The New Democrats:
They’re for the Little Guy; but Help the Big Guy
Saul Landau
Progreso Weekly, 21 November 2002
Before I allow my gloom over the results of the November 5 elections to become permanent, I confront some facts. About 38% of American voters cast ballots, hardly a majority and definitely not a mandate for war.
So, the vote did not represent a mandate for W. The margin between victory and defeat for control of the Congress came down to 29,000 votes in Minnesota, 11,500 in Missouri and 9,500 in New Hampshire. Had Democratic voters voted, the Democrats would have controlled the upper house and the pundits would be reporting about how Bush’s hitting the campaign trail proved to be a fatal error. Give credit to Svengali Karl Rove, the chief architect of Republican strategy, who once again outwits Democratic National Committee Chair Terry "Boris Badinoff" MacAuliffe.
Indeed, the Democrats appear to have done all in their power to keep their voters at home while Republicans, as usual, turned out in droves. Rich Republicans, as always, understood that by electing their candidates, they pay lower taxes and have fewer problems with the hired help. The nouveau Republicans, soldiers in the army of God, anti-abortion fanatics, gun lovers and advocates of prayer in school as the answer to the moral unease of our times, and those simply oblivious, or in denial, of their class and economic interests, also obediently turned out to vote for the special interests of the rich and zealots.
Maybe Democrats didn’t vote because they don’t have a real political party. My parents, New Deal Democrats, understood that Franklin Roosevelt stood for the interests of the poor and the needy. Sure, he compromised. But the Party set a message that working people, blacks, Jews, and other minorities understood. The modern Democratic Party, however, represents little more than a money-laundering machine.
One friend questioned my premise and talked about tradition and how some people still vote Republican because their grandpas did. Maybe, but I don’t think that African Americans voted Republican because Lincoln freed the slaves. Blacks did not switch to the Republican Party. They just didn’t vote. In the South, traditionally staunch Democrats yawned over the non-messages flowing from the mouths of their Party’s candidates. Thirteen-thousand less voters than four years ago turned out in the Georgia County with the largest number of black voters. This became a factor when Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes lost to Republican Sonny Perdue and Sen. Max Cleland lost to Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss.
Unlike black voters, Latinos found some attraction in Republican candidates. The Republican National Committee reported that more than 33% of Latino voters went for Texas governor Rick Perry, a man who epitomized the worst of corporate values. Florida Governor Jeb Bush won re-election with more than 60 percent of the Latino vote. New York Gov. George E. Pataki got his second term with almost half of the Hispanic vote.
The Democrats offered voters, well, nothing. And their traditional voters responded to this message by giving nothing back – by abstaining.
The issues screamed at the Democrats for attention. For example, W proposed a tax cut that would make the filthy rich even richer; simultaneously, the cut would diminish the national treasury and make difficult, if not impossible, the funding of social programs. Yes, a few candidates mentioned this issue, but the Democrats didn’t take out major ads and TV spots; nor did national Democratic spokespeople dramatize the issue.
Similarly, the Democrats dropped the ball on corporate scandals, some of which linked directly to Bush and Cheney. Enron and WorldCom hanky panky would have put the Republicans on the defensive, but many Democrats didn’t raise this issue. Most important, because it tested integrity and grit, when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld demanded unqualified backing for war against Iraq without offering a fact to support their allegations, the pusillanimous Senate leader Tom Daschle, and the poor excuse for a strategist in the House Dick Gephardt, not only let Bush have his way, but pushed their colleagues to endorse the lame-brained scheme for unconstitutional war powers.
Those who refused to kow-tow to cowardice, according to the pollsters, improved their rating. Indeed, polls show that the majority of Americans oppose unilateral action. But apparently fearful of being branded wimpy, wusses and downright unpatriotic, the Democratic leaders buckled.
What a terrible way to think about politics and the public! Instead of saying, here is my position and you can vote for me because you agree with me, or because you appreciate my integrity, the Democrats relied on polls to determine their positions. Ironically, those who followed the supposed poll numbers, and not a set of principles, lost.
Some Democrats who loudly opposed giving sweeping war powers to the intellectually challenged president recorded immediate boosts in their poll ratings. The late Paul Wellstone, may he rest in peace, jumped eight points. Harry Reid of Nevada also scored well for his opposition to granting Bush new powers to make war. Only one Democrat who voted "no" in either Chamber actually lost. In Connecticut, Jim Maloney trailed hopelessly because of redistricting and his own scandals.
In Missouri, however, the hapless Jean Carnahan succumbed to Party "discipline" rather than vote her conscience. She outspent Republican Jim Talent and still lost. In Colorado, Tom Strickland tried to make the war a non-issue by sort of agreeing with the President. He lost. In New Hampshire and Georgia, the Democratic Senate candidates, Jeanne Shaheen and Georgia’s Max Cleland followed the Party line, outspent their opponents and lost.
The Democrats also refused to take the economic offensive against Bush’s scheme to benefit the plutocracy. Instead of slamming his tax cut for the rich, Daschle wavered and, on talk shows sounded like a namby pamby. In the New York Times, November 9, Frank Rich quoted Daschle whining to CNN’s Paula Zahn: "We felt we did have the economic plan. We just weren’t successful in getting you to cover it".
What? With layoffs and rising unemployment, Bush rewards the richest 1% of the country and the Democrats have nothing to say? With shrinking health care coverage – over 41 million have no health insurance - all they can think of is prescription drugs for the elderly? With dramatic corporate scandals involving the theft of billions of dollars from the public, all they can devise is a moderate accounting reform! The Democratic candidates stood for well, governing. To do that, they trade favors for money.
In Los Angeles, I talked to union members who scoffed at Gray Davis, their union’s candidate for governor. Vying with Bill Simon (read Dan Quayle minus the experience), the incumbent governor won by a mere 5% even though he grossly outspent his pathetic opponent. In 1998, Davis soared to victory with 60% of the vote.
But in office he acted like a Republican. He vetoed popular measures and spent most of his time fund-raising and then pleasing his donors, like prison guards and special corporate interests.
Democratic leaders feared that concrete legislation to help the poor and middle classes might disaffect large corporate givers and hurt the Party treasury. The Democrats claimed they represented the little guy and helped the big guy. The Party remains an olio of corporate executives and union leaders, polluters and environmentalists, landlords and tenants, hawks and doves – united by a common blood link to the coffers of the Party treasury.
No wonder Democrats had trouble understanding their party’s program! The Bushies screamed "bomb Saddam", and "don’t trust the weak and tax and spend liberals". The fundamentalist preachers, the gun and God lobby and the paid mouthpieces for the wealthy moguls all mobilized their voters. Gallup estimated just before the election that the Republican turn-out would exceed the Democrats by some 15%. Bill Clinton seems to have sewn his image into the Democrats’ world view. The man who gave opportunism a bad name, but also behaved like a brilliant politician, has somehow led the Party leaders to choose lousy candidates.
To have one’s political agenda a desire to govern may have been sufficient for Bill Clinton, but I feel rage when I think about how the Party chooses its candidates, oblivious of their values. Take Florida where polls showed Governor Jeb Bush vulnerable to a tough candidate who stood for improving education and epitomized honesty and integrity. For Democratic National Committee heavies, this could be sweet revenge for 2000, where the Republicans stole the election via Florida.
So, the Party bosses picked Bill McBride, with no political experience, to push "too liberal" former attorney general Janet Reno, out of the way. McBride, a good-old-boy successful lawyer with union support focused on "he" could win and "she" couldn’t. His education program had the depth of one simple sentence with nothing behind it. He ran on a platform of next to nothing, so he would not risk alienating any voters during the primary and the election itself. He attacked Jeb’s education performance, but couldn’t enunciate his own program. Without bringing in Latino, Caribbean and black voters he had no chance. But he raised not one issue that would appeal to them. He went down hard.
In Texas, billionaire Tony Sanchez who invested more than $60 million of his own oil and banking profits into his campaign had no message for the people he needed to vote for him. Just because his name was Sanchez, he presumed, the poor Latinos would turn out in droves. Well, class matters more than race or ethnicity. Ironically, Sanchez had the issue of issues. His opponent, Governor Rick Perry had vetoed a living-wage law. Sanchez, instead of attacking that issue head on, tried to attract middle class voters around education and insurance. The Mexican American voters se quedaron en sus casas (stayed home). The Republicans swept Texas.
OK, it’s over. We’ll have a spate of judicial appointments slightly to the left, or maybe not, of Adolph Hitler. Bush may well resubmit the nominations of Judge Charles Pickering of Mississippi and Texas Justice Priscilla Owen, the Neanderthal era’s contribution to legal theory: love the fetuses and execute them quickly after they’re born and make a mistake. The Republicans controlling the Senate will not likely monitor their primary benefactors, the major corporations and banks. Maybe medical science will perfect the spinal transplant and a few Democrats will filibuster against the ultra reactionary policies and appointments of the ultra fanatics who now run the US government in every branch.
House Minority leader Dick Gephardt has thankfully resigned and been replaced by liberal San Francisco House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi. DNC Chair Terry MacAuliffe still makes excuses. MacAuliffe tossed the ball to President Bush when Gloria Borger of CBS asked him if he wanted to repeal Bush’s tax cut.
"I want George Bush...when he comes back from vacation [to] pull everybody together, to put a plan together".
This is the opposition?
The Bushies, on the other hand, whose super right-wing ideology represents a small minority of Americans crafted a clear "support the President’s tough line on Iraq because it makes us secure" message and the Democrats folded.
Reality will soon confront the non-voters. Joblessness and insecurity over jobs will grow more acute. People will worry more about their retirement plans and dwindling health coverage – for those that have any. If the Democrats don’t zoom in on the issues and make daily references to corporate scandals and the phony excuses for war, they will continue to tread water or worse.
When will the Democrats choose Ralph Nader as their candidate and return to the New Deal-Great Society days when the poor merited political representation and common sense demanded cutting off welfare to the already affluent? I’m dreaming? Maybe. But if the Democrats follow the Republican rhetoric on economic issues and maintain docility toward the hawkish foreign policy, their voters will remain at home. Talk like Roosevelt, I say. He sure got the voters out. By the way, $1,238,358,891 was spent on the 2002 campaign in which Senators and Governors won no more than 10% of the eligible vote.
Copyright 2002 Progreso Weekly
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