Glossy signs at well-fed protests scheduled with impeccable precision nationwide. 

High-profile politicians pushing the idea in full view of their compliant media.

Yep – the push to jack up the minimum wage is being pushed from every angle by the usual lefty suspects.

And it may be the apotheosis of the liberal campaign strategy – all full of Alinskyite sturm und drang, coupled with an onslaught of gauzy guiltmongering and the idea that we should increase the minimum wage not merely For The Children, but because it just plain feels good.

I caught this last night on MPR, on “The Story”, a North Carolina Public Radio production that seems to be aimed at being a downmarket Terry Gross. 

 Go ahead, check out the interview with Ms. Elisha St. Laurent, who is a woman…

…no.  Ms. St. Laurent is not a person.  She is an archtype, one that’s becoming inescapable in the media’s coverage of the issue – the “single mother and student” who was trying to make it on minimum wage (which, in San Jose, is already $8, albeit in one of the most expensive metro areas in the country).  She’s one of the bunch of – I kid you not – San Jose State sociology students who who organized a voter drive that led to the city jacking up its statutory minimum wage to $10/hour.  The measure passed with – no big shock – the Bay Area voters, and went into effect in March. 

You’ll listen in vain to the interview – clogged as it is with references to “empowerment” and “finding voices” – to any reference to the jobs that are being cut around San Jose.  Indeed, you have to look a solid dozen paragraphs into this story, in the San Jose Mercury, to hear that there is a downside to artificially raising the price of unskilled and semi-skilled labor. 

Apparently small businesses aren’t as “empowered” and haven’t “found their voices” yet.