. Listen to Sommers' sister “Daily Beast” conservative, Myra Adams, who wrote “16 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Will Win 2016”:

Akin to the movement that elected the first African-American president in 2008, the “Madame President movement” will be propelled by the mainstream media, Hollywood, and social media. Together they will build momentum and coalitions across all platforms, while reveling in their awesome social and cultural significance. You will hear the “triumph of the ’60s feminist movement.” You will hear that you will be “voting to make history.” And you will hear that your vote will be used as a “hammer to break through the glass ceiling of the Oval Office.” listen as political pundits exclaim, “It’s her time,” or “She deserves it.”

Long-suffering Hillary, who was publicly humiliated by her cheating husband and then triumphed over adversity by being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. Long-suffering Hillary, who was defeated by her own party for the presidential nomination in 2008, and then further rejected by Obama to be his running mate. Triumph came later when “Hillary the team player” became the globe-trotting secretary of State and despite a lack of any real accomplishment, eventually earned international respect and higher approval ratings than the team leader himself.

“Vote for the First Dude” is a bumper sticker waiting to happen. During [the] last . . . Democratic National Convention, Bill Clinton convinced America to vote for President Obama in what was heralded as such an eloquent speech that it made Obama seem small by comparison. At that moment, Democrats and their media allies experienced a tsunami of feel-good Clinton nostalgia that continues to this day, and “Hillary 2016” is the supreme beneficiary. Furthermore, from a pop culture/media perspective, her leaner, non-meat eating, more highly evolved, totally rebranded, well-respected charitable husband (of Clinton Global Initiative fame) will be one of Hillary’s greatest assets on the campaign trail.

Persuasive, yes? Two more White House terms for the Clintons, the “two for the price of one” team, as slippery Bill plus Hill skirt past the XXII (2 term limit) Amendment. And here’s another reason (from an earlier entry) why the Clintons will win. Philip Rucker’s Washington Post story about Bill Clinton’s Virginia campaigning last fall taught us exactly how the Clintons plan to run against Obama’s failed presidency:

Clinton credited his work across the aisle with balancing budgets and creating 22 million new jobs — and lamented the state of the country today. “This economic thing, it’s terrible,” Clinton said in Hampton[, Va]. “Median family income — after you adjust for inflation, is lower than it was the day I left office. That was a long time ago. And we need somebody who wants to do something about it.”

Bill Clinton repeatedly said the Founding Fathers wanted elected officials to be practical above all else, designing a system of governing that would force them to negotiate with each other. “Read the Constitution of the United States of America,” Clinton said Sunday in Richmond. “It might as well have been subtitled, ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’ ”

Practical Bill+Hill. Feminism may be an aging cause, but it lives even as Hillary sends it to the background in her historic quest for another 8 White House years.