Monday, February 27, 2006

Blute on Mihos

Former Congressman Peter Blute was on Greater Boston with Emily Rooney today, it seemed, to carry water for Christy Mihos. He talked a bit about his brief courtship with the national GOP, which asked him to consider a run against Senator Kennedy, but he spent much of the interview talking Mihos up. He hopes Mihos will run as a Republican, of course, but what really struck me is when he said this:

[Mihos is] the only guy in the race, of all the four candidates, who has actually created jobs here in Massachusetts.
That strikes me as exactly what's wrong with the Republican party today, both here and nationally. What sort of jobs did Christy Mihos create here in Massachusetts? Unless there is some part of his resume of which I am unaware, they were all convenience store jobs -- many of which are, I'm sure, minimum wage. So, yes, Mihos has technically created jobs, but are those the kind of jobs we want to showcase in Massachusetts? I don't mean to sound elitist, but creating more clerks and cashiers is not exactly going to turn the Massachusetts economy around. President Bush has done the same thing, touting all the jobs he's created over his five years, but the truth of it is that inflation adjusted wages have declined or remained the same. Why do you think Bush gave a recent speech at Wendy's Headquarters? With manufacturing moving overseas and more and more white-collar jobs being outsourced, those low-wage service sector jobs are all that's going to be left.