"Women with Needs" Tells It All

What kind of voter would you imagine that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is attracting to her presidential campaign?  Anne E. Kornblut and Matthew Mosk have the answer.

Clinton is drawing especially strong support from lower-income, lesser-educated women — voters her campaign strategists describe as "women with needs." Obama, by contrast, is faring better among highly educated women, who his campaign says are interested in elevating the political discourse.

Ah yes.  Elevating the political discourse.  We are all in favor of that.

But Republicans should pay attention.  This "women with needs" thing tells it all.  That is what the Democratic Party is for: meeting the needs of "women with needs." 

People Have Needs, they say, as if the answer is obvious: Another government program.

The task for Republicans and conservatives and libertarians and anyone who wants to move from the agricultural era of patronage and clientage is to move the discourse.  To elevate it, if you like.

Civilized society, that is city-based society, has developed a culture in which people meet their needs with astonishing facility.  They work for the benefit of others in the global economy; they marry; they belong to and contribute their time and money to mediating institutions like families, churches, neighborhood associations, mutual-aid associations, affinity groups, and charities.

What they do not do is imagine that government is the place to go to meet their needs beyond the common defense from enemies foreign and domestic and the rule of law.

They know that government is in the compulsion business, and the less of that the more that people will be able to meet their needs in voluntary service to others in the global economy.

Thanks to Hillary Clinton for reminding us of this important truth.