An Obama presidency would undoubtedly try to co-opt the populist economic argument, in much the same way FDR did in the early ’30s. But it’s not at all clear he will be successful. (To be fair, had Long not been removed from the scene in 1935, it’s unclear how successful FDR’s political future would have been, either.) Sure, an eventual recovery will go a long way to solving President Obama’s problem with working-class voters, but his hands will be tied politically, to some extent, since most of the Democratic Party has been in bed with the investment bankers and the deregulators just as much as have the Republicans. Isn’t Bob Rubin just Hank Paulsen in a different suit?
This suggests that if Obama wins, the real political energy in the country over the next several years may come from a new populist political force. Would someone challenge Obama from the left? Unlikely. But already there are arguments from such political theorists as Michael Barone and Steve Sailer that the cheap mortgages, which led to the housing crisis, which precipitated the financial crisis, were directly related to the immigration boom. Such arguments are made-to-order for someone like CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who has recently been railing against the lackluster efforts to solve the financial crisis with gusto, much as he attacks the government’s failures to enforce immigration laws.
In other words, Dobbs — or a counterpart — is likely to be a “third party” political force to watch after November 4. That’s not politics as usual. But neither is the era we’re now facing.
To read the “Presidential Tote Board” blog, go to thePhoenix.com/blogs/toteboard. Steven Stark can be reached at sds@starkwriting.com.
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