When it's hard to determine who even won an election, it's tougher
yet to figure out what the vote means. On the surface, the balloting
for president and Congress reveals a nearly evenly divided electorate
that may end up delivering the most uniformly Republican national
government since the '50s. But voters appeared to want something
different from what they are likely to get.
With Republicans remaining narrowly in control of both houses of
Congress and the
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JOEFF DAVIS
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likelihood--at press time--of George W. Bush squeaking into the White
House by dint of a tainted narrow margin in Florida, the prospects
for progressive political gains in the next four years are extremely
dim. Yet even if Al Gore were to win, there will be little chance
for progress, just a hope that executive vetoes might occasionally
join Senate filibusters as roadblocks to Republicans partially privatizing
Social Security or dismantling federal agencies that protect workers.
But gridlock will not necessarily produce a stalemate. While some
observers are already worrying that the new Congress may not accomplish
much, a bigger worry over the coming years may be the pundits' favorite
nostrum--"bipartisanship." The legitimacy of either man as president
will undoubtedly remain in question, especially if Gore's popular
vote majority holds up and Bush eventually ends up as the electoral
college victor. After all, many Republicans never accepted Clinton
as legitimate after two much clearer victories. Yet if Bush is in
the White House, a bloc of conservative Democrats, already talking
up cooperation, is likely to form a coalition with Republicans,
thus dragging Democrats further to the right or provoking sharper
conflict within the party. Under the cloak of bipartisanship and
"compassionate conservatism," the congressional right would be well
positioned to wreak havoc while claiming to enact reform.
There is good reason to believe, however, that Americans were not
voting for the right-wing agenda that Republicans are likely to
promote. Indeed, while it's hard to claim the vote is a mandate
for much of anything, there are lots of indications that the center
of gravity of American public opinion is moving away from right-wing
hostility to government and toward a more positive view of government
action.
While there were many rumblings of discontent over a variety of
issues, polls show that nearly two-thirds of the voters think the
country is on the right track, and most give President Clinton at
least some credit for the long period of economic growth and low
unemployment. But along with the advantages of incumbency, this
contributed to a vote for the status quo more than increased support
for Democrats. If there was any political direction to the vote,
it was slightly skewed in a progressive direction. After all, Bush
adopted a Clinton-like strategy for his party with his "compassionate
conservatism." He attempted to occupy traditional Democratic terrain
on issues such as education, Social Security and prescription drug
coverage--but with proposals that promoted privatization of government.
However, this reflected a recognition that there is a shift underway
in public opinion away from the extreme anti-government politics
of Gingrich or Reagan more than a real change in policy. Regardless
of the merits of the Republican proposals, the very fact that Bush
seemed to be addressing these issues helped to neutralize and confuse
Democratic efforts to capitalize on their traditional strengths.
And despite Ralph Nader's vituperation against the vice president
and the Democrats, it seems fair to say that Gore and Nader supporters
shared more goals for government than they did with most Bush voters.
Whatever Gore's own shortcomings, people who voted for him did so
with the expectation that he would expand federal investment in
education, broaden health care coverage, protect the environment
and favor working people over the wealthy. Adding together the Nader
and Gore votes, there was a clear, if slight, tilt in the vote toward
progressive government.
Exit polls and some state referenda votes also suggest that voters
are looking for better government and more fairness, not less government
and laissez-faire. For example, private school vouchers remain the
heart of Republican education plans (though Bush avoided the term),
but voters in California and Michigan strongly rejected ballot initiatives
for vouchers. Also, although nearly 60 percent of voters surveyed
by Stanley Greenberg for the Institute for America's Future favored
individuals investing Social Security money in private accounts,
only 37 percent supported such partial privatization when they realized
it could raise the retirement age or lower benefits. The same survey
showed that providing universal health care was one of voters' top
priorities, far above cutting taxes (especially if told that nearly
half of those cuts would go to the richest 1 percent).
But not everyone votes on the issues. About one third of voters
ranked personal qualities above issues, and more than three-fifths
of them voted for Bush. Many voters may not have strongly supported
Bush's ideological views, but they simply found Gore untrustworthy
or Bush more affable.
If there was no ideological majority for the right, the results
don't add up as an overwhelming mandate for progressive government
either. But they do raise the question of why Gore did so poorly
as a candidate from an administration with high public approval
presiding over peace and relative prosperity--and who was competing
against an inexperienced, dim-witted, weak governor from a state
with a dreadful record on the issues that people care about.
Gore clearly took the lead after the Democratic Convention with
a populist message
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JOEFF DAVIS
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that tapped into the wellsprings of Democratic Party support, a claim
to act for the little guy against the powerful and well-connected.
Then Gore diluted and confused that message, especially in surprisingly
weak debate performances that accentuated many of the personal qualities
that people dislike about him. Yet when he returned to his populist
message in the final weeks, he began rising in the polls as he picked
up an unusually high percentage of voters who decided at the last
minute.
Gore and his campaign strategists deserve the blame for his weak
showing. Gore would have turned in an even more pathetic performance
if it had not been for the unusually strong mobilization by labor
and civil rights groups of the core Democratic faithful--African-Americans
and union families. Although overall turnout was up only slightly
from four years ago, 26 percent of voters were from union households,
up from 23 percent; and 59 percent of them voted for Gore (37 percent
for Bush and 3 percent for Nader), compared to 44 percent for Gore
among nonunion households. Nine out of 10 African-American voters
backed the vice president. Without that increased turnout by blacks
and union members, Gore would not have even been in the tight contest
at the end.
Many Gore backers have blamed Nader's campaign for their problems.
After all, Nader got nearly 100,000 votes in Florida. Assuming,
based on exit polls, that at least 40 percent of those people would
have otherwise voted for Gore, Nader's success in Florida took away
Bush's lead. The same case that Nader votes deprived Gore of victory
could be made in New Hampshire.
However, the charge is misleading. Those votes wouldn't have gone
to Nader if Gore and Clinton had not so badly betrayed both their
promises and the expectations of many reliable Democrats. And Nader's
votes don't explain Gore's embarrassing loss of states like Arkansas,
Tennessee and West Virginia. Moreover, exit polls indicated that
11 percent of self-identified Democrats voted for Bush (compared
to 8 percent of Republicans who supported Gore), but only 2 percent
of Democrats voted for Nader. Judging from polling data, roughly
half of earlier Nader supporters decided at the last minute to vote
for Gore, thus keeping him in the race. It was the disloyalty of
conservative Democrats more than abandonment by liberals that really
hit Gore hard.
Nader backers are right when they argue that Gore is responsible
for his own troubles. But without a doubt, if most of them had voted
for Gore, he would be president. They had a choice, knowing that
either Gore or Bush would be elected, and decided for a variety
of reasons that voting for Nader was worth the risk of a Bush win.
If Nader voters were consistent, they would not be trying to avoid
responsibility for possibly defeating Gore; they would be boisterously
patting themselves on the back for doing it. But it is likely that
most Naderites would prefer Gore to Bush as president and don't
completely believe the rhetoric that there is no difference, even
though they're angry and disappointed with Gore and the Democrats.
The big danger now for progressives is that former allies will
be set against each other. The labor movement has started to reach
out more to citizen groups and allies on the left, but Gore's electoral
difficulties risk souring relations and endangering the Seattle
"Teamsters and Turtles" coalition. Nader's support was overwhelmingly
white, and 90 percent of blacks backed Gore. Women supported Nader
less than men did, but voted for Gore by the same 11-point margin
by which men supported Bush.
None of this means Nader's policy ideas were wrong. Indeed, most
progressive Democratic constituencies and their organizational leaders
would probably agree with much of what he said. While Nader's articulation
of those ideas was his campaign's most positive legacy, it is extremely
unlikely that the Green Party (or rather either of the two Green
Party constellations) can amount to anything significant politically
with such little support among the major progressive constituencies--especially
unions, African-Americans and other minorities, but also women and
poor people. There is a desperate need for the kind of citizens
movement that Nader says he wants to create, but there is little
chance that the Green Party can become the vehicle for that movement
(or even that many Nader voters have any intention of making the
Green Party into something bigger).
Indeed, there is the danger that the Green Party strategy of attacking
the Democrats will undermine progressive political forces at a time
when there seems to be a chance of rebuilding a popular movement
critical of corporate power. There is always a need for gadfly groups
to raise new or unpopular ideas, and citizen groups and leftists
often need to mount fights over principle against political and
governmental leaders, even when they're in a minority. But the left
also needs a strategy to win majority support from the American
people. That's the essence of democratic politics. It would be disastrous
to revive old warfare between "radicals" and "liberals" over tactical
issues, or to retreat into narrowly purist expressive politics,
when there is the chance of progressives actually winning majority
support for national health insurance, expanded financial aid for
higher education, new controls over global corporations and public
financing of elections.
Rather than indiscriminately attacking the Democratic Party as
an institution, there is more to be gained by supporting progressives
within the party and challenging conservative Democrats in primaries.
In any case, progressives won't make any headway in winning elections
as Democrats, Greens or anything else, without first winning public
financing of elections and other electoral reforms (including provisions
for proportional representation, instant runoff voting and other
mechanisms that would give minority parties a meaningful chance).
More important, whether they supported Gore or Nader, progressives
need to put aside any bitterness about electoral strategies and
build organizations that can fight effectively on major national
issues. After all, the real battle is with corporate power. As the
Wall Street Journal reported, the drug lobby this year "waged
the biggest and costliest corporate campaign in U.S. political history,
spending more than $80 million to keep the Democrats from regaining
control of Congress. And they won."
The movement against corporate globalization has demonstrated an
ability to operate on many levels at once--winning widespread public
support, mobilizing large institutional forces like labor unions
and major environmental groups, engaging in effective legislative
lobbying, taking advantage of intraparty ideological divisions,
generating grassroots energy, and employing militant tactics in
the street. So far there has been a tenuous success in keeping disparate
strands and factions together and winning at least a few victories,
despite overwhelming odds.
The same kind of mobilization for health care, the right to organize
unions, campaign finance reform and global warming could transform
politics by putting pressure on politicians, especially in the Democratic
Party, and by educating the public, which is generally sympathetic
to progressive solutions but open to corporate propaganda (as in
the cases of prescription drug coverage and individual investment
of Social Security funds). It is the job of progressives not just
to criticize the shortcomings of politicians, whatever their party,
but to create the social climate that forces politicians to act.
There is a chance now, if bickering and infighting on the left
can be minimized, to mold an indeterminate but ultimately sympathetic
public into a progressive political majority. These broad campaigns,
carried on as much in between elections as during them, will be
necessary to break through the political stalemate and win progressive
victories, no matter who ends up in the White House.
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