Democrats to run on 'spread the wealth' admission

Caucus Blog, NY Times:

Fighting from behind in the final days of the 2008 presidential election, Senator John McCain found a weapon in an unscripted encounter between his opponent, Senator Barack Obama, and a voter.

“When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Mr. Obama told Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber. Mr. McCain seized on the remark as evidence of Mr. Obama’s adherence to “socialism.”

In most respects, the 2012 Republican nominee will enjoy a more promising electoral landscape than Mr. McCain did. But would spread-the-wealth “socialism” be as inviting a target today? Maybe not.

 Indeed, it is a measure of the altered political environment that Democrats now see the distribution of income as a weapon of their own. 

“The whole battleground has changed,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the top political strategist among Democrats in the chamber, said in an interview. “There’s been a major shift in public opinion.” 

Mr. Schumer is, at least in part, making a case for accountability. In 2009 and 2010, Democrats shouldered the blame for voters’ economic pain since they controlled the White House and Congress. Now they share it with a House Republican majority that is committed to government cutbacks. 

But he is also talking about the consequences of Occupy Wall Street that linger after the removal of the tents from Zuccotti Park. By highlighting the widening disparity between top earners and everyone else, Mr. Schumer said, the movement has created an opening for Democrats even as the Obama-era economy remains weak. 

“Jobs and income inequality are going to be the No. 1 issue” in 2012, he said. “Simply cutting government isn’t going to work.”
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I don't buy this argument.  It seems like wishful thinking from some desperate politicians who have a very unpopular candidate and who are having to defend a very unpopular health care and stimulus bills.  They are living in a dream world if they think the Occupy Wall Street hippies  have any influence over none Democrat voters.  They have a rap sheet of crime and pestilence to go with their incoherent message.

The inequality theme also is one with little traction.  How many people do you know who are so small as to be angry about someone making more money than they do.  I have known a few wealthy people and have never spent a moment being angry about their success.  Wealth envy is not, and should not be the basis for an American political movement.

Jack Kelly has a pretty good summary of he unsavory character of the Occupy 'movement.'