And another - Different votes, indifferent folks
By GAY ALCORN
2000-10-21 02:39:29
On Tuesday, November 7, about half of eligible American voters will elect a rich, white, male baby boomer to be their first president of the millennium. He will be a favored son of a Washington insider, Ivy League educated, married with children. He will be a capitalist, although he will recognise a role for government welfare.
He will be an internationalist and a big fan of Reserve Bank chief Alan Greenspan. He will plan to increase military spending. Education will be his number-one priority. He will favor the death penalty, be opposed to gay marriages, and support continuing the war on drugs. He will be sad that little Elian went back to Cuba.
Really, does it matter whether George W. Bush or Al Gore wins, either for the 270 million Americans or for the rest of the world? Americans don't seem to think so. This election may be nail-bitingly close, but fewer people watched the three presidential debates this year than they did in 1996, when Bill Clinton was coasting against Republican Bob Dole.
A quarter of those aged 18 to 24 can't even name the presidential candidates, according to an MTV survey, and only three in 10 plan to vote. Why should they if, as the unmarried, anti-globalisation, anti-death penalty, no-chance Greens candidate Ralph Nader says, the big parties have morphed into one and, no matter which man occupies the Oval Office, the White House is a "corporate prison?"
Too cynical? The candidates say this is a momentous election. The Democrats have unveiled a new campaign slogan: "The Big Choice". "In 19 days, prosperity itself is on the ballot," warned Gore this week. Bush is no less grandiose: "This election must bring a victory of freedom and innovation, and a defeat for central planners and bureaucrats."
Gore is a centrist Democrat in the Clinton mould, and Bush is a moderate Republican, and the US is unlikely to lurch in an entirely novel direction after November 7. There is no Depression to argue about, as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover did in 1932, and no big debate about whether the US should engage or withdraw from the world, as Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater argued about in 1964. But while the specific issues are mostly prosaic this year, they reveal philosophical disagreements and differences beyond personality.
Commentators are celebrating debates on substance and some, such as E. J. Dionne of The Washington Post, believe this election is a final, desperately close tussle, in which "basic disputes that have ravaged American politics for two decades might come close to settlement".
Dionne means that a Gore victory would finally close the Reagan era of big tax cuts, attacks on the idea of government and attempts to wind back America's two big social safety nets - the social security pension scheme for the elderly, and Medicare, the health insurance program for the poor and disabled.
Michael Kinsley, the editor of online magazine Slate, is less convinced.
He points out that both candidates are throwing money at the electorate, anticipating a projected $US4 trillion surplus in the next decade that may never eventuate. It's free lunch land, he says. "When both sides assert that their positions have no down side ... that's not a debate. It is more like a revival meeting."
The promises mirror each other. Bush pledges a $US1.6 trillion tax cut over a decade that benefits all, including the super wealthy, and about $US500 billion in new spending. Gore offers a tax cut of less than $US500 billion, targeted to the middle class, and about $US1 trillion in spending. No matter which candidate becomes president, he will have to work with Congress, now Republican controlled, but being fiercely contested this year. It is virtually impossible for any president to be able to shepherd his entire platform through Congress, but he will influence the agenda, and has the power to veto bills passed on Capitol Hill.
In the fading days of this campaign, the rhetoric has settled into the traditional conservative versus liberal face-off. Bush is for the rich and powerful, says Gore. Gore is a big-spending liberal, says Bush. "He's of the government," Bush says of his opponent. "He loves Washington DC. There's a role for our government, but it's not to tell the average folks how to live their lives."
Gore says: "I have spent the last quarter-century fighting for middle-class, working men and women in the United States of America.
"I believe very deeply that you have to be willing to stand up and fight no matter what powerful forces might be on the other side."
The issues American say are most important to them - education, health and social security - reflect the broader themes of the role of government and the domestic priorities in a time of prosperity. The violence in the Middle East has pushed foreign policy to the fore, but few Americans are interested. Generally, Bush would be less likely to intervene in international humanitarian mission than would Gore, and he supports a far more aggressive and expensive national missile defence shield, to place an umbrella over America's states and its allies to protect it against missiles from "rogue" nations such as Iraq.
All of the domestic issues traditionally favor the Democrats, which is why Gore's struggling position is one of the puzzles of the campaign. The usual Republican strengths - defence and big tax cuts - are less important to voters, but Bush has deftly argued on Democratic turf, and played up his class clown persona. Gore's teacher's pet personality is apparently repellent to voters, no matter what they think of the issues.
One of the most contentious disputes is about education, even though the federal government has little to do with it. Unlike Australia and most western countries, the federal and state US governments provide only a small percentage of education funding, with most coming from local property taxes. The problem is that poor neighborhoods can't afford high property taxes, and so rich neighborhoods have better-funded schools.
The result is huge disparities in resources and sometimes performance, with American students showing weak results internationally in subjects such as science and maths. The New Economy is demanding skilled workers, and middle-class parents worry about the rising cost of university.
Bush speaks with passion about education, particularly for Hispanic and African-American students, and has finally abandoned the Republican position of abolishing the Education Department. He actually wants to spend more money.
But he also wants to try vouchers - an idea sometimes raised in Australia - which would mean that if a failing school does not improve, the federal funds would go directly to the parent in the form of a $US1500 ($A2800) voucher to be used for tutoring or a private school.
It's an idea that the religious right loves, but so do many African-American parents, who feel trapped in run-down, poor-performing schools. Gore opposes it on the grounds that it would hurt public schools even more, which should be boosted, not abandoned. He offers more money for teachers, smaller class sizes, and guaranteed preschool for all children. Try something new with an element of privatisation, or stay with the old, but try to fix it? That's the choice.
It sounds dull, but one of the most contentious issues this year is prescription drug benefits for the elderly, symptomatic of the political power of baby boomers as their parents age and they face retirement themselves. Old people vote much more often than younger people and Medicare, the national insurance program for the elderly, doesn't include prescriptions.
There are regular stories about old folks taking buses to Canada because drugs are cheaper there, and horror stories of people choosing medicines over food if they can't afford private health insurance. Again, Bush wants to partially privatise the system, giving people financial incentives to join private schemes. Gore would expand Medicare, the government scheme, to include prescription drugs.
Americans, supposedly against socialism, love their social security scheme, which guarantees a pension for all and has done more to eradicate poverty among the elderly than any other program. But, as the population ages, it is straining to stay solvent. Bush would allow young people to invest part of the payroll taxes used to fund the scheme in private investments. Gore says that would destroy the program.
Issues such as guns and abortion, fascinating to foreigners, are niche issues in this election. Gore is playing down his support for a licence for new handgun purchases, because it is not popular in the Midwestern battleground states that may decide this election. Bush is playing down his opposition to abortion, because swinging voters, particularly women, support it. The new president is likely to nominate up to three new Supreme Court judges to a court now finely balanced between liberals and conservatives. That could mean changes to abortion and civil rights in the US, and Gore is attempting to make it matter.
Overriding all the policy details is the Clinton factor. The Gore campaign resents Clinton and barely mentions his name. If Gore loses, he is likely to blame his boss's sexual scandals, and the reluctance of the electorate to reward the president's protege. Bush barely mentions Clinton, either, but he doesn't have to. Whenever he stands, his hand held up as though taking the oath of office, and says that he promises to uphold the "honor and dignity of the office", everyone knows what he means.
This story was found at: theage.com.au |
