Reich: Sour economy could put Sarah Palin in the White House

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Political economist and former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in a Christian Science Monitor blog rant so stuffed with liberal Democrat talking points along with buzz words and phrases that he employs the term "white working class" no less than seven times, concludes that the economy, stupid, could put Sarah Palin in the White House:

As I believe will become clearer, the Palin Strategy will involve a political threat to the GOP establishment: Deny her the nomination she’ll run as independent. This will split off much of the white working class and guarantee defeat of the Republican establishment candidate. It will also result in her defeat in 2012, but that’s a small price to pay for gaining the credibility and power to demand the nomination in 2016, or threaten another third-party run in 2020.

Once nominated, her campaign for the general election will be purely populist. She’ll seek to broaden her base to become the candidate of the people, taking on America’s vested Establishment.

More than anything else, the Palin Strategy depends on the continuing fear and anger of America’s white working class. She’s betting that their economic prospects will not improve by 2012, or even by 2016 and beyond.

Sadly, this is likely to be the case. On Tuesday, the Fed issued a gloomy prognosis. Even if the U.S. economy began to grow at a rate more typical of recoveries than the current anemic 2 percent, unemployment won’t drop to its pre-recession level for 5 to 7 years. A minority of the Fed thought this was too optimistic.

The disturbing truth is the bad economy is likely to continue for most Americans beyond 7 years — maybe for ten or more — because of a chronic lack of aggregate demand. Apart from inevitable inventory replacements and the necessary replacements by consumers of cars, appliances, and clothing that wear out, nothing will propel the U.S. economy forward.

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The President seems unable or unwilling to provide the clear narrative that explains what’s happened and what needs to be done, and Republicans are at this moment ascendant.

It all fits into Sarah Palin’s strategy.

Reich, who drew the ire of his fellow liberals by essentially confirming Gov. Palin's warning about death panels before she even issued it, also invoked the word "anger" six times in his post and tossed in some other reliable old leftist pearls such as "racist," fascist," "fear" and "right wing" just for bad measure. To slam Sarah, he employed "snark," "snide," "sarcastic" and "revenge." One would think he was describing his old Clinton Crew colleague Paul Bergala, not Gov. Palin.

Reich's rant is pure Democrat fear mongering, race baiting and Palin demonizing, but it does offer one thing which is new, and it marks a key change in the Democrat's previously-employed narrative that she could win the GOP nomination, but never the general election. Another liberal Democrat has now admitted that Sarah Palin can not only win her party's nomination, but the presidency as well. The point of Reich's piece is to try to scare Democrats and those Vichy Republicans who read the CSMonitor into stopping her.

- JP