Shrinkwrapped:

There is no doubt that both Clinton and Obama, for all their talk of “hope” are both heavily invested in misery and failure–both in their economic philosophy, as well as their desire for immediate (if not sooner) surrender in Iraq.

You would think that people with real “hope” would see the progress in Iraq and the turnabout that has occurred in the hearts and minds of the people there. You would think that people hyping “change” would come up with some ideas and programs that aren’t beholden to an ideology that has already failed in country after country, and which has made their economies circle the drain.

The Democratic party has become a bleak house that only knows how to pander to the pessimism and envy of Americans. Since 2000 when Bush was elected, they have been whining constantly and pointing to doom and gloom omens whenever they could about the economy. Their goal? To create a perception of disaster–even as the economy chugged along like the little engine that could. No group is happier or more excited over the possibility of a real recession than the Democratic elite, who are practically salivating over the word. Never mind that unemployment remains at historic lows, as Hanson mentions; or that manufacturing has actually grown during the Bush years:

From 2003 to 2006, manufacturing growth averaged over 2.3%. There’s every reason to believe that real growth in manufacturing continued in 2007.

Okay, what about the decline in total manufacturing jobs? Well, that’s due to productivity and calls for a history lesson.

In 1945, 16% of Americans worked in agriculture. By 2000, that percentage had shrunk to 1.9%. Yet, as with manufacturing, and despite steep, long-term, productivity-driven drops in the prices of agricultural commodities, agriculture’s GDP has grown consistently in real terms — but just not as fast as other sectors in the economy.

When’s the last time you read somebody fretting over the “de-agrification of America” and longing for workers to head back out into the fields? And why would it be a bad thing if, over the next few decades, we’re able to get ever more value out of manufacturing with fewer people as long as overall unemployment stays low?

This is why the Democratic candidates try to outdo each other with stories of pathos and woe, since anecdotes are the only real data to which they can refer to justify their economic doom and gloom.

And, now that things are going well in Iraq, the last thing you hear is any Democrat talking about it–except, of course, to remind people that they were opposed to it from the beginning–no matter what they said at the time, or how they voted. The anecdotes are being trotted out fast and furious here, too, to justify the “psychopathic soldier” meme–most recently that they even kill poor, helpless puppies– that most of the poltiical left subscribes to anyway.

In fact, if you actually look at the behavior of the Democratic candidates and their leftist political base, you begin to see that “hope” and “change” are the last things in the world they stand for–or champion. More like hype and shortchange.

The Democrats live in a very bleak house, indeed.