While Democrats gnash their teeth (not very good for the teeth!) and wail about how seniors–well, white ones anyway–are a staunchly Republican cohort, it appears some of them might not just be old, mean, and crotchety (or bigoted), though surely some of them are (boldface mine):
And what do elderly voters care about? It isn’t jobs, and it isn’t wages. After all, they are almost all retired!
No, what they care about is the interest rates their CD’s and money market accounts are earning, and the COLA adjustments to their Social Security….
Average CD rates have run no higher than 1%. Social Security COLA has averaged 2.2%….
For the last 5 years, inflation has averaged about 2% a year.
Obama and the democrats are seen as having bailed out Wall Street in 2009. Meanwhile savers and those on fixed incomes have taken it in the chops.
So let’s review:
1. A burgeoning midterm electoral cohort
2. skewing more conservative than in several decades
3. that is the prime viewership for Fox News
4. took it in the chops on their savings and, to a lesser extent, Social Security.
5. They blamed Obama and the democrats.Last week, they got even.
Once again, people have to like this crap. I don’t think we should downplay the cultural issues, but, in close races, this stuff matters.
mikethemadbiologist
How quickly people forgot about the Greenspan etiology half-life effects. And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows.
So, why didn’t the Dems run on strengthening Social Security? I mean its just a really popular program. Increase rates to appease the older people. Remove the cap and force the rich to pay in to get the younger people excited. And have a clear “This is what we stand for!” campaign message.
But it probably would have pissed off the big doners, so screw populism. We’ll lose elections with big fat checks and plum after gigs and let the country slide further down. Because this is just a game for them, not life for the rest of us.
A lot of Democrats don’t agree with “removal” of the cap.
Because they don’t want SS to be equated with welfare.
I myself don’t agree with removing the cap. Though I do agree with significantly raising it.
Of course I think campaign finance & plum gigs are the bulk of the problem… I also think that the Democrats have failed to reach the whole of their base in recent years. And as a result many have drifted to “Independent” or even Tea Party Cherry Pickers. (What I call people who sympathize with the Tea Party, but if you talk to them about individual issues, they turn out to have a lot of liberal opinions & viewpoints… they just don’t know it, because they’ve been listening to nonsense descriptions of liberals & Democrats.)