Gephardt's central attack on Dean-- for supporting Medicare cuts in the mid-'90s--reinforces his appeal among exactly the voters he needs to win.
Dean, as the national media is discovering, is the most committed fiscal conservative to contend for a Democratic presidential nomination since Tsongas. In Vermont, which isn't constitutionally obliged to balance its budget, Dean nonetheless made balancing the budget his top priority, repeatedly spurning calls for greater social spending and winning praise from the libertarian Cato Institute. He has flirted with raising the Social Security retirement age and, as Gephardt charges, supported far deeper cuts in Medicare than most Democrats. On the stump, Dean delights in tough-love statements like: "Tell the truth: We cannot afford all of the tax cuts, the health insurance, special [education funding], and balancing the budget."
If Dean embodies the fiscal conservatism of yuppie Democrats, Gephardt embodies the regulars' passionate commitment to preserving entitlement programs. He voted against Clinton's 1997 deal, which cut Medicare to reduce the deficit, saying the budget need only be in "rough balance." His health care plan is much bigger than Dean's and tailored to win union support.
In appealing to unions and defending entitlements, Gephardt is pursuing roughly the same strategy that Mondale, Clinton, and Gore used to defeat outsider deficit-hawks. But that strategy is far harder now than it once was, because, over the years, the balance of power in the Democratic Party has been shifting: Dean supporters have been moving in, and Gephardt supporters have been moving out. Non-college-educated men have been drifting into the Republican Party. (In his final years as majority leader, Gephardt had to adjust the boundaries of his blue-collar St. Louis district because it was becoming too Republican.) Conversely, a 1998 National Journal study showed that the wealthiest 100 American communities, alienated by the GOP's fiscal irresponsibility and evangelical moralizing, were growing steadily more Democratic. This infusion of wealth into the Democratic Party means candidates with yuppie appeal can raise far more money than they could in the past. The last such candidate, Bradley, stunned political observers by raising almost as much money as Gore--a development that foreshadowed Dean's extraordinary fund-raising success this year.
Dean, who learned fiscal conservatism from his investment-banker, Republican father, embodies today's Democratic Party better than Gephardt, the son of a Teamster from working-class St. Louis. Perhaps nothing explains the fight for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination better than that.
tnr.com |
