Poverty and Politics
Here are some excerpts from a very interesting article, Meet the Poor Republicans (NYTimes reg. req'd), by David Brooks:

Last week the Pew Research Center came out with a study of the American electorate that crystallized something I've been sensing for a long time: rich people are boring, but poor people are interesting.

The Pew data demonstrated that people at the top of the income scale are divided into stable, polar camps. There are the educated-class liberals - antiwar, pro-choice, anti-tax cuts - who make up about 19 percent of the electorate, according to Pew. And there are business-class conservatives - pro-war, pro-life, pro-tax cut - who make up 11 percent of voters.

These affluent people are pretty well represented by their parties, are not internally conflicted and are pretty much stuck in their ways.

But poorer voters are not like that. They're much more internally conflicted and not represented well by any party. You've got poor Republicans (over 10 percent of voters) who are hawkish on foreign policy and socially conservative, but like government programs and oppose tax cuts. You've got poor Democrats who oppose the war and tax cuts, but are socially conservative and hate immigration. These less-educated voters are more cross-pressured and more independent than educated voters. If you're looking for creative tension, for instability, for a new political movement, the lower middle class is probably where it's going to emerge....

The G.O.P. succeeds because it is seen as the party of optimistic individualism.

As readers of this blog will know, I am not a Republican, although I seem to be siding more and more with their program than the other party (minus the war).

Here in Korea, I am able to maintain a comfortable upper middle-class existence. If I returned to the United States today, I'd likely be poor, until I could figure out something more lucratuve than teaching. [Samual Taylor Coleridge noted that teachers would be paupers in the Utilitarian society.]