The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
By Barry Casselman
Published July 28, 2004
In many ways, the most important recent national election took place in 1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter. It is true that this result was precipitated in large part by a foreign-policy disaster, the Iran hostage crisis, but in many ways the politics of that election were predetermined by Mr. Carter's failure to produce a reform of the New Deal liberalism that had dominated the Democratic Party since the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Another pivotal election occurred in 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated the elder President Bush on a platform of domestic reform that, after initial fits and starts, he successfully implemented in his two terms. The Democratic nominee in 2000 was Mr. Clinton's vice president, himself allegedly a centrist, but Al Gore unaccountably ran a New Deal campaign and, as a result, lost to the younger President Bush.
The U.S. political direction since 1981 was built on the conservative political and economic ideas that were established in the Reagan years. If anything, Mr. Clinton outdid the Republicans in implementing budget, welfare and government reform. In effect, modern conservative ideas and programs have dominated American public life for a quarter of a century, regardless of which party held the White House.
President George W. Bush, faced initially with a recession inherited from the economy preceding his presidency, and later with the enormity of September 11, has been forced on to an economic tightrope, i.e., maintaining the principle of lowering taxes while at the same time providing for the war effort and keeping the industrial economy growing. The price for his political acrobatics has been large deficits. Although the Democratic contenders made his tax policy the principal critique of Mr. Bush in their primary season, few informed observers would question that lowering taxes after 2001 did soften the recession and hasten its recovery. The fairness of these tax cuts is a separate issue, although Democrats have tried to make lower taxes and fairness the same issue.
A President Kerry would face massive opposition if he attempted to raise many taxes, and even if he could, it likely would stop the recovery now taking place. New entitlement programs would only doom his pledge to halt the deficit. In short, the New Deal philosophy that persists among the populist Democratic base is not likely to be implemented. It would be, it could be said, like treating an infection without antibiotics after the discovery of these lifesaving drugs.
The Dean faction in the Democratic Party does not believe this, and I think they would be very disappointed by a Kerry administration, particularly if Mr. Kerry wisely picks up Mr. Clinton's "New Democrat" banner, as Democratic strategists now say he has. |