Last Chance for the Democrats. I tried again today to wake the Democrats to the one issue they can win a landslide with, but I don't know if it will do any good. It may very well be that the Democrats really don't want to win this election because they have no good way out of the Iraq debacle and would prefer that the Republicans twist in the wind of that violent desert.
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Still, just on the CHANCE that some part of them does want to win, even if that means they will inherit the mess Bush has made in Iraq, I sent the following messages to Senator Edwards and my own Senator, Jon Corzine. (The latter message, shown below, incorporates the former.) I have slightly altered the advice given two days ago in this blog, but the differences are consequential, and the issue supremely important, so I stress it again today.)
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>>FYI, I sent today the following message to Senator Edwards, which bears on your role in trying to win a Democratic majority in Congress:
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"It's Personal Debt and Bankruptcy, Stupid." In 1992, Bill Clinton won the White House with a simple slogan that everyone in his camp kept ever in mind: "It's the economy, stupid." While a little insulting to the people working for him, that slogan made the point that the single issue most likely to win the White House for the Democrats was the economy.
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Today, we need everyone in this country to think of an equally simple, powerful sentence as we enter the last days before the election: "It's personal debt and bankruptcy, stupid."
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Are you trying to lose this election? It looks that way. Even if the Republicans and Democrats were even on every other issue, there is one issue uppermost in the lives of 120 million Americans that Democrats can use to win by a landslide, but I haven't heard it mentioned even once with any prominence in MONTHS. The people of this country are DROWNING IN DEBT. It has become a palpable, ever-present, horrible OPPRESSION on the lives of perhaps 40 million families and tens of millions of single people who are harassed by creditors and cannot see themselves EVER getting out of debt. The Republicans want to make bankruptcy almost impossible for ordinary people, to TRAP THEM IN DEBT. The very idea that they could never declare bankruptcy TERRIFIES people trapped in debt, yet you won't use this MOST POWERFUL OF ISSUES to win this election. Why not? Democrats could win not just the White House but also BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS by landing HARD on DEBT! Not the national debt, tho that is a related issue, but PERSONAL debt.
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The people who run this country are, alas, all rich. Even you, who pride yourself for having escaped poverty, are now RICH. Have you forgotten what it was to be poor? This election is being run as tho you and Senator Kerry have NO IDEA of what worries Americans most.
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There is ONE issue that trumps all others, including the fear-mongering of the Bush Administration: DEBT, with its Siamese twin, USURY, and its escape clause, BANKRUPTCY — which the Republicans want to TAKE AWAY from the poor and hard-pressed middle class.
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People in this country are forced to pay 19%, 21%, even 26.90%, interest for the PRIVILEGE of having a credit card or even a charge card for Sears or the Home Depot — downscale stores with upscale interest rates on their charge cards. They are hit with LATE FEES and OVERLIMIT FEES and DEFAULT RATES if they miss a payment. An introductory rate of 9.7% or even 0% can turn into a default rate of 28.740%!
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Perhaps you have no idea of the kinds of interest and fee upon fee upon fee that ordinary Americans are charged — which fees raise the already-usurious interest rates they pay to EXTRAORDINARILY USURIOUS RATES. You pay your credit-card bills on time every month so don't incur any such interest charges or fees. So perhaps you know, intellectually, about these rates but don't FEEL it the way over a hundred million Americans FEEL it.
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Republicans LOVE the fact that the poor and middle class are paying over BILLIONS of dollars in interest and fees to the rich who own the credit companies that are victimizing Americans.
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But why are Democrats almost entirely SILENT on personal DEBT, the ONE issue that could win both the White House AND CONGRESS for them?
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The South is the poorest part of this country, and probably the most oppressed by DEBT, most in need of the continuing availability of BANKRUPTCY. But the Democratic Party seems to have written off the South as permanently Republican! Why? Poverty trumps worry about gay marriage or abortion or stem-cell research or any of the other "values" issues, and Democrats can make poor Southern whites understand that the Republicans are playing them for fools, using shiny, flashing "values" issues to distract them from the fact that Republicans want to TRAP THEM IN DEBT and make them into veritable DEBT SLAVES and WAGE SLAVES so afraid of losing their job -- because they are so deep in DEBT that they will then lose their HOUSE and have to live in their car, if they even HAVE a car -- that they will accept wage cuts and reduced benefits, even "part-time" status that renders them INELIGIBLE for fringe benefits!
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If you can't make poor Southern whites see that the Republicans want to take bankruptcy away from the poor and crush the middle class, then you unfit to be Vice President of the United States.
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It is stupid, stupid, STUPID not to land hard on personal debt and the Republicans' clearly stated intention to make it almost impossible for ordinary Americans to escape oppressive debt (while permitting corporations to declare bankruptcy easily, as to void labor contracts). In these last few days before the election, the Democrats should be reminding Americans 60 TIMES A DAY of the 19%, 21%, 28.740% interest rates they are charged; of LATE FEES and OVERLIMIT FEES and ATM FEES; of BILL COLLECTORS and DUNNING LETTERS and PHONE CALLS at home and AT WORK -harassing- them over debt. Of interest being charged ON late fees and overlimit fees! Of thousands of dollars of debt piling up further hundreds and hundreds of dollars of debt due to the malicious behavior of the credit-card companies and banks that the Richpublicans own. REMIND THEM OF THE OPPRESSION OF DEBT, AND THEY WILL VOTE DEMOCRATIC. STAY SILENT ON DEBT, AND LOSE THE ELECTION. It's that simple, because, truly, "It's debt and bankruptcy, stupid."
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Sincerely, L. Craig Schoonmaker (http://antipost.blogspot.com), Chairman, Expansionist Party of the United States, Newark, NJ (website at http://members.aol.com/XPUS)<<

- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:59 PM