Posted by
Paul Wamack on Sunday, June 08, 2008 8:38:13 AM
The public perception is that the Republican party is led by and generally made up of fat white men with fat cigars and even fatter expense accounts. On the other hand, the Democrats are supposed to be the ones who are down for the struggle; the blue-collar workers, the down-trodden races, the ones who care about the bleeding crowd. This is a totally spurious caricature. For one thing, the blue-collar workers have traditionally competed for their jobs with the down-trodden races, and the down-trodden races have competed for their jobs with the newest immigrants. With fundamental economic issues like supporting one's family on the line, the competition has historically boiled over into hatred, prejudices and violence.
I am not going to suggest that there are no overweight people in the Republican party. Liberals are more likely to smoke than conservatives, and neither party has a corner on the cigar market. That's not the point.
In the bygone days, most rich people were ones who started successful businesses. These were the entrepreneurs, the risk-takers; and if was from this pool of American individualism that the Republican party has traditionally drawn its lifeblood. I am proud of American individualism and the wonderful gifts that it has historically brought to the bleeding crowd. (Hi, Michelle!) This was the traditional path to financial success. But recently, there have been other paths to riches in this country. Many of the rich today never started their own business, never invented a better mouse trap, never struck out on their own. Some inherited their money -- like the Kennedys, Paris Hilton or Theresa Heinz Kerry. Others have earned their money without entrepreneurship, while still an employee of a large corporation. For example, the CEO of AT&T earned $80 million last year. I'm not seeking to debate the relative merits of executive compensation and the market forces, at least not at this point. I am merely observing a number of large-ticket jobs where the employee never had to wax entreprenurial, never left the safety-net of a steady paycheck.
People who do not wish to strike out on their own, folks who prefer to remain comfy in the safety net, are traditionally Democrats. Safety nets are not necessarily bad, but they take the edge off the need to stretch out a little further. (Who doesn't know someone who has waitied until their unemployment benefits were running out before they started looking for another job?) As this new population of rich people who never took risks grows, so will the number of Democrats with money.
After all, money doesn't care who owns it.