The Light of Truth

I just witnessed a moment-- in the televised Democratic presidential candidate from Las Vegas-- that confirmed my original suspicion that Barack Obama, and John Edwards, are swimming upstream in their race to catch Hillary Clinton before the upcoming votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

I've already said how I find Edwards' uncompromising positions on many issues put him on the top of my list of Democratic hopefuls. His policy positions are no better(or worse) than those of Dennis Kucinich, but he, unlike Kucinich, has the political chops to motivate voters to go to the polls. Barack Obama has hedged his bets a few too many times, in recent months, for me to know precisely where he stands on some key questions.

It was Barack Obama, however, and not John Edwards, who put a fundamental difference between Hillary Clinton's campaign and her top two challengers squarely in the spotlight. The moment came after Sen. Clinton justified her reluctance to consider "raising the cap" on Social Security taxes above the current $97.5K limit. She doesn't want to fix Social Security on the backs of our "middle class and seniors," was the formula she repeated from earlier debates. This time, Sen. Obama didn't let that slide: "Only six percent of Americans have incomes higher than 97.5 thousand dollars. These people are not 'middle class.'" Sen. Obama pointed out how paying Social Security taxes only on the first $97.5K means that super-rich billionaires, like Warren Buffet, are contributing towards Social Security from only a tiny fraction of their wealth.

Nearly all of the lobbyists and affluent, private citizens who have poured money into Sen. Clinton's campaign are also not middle class. Nearly all of the media folks who show up on our T.V. screens to analyze the political campaigns are not "middle class." Yet, if you were to speak with an orthodontist who earned between $180K - $250K last year, you'd be hard pressed to get her to admit she's wealthy. "Comfortable," maybe.

Why does any of this matter? Only because, on issues ranging from health-care and education, to free-trade agreements, perpetuating the myth that you can earn six figures and still be in the "middle" class distorts the debate. For example: a two-income $60k family of four without health insurance suffers a real insecurity far greater than a $200k family of four without health insurance. A major health catastrophe could be devastating to either family, of course, but the latter family can obtain routine health services and pay for them out-of-pocket without going bankrupt. There can't be an honest debate over domestic policies in this country if we accept the myth that an orthodontist/lawyer two income household is pretty much equivalent to a teacher/short-order cook two income household!

Unless and until Obama and Edwards can make this point clearly over the heads of the media talking heads, Hillary Clinton will be able to rake in money from the wealthy while purporting to stand for the "middle class."