David Brooks - there's a reason he's a commentator on NPR every week

green_grrl pointed me here: "http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/opinion/brooks-the-party-of-work.html

David Brooks comments:

Moreover, when they look at the things that undermine the work ethic and threaten their chances to succeed, it’s often not government. It’s a modern economy in which you can work more productively, but your wages still don’t rise. It’s a bloated financial sector that just sent the world into turmoil. It’s a university system that is indispensable but unaffordable. It’s chaotic neighborhoods that can’t be cured by withdrawing government programs.

For these people, the Republican equation is irrelevant. When they hear Romney talk abstractly about Big Government vs. Small Government, they think: He doesn’t get me or people like me.

He ends with a call to actually do some real world research about what actually happens in the lives of American workers and figure out new, cutting edge ways to deal with those problems, whether or not the solution may or may not be more government.