Bernie Sanders says give people what they want: Safe Medicare and Social Security
Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 09:05 AM PDT by Joan McCarter
Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the charge in the Senate to block any grand bargain that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits, and he's got a pretty smart strategy. He explained his efforts in an interview with Greg Sargent. [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/11/bernie-sanders-just-say-no-to-any-entitlement-benefits-cuts/ ] Getting a budget deal is not about offering up the trophy of entitlement cuts to lure in Republicans, Sanders says.
Now that's a pretty smart and pragmatic reading of the American electorate as well as a smart and pragmatic strategy for getting the Republicans to relent on revenue. Wooing them sure as hell isn't going to get the job done. But standing up as Democrats, with the people, could.
Engaging the public is something Republicans seem to recognize, or at least pay lip service to. That's what's behind their whole supposed "rebranding" effort. RNC chair Reince Preibus says it clearly: "We've got a marketing problem. [...] A pretty big lesson, I think, for the party is that we can't be totally obsessed with math and arithmetic—that we have to go for people's hearts."
But while they're going for people's hearts in marketing, they're missing the mark when it comes to actual policy. Paul Ryan's latest budget is the clearest evidence that they really haven't yet learned the lesson of the 2012 election. So what Democrats, what President Obama, should be doing is to exploit that. The tax message, particularly, was extremely effective in 2012. It could be again, and the American people could be engaged in this budget fight with the promise that Democrats are looking out for them.
That's Sanders' message, and he thinks he has liberal backing in the Senate to amplify it. Or perhaps at least enough help in the Senate to stop a grand bargain that damages social insurance programs, and the Democratic brand with it.
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