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The 2008 presidential election was all about the middle-class. Americans worried about how the recession would affect the middle-class, whether or not the middle-class was in decline, and what could be done to revive the middle-class.
What’s strange, however, is that only one side was using the term “middle-class.”
Take a look at the debate transcripts.
In the first presidential debate, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says “middle-class” three times.
In the second presidential debate, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says “middle-class” six times.
In the third presidential debate, Democratic candidate Barack Obama says “middle-class” five times.
Republican candidate John McCain doesn’t mention the middle-class once.
This pattern isn’t just confined to 2008. Compare, for instance, Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican president George W. Bush. Mr. Bush, like Mr. McCain, didn’t use the word “middle-class” once during his acceptance of the 2000 presidential nomination. On the other hand, Mr. Kerry spoke of the “middle-class” eight times during his acceptance of the 2004 presidential nomination.
The pattern continues today. In the most recent Republican primary debate, the word “middle-class” once again was nonexistent.
Republicans do seem to use synonyms for middle-class. Senator John McCain spoke about “middle-income” individuals three times during the debates. In the most recent Republican primary debate, former Senator Rick Santorum talked about the “broad middle” three times, and former Governor Tim Pawlenty used the term ”middle-income” once. (President George W. Bush didn’t use either term in his acceptance speech, on the other hand.)
Nevertheless, there is a strange reluctance amongst the Republican Party to talk about the middle-class. Perhaps Republicans don’t like the word “class.” They might think it has a relationship to class warfare, even though the term “middle-class” is a very neutral word.
They should get over it. Refusing to talk about the middle-class opens the door to Democratic attacks that Republicans don’t care about the middle class. And of course the Republican Party cares about America’s middle class. Don’t they?
–inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
7 Comments
Interesting observation.
Yes. Interesting. I would bet that “working class” and “ruling class” were not uttered by either Party. The Democrats can use the word class as long as it is the neutral “middle class”. The Republicans can’t use the word at all. Sounds too much like Marxism. Ours is a classless society as everybody knows.
Ha! Good catch!
However, another, equally good question, is,”Why doesn’t Obama talk about ALEC?” After all, ALEC will be bad for the middle class.
The Republicans hate America and the middle class. They are traitors. As for the Democrats (at least the leadership), I have no idea where they stand. Talk about ambiguous and in some ways hypocritical.
Mitt Romney may be a multimillionaire, but on Wednesday he set his net worth aside and declared himself a member of “the great middle class.”
“We ought to provide help to the people who have been hurt most by the Obama economy. And that’s the middle class,” Romney said at a town hall meeting in Miami. “It’s not those at the very low end; it’s certainly not those at the very high end. It’s for the great middle class — the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country.”
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/mitt-romneys-middle-class-moment/
Some of them have used the term, middle class. Their version of it is someone who makes $500,000 to $ 1 million. Which would make $200,000 to $500,000 lower middle class. In their own little world.
Dumb in most respects, Republicans can be way smart in their use of frames and framing. (A lot of that smart is probably due to Luntz and his like.) Americans don’t like ‘class’. People still want to think that the idea of ‘class’ is not relevant in America, the classless society. In any event, people want to vote for Presidents of the United States, not presidents of the middle class. (also Senators and such.)