Paul Krugman: In Defense of Obama (Rolling Stone)

[JDPriestly]

43. I suppose that if you are losing your house or already lost it, voting is not a big priority.

If you lost your job or are in the midst of a divorce that results from anger over money, you probably aren't really that interested in politics at all.

It's the task of Democratic politicians to take care of working people and to work harder to protect jobs and work in our country. Because Democrats generally are working people. When we get Democrats in Congress who agree to laws or programs that protect the rich, the bankers, those who outsource, HB-1 visas, trade agreements that make it easy to ship jobs overseas and sell cheap foreign-made products here, then it is unlikely that the Democrats, that is the working people of America, the middle and lower income people, will feel like voting.

So, the way the economic recession was handled by the Obama administration and other Democrats affects how well we will be doing this fall in the elections.

Everyone likes Obama. But people are likely to stay home when it comes to voting for Democrats in local elections. I do not expect to see a big turn-out in California, but I think Democrats will do better here than elsewhere.

Jerry Brown gets a lot of credit for that. He has not done everything right. Who can or does? But he rescued (with a lot of help from our California voters and especially our Democratic California legislature) the state from what the press claimed was near bankruptcy. That kind of good government makes Democrats strong and brings out Democratic voters. We need to see that at the federal level. Jerry Brown allowed voters to raise taxes on the more prosperous. That's important.