A Winning Message: Bring the Troops Home, Bust the Banksters, Democratize the Economy

– When the message is muscular, the enthusiasm is there –

By John Nichols at The Nation

BARABOO, WISCONSIN — Decrying the excesses of big banks and Wall Street speculators, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told more than 7,000 cheering progressives at a county fairgrounds in rural Wisconsin Saturday that: “There is a contest for the soul of America.
 
Urged on by the crowd that had gathered for Fighting Bob Fest, the annual progressive chautauqua on the Sauk County Fairgrounds in this central Wisconsin community, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate declared that America would have to choose between being of a country where a tiny elite controls the vast majority of wealth or one where the great mass of Americans have a chance to survive and thrive.
 
“We cannot subsidize bankers and leave people homeless on the streets of America,” Jackson said. “It’s time for a change!”
 
“We will fight back!” chanted the crowd, which packed the grandstand and field for one of the largest Bob Fest gatherings in the nine-year history of the event.
 
For Democratic strategists who worry about an “enthusiasm gap” in this year’s mid-term election season, Jackson offered the antedote. His adamant address had thousands of people — many of them from rural and smalltown Wisconsin — on their feet and cheering. And this year’s Fighting Bob Fest drew more than twice as many people as a highly publicized and expensively promoted “Tea Party” event — which featured television personalies, “Joe the Plumber” and Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Janesville — held the same day in Racine, Wisconsin.
 
The enthusiastic response for Jackson’s populist speech offered a reminder that there is no enthusiasm gap. There’s a message gap.

See John Nichols at The Nation.