A Call To Action?

I have a friend who is politically savvy. He is neither a republican nor a democrat, but from conversations over the years I think he has supported both parties from time to time.

I wouldn’t even call him an independent. He is a lot like many Americans today who do not support the ideology of any party as an absolute dictum, but are drawn to the words and personality of a candidate through the most powerful of polls. The one inside each one of us.

Instinct.

Gut reaction.

Intuitive or visceral feelings.

My friend believes the political purists and the intellectual polemicists of all parties are misunderstanding the motivating issues.

He believes the issues are not only about the economy. They are not only about the size of the government or the definition of marriage and gay rights. 2012 is about the worry of the middle class and their belief that the powerful, the elected and the rich corporations are willing to disenfranchise the common man for the sake of profit.

I agree with my friend and so far none of the candidates has grasped the growing frustration of middle class worries.

Why?  The powerful are not in touch with their feelings. They have pushed their instincts aside and continue the litany of empty promises, and blaming the other guy for the collective ills of life.

The middle class, of which there are very few in congress, is tired of the disunity and the bureaucracy from the White House on down to the wasteful congressional pork and inappropriate spending of the middle class’s future.

The candidates think the lack of a job and a decent wage is the genesis of the problem. They think spending and cost cutting are the issues. They are true, but they are the surface ripples of a more turbulent deep water.

What’s happening in the grass roots of America is an ad hoc search by the middle class for a leader that can bring compromise, courtesy and concession to the difficult problems that only middle class understands: paying bills, healthcare, a decent job and a decent wage and senior entitlements coupled with responsible citizenship.

The middle class seeks positive solutions to the serious issues in a country they know is in trouble. How do they know it? They live it.

The Tea Party is a prime example of a middle class search for responsible leadership. Their premise is good, but their process is flawed for they have formed into an absolute mass of uncompromising and concretized ideology.

The answer, if we all want one, is a return to the democracy of our foundation. A return to citizen legislators who see elective office as a service not a career and national representatives who empathize with the common man and participate in his entitlements, in his worries and in his responsibilities.

Find those leaders and America is well on its way to solving the myriad of ills that face us now and in the future.