Labor Day opinion and analysis.
NY Times:
The battle in Delaware is just the latest reminder that as much as the Tea Party fervor is expected to help Republicans in November, it may also create problems for them — and opportunities for the Democrats.
It isn't what the tea party does, it's what Democrats haven't done. Gallup says:
Thus, it would appear the outcome of the elections hinge on how voters evaluate the performance of President Obama and the Democratic Party. To the extent that Democrats can improve these evaluations, they may be able to reduce the proportion of negative voting against their party and reduce the share of the Republican vote as well. The Republicans may strive to give voters reasons to vote "for" them, but the examples of past midterm elections suggest that negative voting may be the pivotal factor.
People don't like Republicans. They just don't want to vote for Democrats right now.
Harold Meyerson:
On Labor Day 2010, the state of America's workers is appalling.
Millions have lost their jobs. Millions have had their lives put on hold or thrown into reverse.
Granted, it's a global recession. The state of the world's workers -- at least in the advanced democracies -- should be equivalently appalling. But it's not. The Great Recession has taken a far greater toll on our nation's workers than on workers in similar countries, even those whose economies have dipped more steeply than ours.
Frank Bankard:
As we celebrate Labor Day, how many of us will account for this day as the end of summer or the true meaning of the fight for the eight-hour work day?
On a September morning in 1892, organized workers of the New York Labor Counsel walked off their jobs in New York City and marched into the streets to demand an eight-hour work day.
Richard Trumka:
This Labor Day, more of our grandparents may be working a cashier's line, waiting tables or preparing lessons for the first day of school. Remember those happy TV commercials of seniors having the time of their lives, retiring in comfort and dignity after a lifetime of work? They're a dying dream for most older Americans. And that's something we can't let happen.
EJ Dionne:
It was some years later when I learned about the heroic battles of the UAW, not only on behalf of those who worked in the great car plants but also for social and racial justice across our society. Walter Reuther, the gallant and resolutely practical egalitarian who led the union for many years, was one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s close allies.
Remembering that moment is bittersweet on a Labor Day when so many Americans are unemployed, wages are stagnant or dropping, and the labor movement itself is in stark decline.
Can Democrats recover? Paul Krugman:
Here’s the situation: The U.S. economy has been crippled by a financial crisis. The president’s policies have limited the damage, but they were too cautious, and unemployment remains disastrously high. More action is clearly needed. Yet the public has soured on government activism, and seems poised to deal Democrats a severe defeat in the midterm elections.
The president in question is Franklin Delano Roosevelt; the year is 1938. Within a few years, of course, the Great Depression was over. But it’s both instructive and discouraging to look at the state of America circa 1938 — instructive because the nature of the recovery that followed refutes the arguments dominating today’s public debate, discouraging because it’s hard to see anything like the miracle of the 1940s happening again.