Did the Democrats give up on class warfare?

Jonathan Martin (at Politico) says they did. He notes that Occupy Wall Street has evanesced and that Obama conspicuously avoided participating in the Wisconsin recall election.

Labor unions hoped to turn the Wisconsin recall election into a rallying cause for their ailing movement. But a Democratic president couldn’t be dragged off the sidelines for the fight.

And let me add that even the Democratic candidate in that election avoided talking about labor union matters. Tom Barrett talked — with stunning blandness — about a restoration of civility and working together.

When you get a few paragraphs into the long article, you'll see it's mostly complaints about the dynamics of campaign finance with lots of quotes from people Martin counts among the few "unapologetic populists" left in the party. But there's this nice summary:

*The political infrastructure doesn’t exist. Class-based partisan appeals by Democrats in the early and mid-20th century were typically supported by a robust and well-organized labor movement. That doesn’t exist in any similar form these days.

*Even populist politicians need money. Conspiracy theorists who believe campaign contributions drive the agenda aren’t altogether wrong. It is virtually impossible to be a successful national Democrat without relying heavily on business interests, including the financial industry, for campaign funds.

*The president, a man comfortable in elite circles, is not temperamentally inclined for the kind of sustained, rough-edged partisan combat that true populist politics requires. So, while he is tempted by populist appeals on some days, he often turns ambivalent and changes his message the next.

*Most important of all, lots of Democrats simply do not support populism, on either ideological or stylistic grounds. Many upscale Democrats believe that Washington needs less combat, not more, and populist messages strike them as irrelevant at best, demagogic at worst. Even some working-class voters have their assets in the stock market, because of their 401(k)s and IRAs, making even the most traditional of Democrats believe their interests are more in line with Wall Street than opposed.

"Why publish the story then when you couldn't answer the essential question: What precisely is Herman Cain alleged to have done to these women?"

Howard Kurtz asks Politico's Jonathan Martin. Martin flails desperately, and Kurtz keeps going after him.

MR. KURTZ: I think at a lot of news organizations an editor would have said... you don't have the details of the sexually suggestive behavior that made them angry. Go back and get more. You could have waited, there was nothing forcing you to publish this last Sunday.

Martin blabbers. Kurtz makes him suffer. Watch the video at the link.

Meanwhile, on "Meet the Press," David Gregory had a chance to interrogate Maggie Haberman, whom he identifed as "Politico's reporter covering the Cain story." Gregory asked her absolutely nothing about Politico's behavior. He put up a quote from Cain, saying he'd like to leave the story behind and "get back on message," and asks her "So how does he really do that when there are more questions, which are primarily what?"

MS. MAGGIE HABERMAN: Well, I think among the questions are does he remember the second woman who we reported on? He says he has no memory of her whatsoever. Other media outlets have confirmed that there was another woman who had made some kind of complaint about sexually inappropriate behavior.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. HABERMAN: And Mr. Cain's campaign last night not only said they don't want to talk about this anymore, but they, you know, said they were going to email people the code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists, and did to one of my colleagues. I think this is where you're going to see the pivot. They are going to say the media is out to get him. I think that it has served them well this week.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. HABERMAN: I think that's how he's gotten around some conflicting answers about what's happened. I don't know that he's going to be able to not answer or at least not get asked them anymore, going forward.

At that point, Gregory moves on to another guest. That is, he lobbed Haberman a question that she was able to use to place the burden on Cain to come forward with the details, and Gregory asked nothing. Unless you consider "Mm-hmm" to be something. Haberman mentioned the code of ethics from the Society of Professional Journalists, but that did not rouse Mr. Gregory from his slumbers. Tim Russert would have grilled her. She needed grilling. Why have her on the show and not interrogate her?

The Democrats and Rush Limbaugh: An intriguing symbiosis.

Jonathan Martin describes the dynamic:

The strategy took shape after Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville included Limbaugh’s name in an October poll and learned [that he had an 11% approval rating with voters under 40]. Then the conservative talk-radio host emerged as an unapologetic critic of Barack Obama shortly before his inauguration, when even many Republicans were showering him with praise.

Rush's "I hope he fails" line was big.

... Democrats realized they could roll out a new GOP bogeyman for the post-Bush era by turning to an old one in Limbaugh, a polarizing figure since he rose to prominence in the 1990s.

Limbaugh is embracing the line of attack, suggesting a certain symbiosis between him and his political adversaries.

"The Administration is enabling me,” he wrote in an email to POLITICO. “They are expanding my profile, expanding my audience and expanding my influence. An ever larger number of people are now being exposed to the antidote to Obamaism: conservatism, as articulated by me. An ever larger number of people are now exposed to substantive warnings, analysis and criticism of Obama's policies and intentions, a ‘story’ I own because the [mainstream media] is largely the Obama Press Office.”

The bigger, the better, agreed Carville. “It’s great for us, great for him, great for the press,” he said of Limbaugh. “The only people he’s not good for are the actual Republicans in Congress.”

Now, of course, Carville, as usual, is crowing about the fabulous Democrats and mocking those dismal losers on the other side. But he must also secretly be scared of the Democrats' powerful, fearless, articulate critic. Those Republicans in Congress were conveniently cowed, and the last thing that needed to be done was to ruin Rush. But Rush gets energy from the attention. If only those under 40 folks would actually listen to his radio show and find out what he's really saying. It's easy to hate him from afar, to regard him as poison, not to be touched at all. I felt that way myself. But if they were to overcome that barrier and actually listen — as I did — they might get hooked in — as I did.

By February, Carville and Begala were pounding on Limbaugh frequently in their appearances on CNN.

Neither Democrat would say so, but a third source said the two also began pushing the idea of targeting Limbaugh in their daily phone conversations with Emanuel.

Conversations and email exchanges began taking place in and out of the White House not only between the old pals from the Clinton era but also including White House senior adviser David Axelrod, Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Woodhouse.

The White House needed no more convincing after Limbaugh’s hour-plus performance Saturday, celebrated on the right and mocked on the left, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he re-stated his hope Obama fails....

By Sunday morning, Emanuel elevated the strategy by bringing up the conservative talker, unprompted, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and calling him the “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”

Even Republican National Chairman Michael Steele joined in with a surprising critique of Limbaugh as a mere “entertainer,” who is “ugly” and “incendiary.”

“He took a little match we had tossed on the leaves and poured gasoline on it,” said one Democrat of Steele.

Steele was forced into calling Limbaugh to apologize Monday, an embarrassing climb-down following the RNC chairman’s criticism of the conservative talk-show host.

But Democrats kept at it in rapid-fire succession, thrilled that Steele had validated their claim that Republicans were scared to cross Limbaugh...

“I want to send Rush a bottle of vitamins,” said Begala. “We need him to stay healthy and loud and proud.”

Oh, really?

It’s something of a back to the future tactic for Democrats: painting the GOP as the party of the angry white male. But unlike Newt Gingrich or other prominent Republicans, Limbaugh doesn’t have to mind his tongue.

So let's have a free-wheeling outsider voice reviving conservatism. In fact, with all this newfound power, Rush is likely to concentrate on explaining conservatism. He's not out of control, and it would be naive to think he's going to say outrageous things that can be used to hurt Republicans. He's more likely to throw stink bombs when he's not getting enough attention. What he will do now, I think, is highlight things Democrats say and show you why those things are outrageous — and he is at his best and most entertaining when he does exactly that.

“The television cameras just can’t stay away from him,” Carville said Tuesday.... “Our strategy depends on him keeping talking, and I think we’re going to succeed.”

It's a risky game, and Limbaugh can't lose it. We'll see what happens to the Republicans he means to help.