POLL: On Trade, Follow Lou Dobbs not Tom Friedman

Democrats are still engaged in a debate about whether to continue embracing Clinton-style corporate-written "free" trade deals, or whether to start putting America's middle-class first. If there was any debate about where the right place to go politically is, a new poll puts it to rest.

Check out page 32 of this new Democracy Corps poll. It pits the New York Times' Tom Friedman's "free" trade views up against CNN's Lou Dobbs' views on fair trade - and it shows Dobbs views destroy Friedman's in the public's mind. (Note to those of you who take issue with Dobbs on immigration, this is only on trade policy - not on anything else).

Sadly, the former Clintonites/Beltway insiders who put together this poll (some of whom like Stan Greenberg I do really admire) couldn't prevent their own biases from trying to skew the result: they could only bring themselves to write a headline that said a huge 54%-40% gap meant that "Lou Dobbs is ahead of Tom Friedman FOR NOW." Nonetheless, this poll should serve as a big wake up call to Democrats: on trade, stop listening to the likes of Wall Street types like Bob Rubin and Tom Friedman, and start listening to Lou Dobbs' and those of us who have shown how powerful a populist message on trade really is.