Neo-Liberals Versus Real Liberals

This is what happens when neo-liberals are running the store in the Democratic Party. They don't really care about unemployed people and therefore don't really get programs in place for those people. Thus, the laboring people turn against them in enough numbers to elect Republicans, who REALLY don't care at all about unemployed people. Here is Robert Kuttner:

If the unemployment numbers keep rising into 2010, the Republicans are
primed to pick up dozens of seats in the House, crippling the Obama
administration's capacity to recoup in the second half of the president's first
term. Obama would lose his very tenuous working majority and would confront a
situation very much like the one Bill Clinton faced after the Republican gains
of 1994, when he worked even more closely with Republicans in order to save his
own skin. If you liked triangulation Clinton-style, wait for Rahm Emanuel's
version of it.

The most recent employment numbers were bad enough on their face --
263,000 job losses in September, and a measured increase in payroll employment
to 9.8 percent. But the real numbers are much worse. The nominal rate conceals
the fact that the labor force is 615,000 workers smaller than it was a year ago,
even though the working age population continues to grow. People who can't find
jobs and quit looking are no longer counted as part of the labor force. If
normal labor force growth had continued, the unemployment rate would be close to
12 percent. The administration's people know this reality, and they are
aware of the political risks. So what are they doing? Precious little.

Democrats should get back to its New Deal coalition of labor, true liberals, and minorities if it's really going to turn things around. (That is what some of us hoped we had with Obama, who seemed to be channeling FDR. But there's a lot of disappointed labor people and liberals right now.) Otherwise, it's pretty much a big fraud.