Kerry and Edwards hope to ride to victory on the supposed antagonism between people who work and people who have wealth. It’s also known as the Envy Card. The politicians and consultants who play the card bank on the ignorance of voters, betting that they can’t see that it’s precisely because some people have investable wealth that most others are able to work at jobs that pay pretty well and don’t involve exhausting physical labor. Expropriating the capitalists will no more make the “common man” better off here than it did in the Soviet Union, but sound bite artists realize that few people can think things through and see the fallaciousness of their little pitches.
Those thoughts were prompted by this excellent NRO piece by Rich Lowry.
There ought to be a prize for the person who comes up with the most effective means of trumping the Envy Card.