TKO
Election '94 Catches Reformists Napping:
Three Perspectives On the Election From Hell
Ain't No Mandate When Half the Voters Stay Home
So the American people are pissed off. Oh dear. This must explain why an "overwhelming" 40% of eligible voters showed up at the polls, for an off-year election, and handily supported the party responsible for the last two years of gridlock in the U.S. House and Senate. It wasn't the Democrats who filibustered major legislation that would've actually provided the nation with some of the "change" it's been needing and wanting. The Republicans are the ones to blame for the killing off of bills before they could find their way to President Clinton's desk and eagerly awaiting pen.
These election results do not a mandate make, by any stretch of the imagination. Two years ago 70% of eligible voters turned out and voted. This time around, nearly half of these people didn't bother to show up at the polls! From this the corporate media is assuming the American people are mad? Apathetic, yes, but not mad. The unofficial winner of election '94 is a group shrug, not the damned Republicans.
Many people seem sincerely depressed by this year's election results but, believe it or not, there are some positive aspects scattered among the election carnage:
- Very few victories this year were by more than 4% of the vote and one race was even determined by a total of 4 votes. Although the House and Senate are full of smug Republicans, this is not the "landslide victory" it deceivingly appears to be.
- The Republican majorities themselves are slim. Voters can easily tip the scales back the other way in 1996.
- President Clinton still has veto power, and there are not enough Republicans in the House or Senate to overturn a Presidential veto. Plus, the Democrats in both houses can now brush up on their own filibustering skills. Locally, the same thing: Governor Lowry can and will wield the veto when he thinks it necessary. This gives progressives a two year window of opportunity to organize an effort staving off the inevitable "those democrats are causing grid-lock" argument that will be the Republicans' rallying cry in 1996.
- Ted Kennedy, the very definition of what voters are supposedly mad at, plus an old-style Democrat to boot, won handily.
- Oliver North, who would've single-handedly reset DC's "thieving, lying bastard" grading curve, lost. There might be a god after all.
If election '94 has taught the American voter one thing, it's: Participate in off year elections!!! This year's results suck, but now is not the time to get depressed and freeze up. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are already projecting a 30% increase in donations as a "reaction" to yet another major U.S. political shift to the right. Now's the time to send some money to, or spend some volunteer time at, organizations such as these, and others in your area.
Parents, watch the school boards in your communities! The right-wingers will be on the prowl, gobbling up PTA boards and school administrative positions. Don't get caught napping!
But the most important thing us concerned folk can do is encourage more people than ever to vote in 1996. This year's electorate was disproportionately white, male, affluent, and Republican. When there is a big turnout at the polls, Democrats usually win. Our two party system has many drawbacks, but it is lack of participation that prevents any positive change from occurring and awards the thrill of victory to those politicians who would rather act like your parent than behave as your representative.
-Matt Robesch
Let Them Eat School Prayer
Mr. President, you're being seen as anti-business. You're seen as punishing the rich." So said multimillionaire Wallstreeter Robert Rubin, head of President Clinton's National Economic Council which coordinates economic policy in the White House. Rubin would later say that the Party shouldn't talk about the rich at all, instead discreetly labelling them "people who have done well" or the "well to do."
So we learn from Bob Woodward's The Agenda, a book which is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the Democrat's recent electoral debacle. The book examines the critical events in the administration's laying down of its budget and overall economic strategy. It reveals an administration at odds with itself, and a party which cannot decide who its constituents are.
Clinton came in promising a fusion of populist economics with "New Democrat" issues of welfare reform and deficit reduction. Woodward's book describes the systematic isolation of the political people who had run the winning campaign, and the ascendancy of the corporados and bean counters who fetishized deficit reduction, and the "bond market" - otherwise known as Republican business interests. On the outs were advisors who argued for a popular, campaigning stance, with an emphasis on public investment, tax fairness, campaign finance reform, and a full-fledged effort to sell the administration's accomplishments.
What must the Democratic party give to the rich? Not much more than a credible plan for deficit reduction, which has already been achieved. Business people invest when the economy is growing and interest rates are low, however much they might grumble about Democratic programs or regulations. Too many of Clinton's people took the next step of thinking that they must treat the entire business comunity with kid gloves - which meant, in effect, that they left intact much of the legacy of Republican trickle-down economics.
This kind of party cannot compete against the Republicans, who despite their many differences still manage to coalesce around a program which systematically pummels traditional Democratic constituencies, and carves off much of the middle and working classes through backlash appeals targeting the politically weak. The Democrats are not even able to effectively appeal to the middle class because of the imagined constraints of the "bond market."
The Democratic party is dying. It is a shell corporation devoid of a popular constituency, run by consultants and pollsters and fundraisers. What it will take to turn this around - the continued bumping off of the Rostenkowskies and the Foleys, insurgence within the party of a more ideologically coherent wing, or the creation of a new party or parties with a mass base - is anyone's guess.
- Mark Gardner
Insurance Industry: 1, The People: 0
One of the worst results of the recent Republican takeover of Congress may turn out to be the abandonment by the Democrats of any effort at genuine reform of our health care system. About the most we can hope for next year is a tepid bill, written by the Republicans, that would address the issue of portability and maybe do something about the odious practice called "cherry picking."
Portability refers to the problem of losing your health insurance whenever you leave, or lose, your job. If your health plan is portable, you should be able to take it with you, through the time you are out of work and on to your next job, without changing doctors. We'll have to wait and see how much assistance is provided to help people pay their premiums till they find another job. The term "cherry picking" refers to the common practice among insurers of denying coverage to anybody who has a health condition that might lead to that person using her/his health plan more than people without current health problems. Obviously, an insurance company that is a good cherry picker winds up with a group of enrollees that don't go to the doctor much. Great for profits, bad for health, no?
So a couple of the worst aspects of our current for-profit medical system may be brought under control. But what's become of the other major points on the Clintons' agenda for health reform? Three items come to mind. One is going ahead full steam under it's own power: cost containment. Insurance companies appear to have taken to it like ducks to water. The other two, universal coverage and employer mandates to pay the bill, look like they've definitely gone in the tank.
My own view of this mess is that Clinton tried for too little rather than too much. If he had sided with Seattle's Jim McDermott and fought for a single-payer government health insurance program, he might have generated enough support from the grass roots in America to stand a fighting chance against the Republicans and their insurance industry pals.
It may turn out that the failure of health care reform, the centerpiece of Clinton's domestic agenda, signals the end of any hope for these Democrats-pretending-to-be-Republicans. Clinton and the rest of the "new Democrats" should understand that if you're going to try to make life a little better under capitalism, you better propose enough to get the common folks on your side.
-Brian King
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Contents on this page were published in the December/January 1995 edition of the Washington Free
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