Yesterday's
Boston Globe gave an intriguing preview of Democratic strategy for the 2006 races.
Democrats to woo voters on wage issue
Frozen minimum pay seen as spur
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | December 25, 2005
WASHINGTON -- New Year's Day will bring the ninth straight year in which the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $5.15 an hour, marking the second-longest period that the nation has had a stagnant minimum wage since the standard was established in 1938.
Against that backdrop, Democrats are preparing ballot initiatives in states across the country to boost turnout of Democratic-leaning voters in 2006. Labor, religious, and community groups have launched efforts to place minimum-wage initiatives on ballots in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Arkansas, and Montana next fall.
Democrats say the minimum wage could be for them what the gay-marriage referendums were in key states for Republicans last year -- an easily understood issue that galvanizes their supporters to show up on Election Day.
This seems to me to be a winner on all fronts. Besides being the right thing to do, it's an opportunity to tie in bloated CEO salaries, benefit cuts, corporate tax breaks and other oligarchical schemes so dear to the (barely beating) GOP heart.
Additionally, it will have the backing of John Edwards - who, with his theme of the two Americas - is the perfect (and popular) spokesperson for the issue.
Congressional Republicans' efforts to block an increase to the federal minimum wage allows Democrats to take a popular stand that contrasts the priorities of the two parties, said former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, the Democrats' 2004 nominee for vice president.
''It's a powerful political issue because it's the right thing to do," said Edwards, who visited Arizona, Michigan, and Ohio this year to rally supporters for minimum wage initiatives and plans to travel more extensively next year in key states. ''It's something that we should not be shying away from, and something we should be pushing."
The religious left is getting behind the proposals, which will allow Democrats to tie "values" in with giving workers a fair shake, a sweet message indeed.
In addition, Democratic-leaning religious groups are working with local churches to build support for minimum wage initiatives. The ''Let Justice Roll" campaign is asking leaders of churches, synagogues, and mosques to talk to their members on the importance of the minimum wage in a nation-wide push timed for the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 14-16.
''We bring it straight to the voters, state by state, and all the polls indicate people want people to be paid reasonable wages for their work," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and a former Democratic House member from Pennsylvania.
Minimum wage proved itself to be a winner in 2004:
Last year, both minimum wage increases on state ballots won overwhelmingly. Voters in Florida and Nevada -- two states that went narrowly for Bush -- overwhelmingly supported a higher minimum wage, giving ballot measures 71 percent support in Florida and 68 percent in Nevada. (The Nevada initiative must be approved again in 2006 before it can take effect.)
Democrats say they hope to replicate Republicans' success in 2004, when ballot initiatives banning gay marriage passed in all 11 states they were offered. The initiatives were credited with boosting GOP turnout in those states.
My only concern stems from the fact that although the minimum wage initiatives won "overwhelmingly," they didn't seem to have the intensity of the coattail effect the GOP claimed for the gay marriage initiatives last year, sweeping candidates in with them. Of course, this could be from conservatives over-attributing turnout to the "values" crowd; it's hard to see how citizens could really care more about what's going on in their neighbor's bedroom than how much cash is in their wallets each pay period.
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