Can A Movie-- With Popcorn Perhaps-- Help Progressives Win In 2014?

Robert Reich's movie, Inequality For All, hits the theaters on September 27. Above is a first-look at the trailer. The imagine of the suspension bridge makes the case for a comparison between Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush. And it implies the tragic consequences of the comparison between a powerful and determined leader, Franklin Roosevelt, and a weak, vacillating one, Barack Obama.

I'll be looking forward to seeing it, of course, while working to elect progressive problem solvers against corporate hacks in New Jersey and Hawaii Senate primaries-- where Rush Holt and Brian Schatz are running against Wall Street and Big PhRMA-- and in the special election primary in Massachusetts-- where progressive champion Carl Sciortino is battling an array of garden variety Democratic careerists.

Sciortino's, Holt's and Schatz's opponents may be servants of the corporate elite inside the Democratic Party, but it is the other party, the Republicans, that is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by Big Business and works full time at implementing the corporate/plutocratic agenda. Is the country's most dependable voting block-- the elderly-- starting to wise up? Democratic strategists James Carville and Stan Greenberg claim seniors are turning against the GOP.

We first noticed a shift among seniors early in the summer of 2011, as Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare became widely known (and despised) among those at or nearing retirement. Since then, the Republican Party has come to be defined by much more than its desire to dismantle Medicare. To voters from the center right to the far left, the GOP is now defined by resistance, intolerance, intransigence, and economics that would make even the Robber Barons blush. We have seen other voters pull back from the GOP, but among no group has this shift been as sharp as it is among senior citizens:

• In 2010, seniors voted for Republicans by a 21 point margin (38 percent to 59 percent). Among seniors likely to vote in 2014, the Republican candidate leads by just 5 points (41 percent to 46 percent.)

• When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives at the beginning of 2011, 43 percent of seniors gave the Republican Party a favorable rating.  Last month, just 28 percent of seniors rated the GOP favorably. This is not an equal-opportunity rejection of parties or government-- over the same period, the Democratic Party’s favorable rating among seniors has increased 3 points, from 37 percent favorable to 40 percent favorable.

• When the Republican congress took office in early 2011, 45 percent of seniors approved of their job performance. That number has dropped to just 22 percent-- with 71 percent disapproving.

• Seniors are now much less likely to identify with the Republican Party. On Election Day in 2010, the Republican Party enjoyed a net 10 point party identification advantage among seniors (29 percent identified as Democrats, 39 percent as Republicans). As of last month, Democrats now had a net 6 point advantage in party identification among seniors (39 percent to 33 percent).

• More than half (55 percent) of seniors say the Republican Party is too extreme, half (52 percent) say it is out of touch, and half (52 percent) say the GOP is dividing the country. Just 10 percent of seniors believe that the Republican Party does not put special interests ahead of ordinary voters.

• On almost every issue we tested-- including gay rights, aid to the poor, immigration, and gun control-- more than half of seniors believe that the Republican Party is too extreme.

What do seniors care about now?  Our Democracy Corps July National Survey found that:

• 89 percent of seniors want to protect Medicare benefits and premiums.

• 87 percent of seniors want to raise pay for working women.

• 79 percent of seniors think we need to expand scholarships for working adults.

• 77 percent of seniors want to expand access to high-quality and affordable childcare for working parents.

• 74 percent of seniors want to cut subsidies to big oil companies, agribusinesses, and multinational corporations in order to invest in education, infrastructure, and technology.

• 66 percent of seniors want to expand state health insurance exchanges under Obamacare.

Instead of wasting million of ineffective TV and radio ads for Blue Dogs in red districts, the DCCC and DSCC would be better off giving senior citizens tickets to see the Robert Reich film in September.