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Authors don’t get American electorate

Editor, Index-Tribune:

    

  Regarding “For half of America, Big Government sounds good?” By Rob Schwarzwalder and Cathy Ruse J.D.

  The authors couch their views in the tones of reasonableness and reality, but it’s apparent that they still don’t get it. It’s a false dichotomy to say that, “One America is appreciative of entrepreneurs and skeptical of government; the other, skeptical of business and supportive of government.”

  If your analysis is no subtler than this, you have no hope of understanding this country. Ronald Reagan certainly did not “appeal to both Americas by “speaking the language of the old universal popular culture,” “He was roundly despised by many people.”

  In addition, as successful as he was electorally, he kicked the snowball of Republican doom over the side with his devotion to supply-side theology.?They say that “Barack Obama did not appeal to our, conservative, America. He has done no better than we have to convince a majority of his fellow citizens of a broad agenda resting on shared beliefs and hopes.”

  Don’t confuse the people who voted with all the people. Reputable polling has show that non-voters preferred the Democrats by a wide majority.?Clueless again:?“We must learn the hearts and minds and language of the other America, so that we can make the case for conservatism in every corner, winsomely, winningly.” I think you made your case very clearly. That’s why you lost.

  Michael Acker

Sonoma