This month, all the aspiring Democratic 2008 presidential candidates seem to be showing up at an anti-Wal-Mart rally somewhere. To talk about its business practices? No, to talk to the middle class.

Ah, the middle class, where all political roads begin and end. It's a smart strategy in America, where most people identify as middle class, no matter what they make or owe.

Politicians spend millions conducting polls and focus groups to understand the middle class. Well, the other day, I conducted a one-woman focus group just by picking up the phone.

Roberta had gotten her hands on a recent report of the organization I work for, which graded members of Congress based on their votes on legislation of importance to the current and aspiring middle class, and she was angry.

She was angry that we didn't support tax cuts for the wealthy, angry that we want an increase in the minimum wage, angry about our rejection of a bankruptcy bill written by the credit card industry. Roberta was 35 calls and 10 voice mails angry.

It felt ironic to have this conversation with this woman, a solid working-class Republican from Pennsylvania who didn't graduate from college but worked her way up from minimum wage jobs, on the same day as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson acknowledged that: "Many Americans simply aren't feeling the benefits. Many aren't seeing significant increases in their take-home pay."

It's not just many, it's most. Poll after poll reveals Americans' profound anxiety about the state of the economy.

So why the anger? My hunch is that it's because Roberta is proud of what she's managed to accomplish despite tough economic circumstances. And she should be. Like my parents, she started with little and worked her way up into a position from which she could raise her family with pride.

How do we confront the challenges of today's economy while acknowledging the people like Roberta who have worked hard deserve to be addressed with dignity?

Telling everyone that the American Dream is dead isn't the answer. It is precisely because we see that the Dream is possible that we fight for it.

Yes, the Dream is fragile. With one accident or health care crisis, it's gone. One pink slip for Roberta's husband, and it's gone. But dead? No.

After Roberta called, I better understood the challenge of anyone running to lead this country in a different direction. We cannot create a tipping point until Roberta is both recognized for how hard she has worked and feels in solidarity with the factory worker whose job was offshored, the couple who applied for bankruptcy because one of them got really sick, the dad who can't figure out how to send his kid to college because public university tuition has gone up nearly 50% in the last four years.

And that will take more than showing up at a rally and saying the words "middle class."

Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy