Michigan is the state that has been hit the hardest over the last decade by job losses and outsourcing to many wonderful free market economies. You know, like China.

Yet, so many Democrats have been so slow to comprehend how aligning themselves with big corporations, corporate advisors who play Democrats on tv, etc., has hurt the party's image with working people and the middle class, and provided an opening to populist Republicans, it is really almost alarming.

I wrote in the past about how Democrats could form a broad coalition with economically populist stances, that would speak to most people's daily reality, be true to our party's history and form the basis of an excellent political strategy. I now have seen it more up close, as the state that is second to Michigan in terms of losing the kind of manufacturing jobs that used to pay well and provide benefits is Ohio (even though my part of Ohio is not one of the hardest hit, I take short road trips, and what you see is devastating).

Yet, too many Democrats--with some obvious exceptions-- have stuck with their watered-down, free-trade-under-all-circumstances, questioning healthcare for kids while giving CEOs of oil companies tax breaks mentality. This provides an opening to populist Republicans, like Mike Huckabee (seriously, even the upper middle class is getting pretty populist these days with hundreds of thousands of dollars in college costs, a mess of a healthcare sysytem, home values crashing, etc.).

And Huckabee, whether by conviction or political calculation, or perhaps both, is busting through the opening Democrats have provided. Want proof? Watch this ad, as he talks about people wanting a president "more like the guy they work alongside than the guy who laid them off" (take that Hair Product Romney!).

Democrats better get smart on these issues and quick. Or they may just find themselves outflanked. And not just politically, but morally, they would deserve it.