Do Democrats Ignore Workers?

Greg Mankiw says he hearts Peggy Noonan:

Democrats in the end speak most of, and seem to hold the most sympathy for, the beset-upon single mother without medical coverage for her children, and the soldier back from the war who needs more help with post-traumatic stress disorder. They express the most sympathy for the needy, the yearning, the marginalized and unwell. For those, in short, who need more help from the government, meaning from the government’s treasury, meaning the money got from taxpayers.Who happen, also, to be a generally beset-upon group. Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes to help the beset-upon mother and the soldier and the kids. They express little sympathy for the middle-aged woman who owns a small dry cleaner and employs six people and is, actually, day to day, stressed and depressed from the burden of state, local and federal taxes, and regulations, and lawsuits, and meetings with the accountant, and complaints as to insufficient or incorrect efforts to meet guidelines regarding various employee/employer rules and regulations.

This is in the middle of a lot of Noonan fluff about the DNC speeches starting with her coverage of the speech by Bill Clinton. Paul Krugman heard something interesting in this speech:

My second reaction was that in Mr. Clinton’s speech — as in the speeches by Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden (this column was filed before Barack Obama spoke on Thursday night) — one heard the fundamental difference between the two parties. Democrats say and, as far as I can tell, really believe that working Americans are getting a raw deal; Republicans, despite occasional attempts to sound sympathetic, basically believe that people have nothing to complain about. As it happens, the numbers support the Democrats.

Does Mankiw and Noonan think only the business owner have to work for a living? Do they think that the employees of the business owners don’t have to work for a living? If the answer to these questions are no, then her claim that “Democrats show little expressed sympathy for those who work to make the money the government taxes” is simply wrong.