Sovereignty as a Bipartisan Concern--a Democrat Speaks Out

Fred Siegel is a member in good standing of the Democratic Leadership Council; that puts him at the right end of the Democratic Party, but it also puts him in the vital center of American politics.

So this smart piece, published last July, is still required reading for Sovereigntists, especially those who lean toward the Democrats. If Eliot Spitzer , for example, had been paying better attention to this sort of discussion--Siegel lives in Brooklyn, this piece was published in The New York Daily News, the traditional working-class voice of NYC--the New York governor wouldn't be finding himself in the trouble that he's in.

Here's the key passage in Siegel's piece:

Both left and right are sensitive to the loss of American sovereignty. The right is fearful of turning over part of American foreign policy to the moral swamp at the UN, and the left worries about the ways in which the World Trade Organization, which seems to benefit China more than the U.S., limits our ability to protect American workers.

The Democrats, and to a lesser extent the Republicans, are increasingly sensitive, at a time of vast new fortunes but slow income gains for the middle class, to growing disparities in wealth - symbolized by the big money being made on Wall Street by international private-equity companies whose benefits for the overall economy are questionable.

Think, Democrats! Economic nationalism is one of your best cards. Don't throw it away to get an extra million or two from hedge-funders. In the final analysis, it's votes that win elections, not dollars.