unions there was kneecapping down earlier this year. i wonder as we have the conversation about income and equality and focused on the working class, where do you feel the unions are in terms of power? i think that it s easy to be glib abouttime saying this was the year of the protester, right and easy to say or celebrate it and not be glib at all. what does it even mean? right? any device like that comes with criticism. but i think it is actually completely true in wisconsin what you had was a union driven grass roots pushback to the most powerful people in the state and washington was slow to understand it and most of the media i think was slow to understand it and it had a big impact. then obviously the sort of grass roots national component was the occupy protest. same pattern of what i just said and eventually a huge impact and this is not what i would call professionalized politics, it s not what all of us around the table often have to deal with
put the explosive device to blow up the bridge. he did it he did it the to the democratic establishment in the house which it had controlled the house of representatives for 40 years. newt basically invented a new style of semi-intellectual attack politics that was made to appeal to the rising generation of republicans, baby boomers, who had read barry goldwater, read the national review and wanted an intellectual gloss for the all-out kneecapping they were about to commit against the democratic party. that s newt s background. the older generation of republican voters, likely republican voters, remember that newt. they ve forgotten some of the bad stuff like the shutdown of the government, et cetera, et cetera, forgot newt the crybaby on air force one. they remember newt the attack dog. they remember newt, the guy who blew up a seemingly, you know, entrenched democratic establishment. yeah. and they are looking at newt at age 68 to do the same thing all over again to barack obam
out and claiming newt is his father i don t see how this could get much worse. seriously bad start. how does it compare with others? well, you know, you don t often see a candidate get bashed by his own party for, you know, kneecapping another member. with his comments on paul ryan and, you know, his throwing around words like radical and social engineering, i mean, already newt has completely alienated a big chunk of the party on this. he even has rush limbaugh coming out and saying i don t know what to make of this. he s going to need to step back, and that s before the unfortunate tiffany s bill came to light where, you know, with a country in recession, having a $250,000 to half million bill at tiffany s, this is not going to endear him to struggling americans. indeed. especially being a fiscal conservative. i guess he can t be blamed for a member of the public chastising
and it is about a tactical kneecapping of the political force that might resist that, that might resist what the republicans are doing, a tactical kneecapping of the democratic party and its union base. the policies that republicans in these states are pursuing right now are not popular. they attack people who work for a living. and most people work for a living. they attack the middle class. and they attack the institutions that make the middle class possible and that defend the middle class. the only problem the republicans have got, the only roadblock in their way, the central weakness of their position is that whole you might have heard of it. it s the one person, one vote thing? democracy? these policy that s they re promoting benefit a few moneyed interests at the expense of a whole lot of humans. when you hit national poll numbers that say 72% of people support firefighters union rights, 66% of people support teachers union rights nationally, that s not just liberals. this i
kneecapping of the political force that might resist that, that might resist what the republicans are doing, a tactical kneecapping of the democratic party and its union base. the policies that republicans in these states are pursuing right now are not popular. they attack people who work for a living. and most people work for a living. they attack the middle class. and they attack the institutions that make the middle class possible and that defend the middle class. the only problem the republicans have got, the only roadblock in their way, the central weakness of their position is that whole you might have heard of it. it s the one person, one vote thing? democracy? these policy that s they re promoting benefit a few moneyed interests at the expense of a whole lot of humans. when you hit national poll numbers that say 72% of people support firefighters union rights, 66% of people support teachers union rights nationally, that s not just liberals. this is a numerically unwinnable