Word: blue-collar
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...major political office before 1974. The Democratic sweep in that post- Watergate year was a watershed, bringing to power a talented crop of young reformers -- including Dukakis -- who realized that old-fashioned liberalism was in trouble. Social issues such as busing and crime had eroded the party's blue-collar base, while middle-class voters saw the Democrats as wastrels throwing money at problems. This Democratic class of '74 talked the language of suburban voters concerned with high taxes, yet sympathetic to the party's identification with social tolerance...
...same day another former rival, Richard Gephardt, was auditioned. The Missouri Congressman, winner of the Iowa caucuses, has the most appeal to the blue-collar vote. Gephardt has corrected his early campaign deficiencies, developing a strong populist message, a compelling delivery, and eyebrows. But unless he is willing to put his $48,000 Hyundai on cinder blocks, it may be hard for him to reconcile his protectionist philosophy with Dukakis' belief in freer trade...
...that the Brawley case should run in historical parallel to the political progress of Jesse Jackson. Any American with a memory watched in astonishment this spring as thousands of white Americans, blue-collar workers among them, an old reliable class of Wallaceites, took Jackson as their leader. Is there some buried law of collective psychological compensation requiring that each burst of light must be answered by a burst of darkness? That the Jackson victories must have the balancing underhorror of the Brawley rape...
...They're uncomplicated people," says James O. Smith, publisher of the Central Oregonian and the closest the county gets to a political scientist. Unlike Iowa's activists, Crook County's blue-collar residents resist single- issue appeals. Farmers have not fallen prey to the farm movement, and unions have not taken over the mills. Most important, no vote is predictable. Although 51% of the 7,090 voters are registered Democrats, they consistently defy party lines. "They vote the way they think," explains LaSelle Coles, 81, a Democrat who typifies this independence: he is heading up Bush's campaign...
...result, the Ford Motor Co. of 1988 is sleeker and stronger than the bloated Ford of the 1970s. Since 1979, the firm has shut down 15 of some 165 plants worldwide and eliminated 60,000 of 165,000 blue-collar jobs and 20,000 of 73,000 white-collar positions. That enabled it to reduce annual operating costs by $5 billion, to an estimated $65 billion in 1987. Over the past few years, the company has amassed cash reserves of $10 billion, which should make a recession bearable...