FIRST YOU WIN THE ARGUMENT…

“First you win the argument, then you win the vote.” So said Margaret Thatcher, the first woman Prime Minister of England. Eugene Robinson wrote a wonderful column this week in The Washington Post, comparing the transformational English leader Margaret Thatcher to our own Barack Obama.

Mrs. Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 – 1990, when Ronald Reagan was President from 1981 – 1989, and the two of them were on the front lines of the new Conservatism … they were the advocates for cutting taxes, a tough foreign policy, and were the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-boot-strap kind of leaders.

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were both transformational leaders. They moved their respective countries drastically to the right politically. And, both countries are still paying the price for that “experiment” today. Trickle-down economics did NOT work. Aggressive foreign policy did not work. Abandoning the poor did not work. Conservatism has come up short.

But, Maggie was right on one score: First you win the argument, then you win the vote. And, Barack Obama is winning the argument … big time.

He’s won the tax debate, recent polls show that by wide margins the American people want taxes raised on the wealthy and on corporations. They don’t believe that giving huge tax breaks to the 1% will trickle-down money to them, because we’ve tried that and it didn’t!

Obama has won the “entitlements” debate. The American people overwhelmingly want Medicare and Social Security to stay intact and not be cut. They favor raising taxes to keep these popular programs as they are.

He’s winning the gun debate. Oh, progress will be incremental, and much slower than many of us would like, but we will win this argument, and there will be some restrictions on guns.

And, he’s been very persuasive on education issues, with overwhelming majority support for universal pre-school for four-year olds, for expanding Federal support for college and job training programs, and for raising standards for public schools.

Climate change, marriage equality, minimum wage, and so many left-of-center issues are polling with very high approval ratings among the American people.

YEP ~ FIRST YOU WIN THE ARGUMENT!