The Misery Party

Investor's Business Daily has an interesting editorial today about the doom-and-gloom Democrats attempting to make Americans feel worse about their country. The Dems spent the first three days of their national convention throwing out lines like, "The American dream is over" ... "We're headed for another Great Depression" ... "America's best days are behind us"

From the editorial:

... we do know that, if the Democrats did not succeed in dampening the nation's spirits, it wasn't for want of trying.

The convention's list of speakers on just one day (Tuesday) included a laid-off North Carolina textile worker, an Iowa flood victim, an autoworker about to be laid off and an unemployed nurse.

Then there was Joe Biden, who on Wednesday told how he looks into the windows of homes he passes on his way home from work and sees the middle class — or should it be called the misery class? — in pain. They're wondering, he says, how to keep from freezing this winter, how to manage without a raise and how to cope as their health care, home equity and retirement dreams fade away.

Some people really are living this American nightmare. But if they're the Democrats' electoral target this year, they may turn out to be a disappointingly small group. Look at those happiness numbers again. Even on a bad day, the decidedly happy outnumber the decidedly unhappy by nearly 3 to 1. When the weekend rolls around, the contented class beats the misery class by about 7 to 1.

If the Democrats talk long enough, they might push a few more Americans into despair. But to do really well, they'll have to get worse news than the economy has been offering up lately, and they will have to overcome most Americans' natural tendency to look on the bright side. To judge from the party's rhetoric this week, optimism may be its worst enemy right now.

Read the full editorial, "The Misery Class," at the newspaper's Web site.