No Traction for Democrats

No Traction for Democrats

Unlike the National Review's editors, I'm not a conservative purist, opting for 80 percent of the pie rather than all of it. So the likelihood of Bush signing the legislative farce known as the McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform"?if indeed it doesn't get bollixed up in the Senate by courageous GOP senators Mitch McConnell and Phil Gramm?doesn't keep me awake at night. Of course I'd like Bush to veto CFR, if only to raise the blood pressure of the elite media?the only people who even care about this sterling example of congressional sanctimony?but in the face of world chaos, it's fairly insignificant.

In a March 11 editorial, NR declared that Bush's acquiescence would constitute a "betrayal," because of the bill's blatant assault on the Constitution. I agree that it's a stinker, more a monument to McCain so he can retire with an achievement weightier than his bamboozling three-fourths of the DC press corps, but it's bound to be torn apart by the courts, and the loopholes will be energetically exploited by both parties.

Rich Lowry, the articulate NR editor and refreshing talk show pundit (especially when paired with anti-American journalists like The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel or the Times' Paul Krugman), was particularly affronted by Bush's cave-in to the would-be reformers, but he nonetheless pointed out a fitting example of McCain's utter hypocrisy. The Arizona Senator's zeal to dismantle the First Amendment?except in the case of media companies, which are deemed more worthy to express opinions than NOW or the NRA?supposedly dates back to his involvement in the 1980s Keating Five scandal. McCain says, repeatedly, that that mistake "tainted" him. However, not enough that he refused $30,000 in contributions from Enron's twin Global Crossing.

In Sunday's Washington Post, George Will was even more precise in detailing McCain's charade. He wrote: "Many reformers' ostensible concern about the appearance of corruption is just for appearances. The politicians' real concern is to silence their critics. Recently John McCain gave the game away.

"He was discussing the bill's provision that puts severe?for many groups, insuperable?impediments on any group wanting to run a broadcast ad that so much as refers to a candidate within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. He said: 'What we're trying to do is stop'?note that word?'organizations like the so-called Club for Growth that came into Arizona in a primary, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attack ads. We had no idea who they were, where their money came from.'

"McCain's attack was recklessly untruthful. He knows perfectly well what the club is?a mostly Republican group formed to support fiscal conservatives. The only ad the club ran?a radio ad?contained not a word of attack: It was an entirely positive endorsement of a candidate's views, and it did not mention or even refer to anyone else. All contributions to the club over $200 are disclosed.

"But on one matter McCain, who wishes he could criminalize negative ads, was candid. He?like the Times and [Washington] Post?is trying to stop others from enjoying rights they now enjoy."

Still, if Bush's anticipated capitulation isn't quite catastrophic?it will appease the grudge-happy McCain, and, in the short term at least, benefit the GOP, which is far more adept at collecting "hard" money?his unconscionable decision to impose tariffs to prop up the country's dying steel industry is truly an abomination. Sure, he made a pledge in the 2000 campaign to assist those union workers in pivotal "swing states," but this assault on free trade contradicts Bush's core economic philosophy. Trade representative Bob Zoellick and Commerce Secretary Don Evans can rationalize and spin the protectionist measure from now until 2004, but it won't erase the fact that their boss has thrown integrity out the window, all for union votes in Rust Belt states two years from now. Votes that he probably won't even receive.

Again, Will was entirely correct in his scathing assessment of this lose-lose policy in a March 7 Washington Post column. He wrote: "Proving himself less principled than Bill Clinton regarding the free-trade principles that are indispensable to world prosperity and comity, President Bush has done what Clinton refused to do. In the name of providing 'breathing space' for the U.S. steel industry, which has been on the respirator of protection for decades, Bush has cooked up an unpalatable confection of tariffs and import quotas that mock his free-trade rhetoric... Bush's steel policy is what results when intelligent people take up intellectual slumming?abandoning of proven free-trade principles?for the pleasures of political opportunism."

Also disturbing was Bush's last-minute entry into the debate over Judge Charles Pickering, a conservative who still received a recommendation from the ABA?the Democrats' usual arbiter of acceptability?but whose nomination for a federal appellate court post won't be voted out of the Patrick Leahy-controlled Judiciary Committee this Thursday, even though the entire Senate would likely confirm him. It may be that the choice of Mississippi's Pickering was a sop to Trent Lott and Bush had no strong feelings about the man, but his defeat will set a dangerous precedent for future nominees, allowing Ralph Neas' People for the American Way, the NAACP and feminist groups (for whom abortion is the only issue) to hijack a branch of the government.

Less damaging was Bush's baloney about his gratification that a "stimulus" bill was finally agreed upon in Congress. I suppose this was a nod to bipartisanship, but just like the ballyhooed education legislation, the President got taken to the cleaners on this wholly unnecessary measure. The tax incentives, intended to gin up the economy's turnaround, are minuscule; the extended unemployment benefits?which will retard the path to a more fully employed America?a terrific plum for Democratic House candidates to display in their districts.

I'm not a deficit hawk, but this bill will only fuel Sen. Tom Daschle's squawks about a vanished surplus, the raid upon that sacred Social Security "lockbox" and every other economic scare tactic he can muster, especially with older citizens, for the midterm elections.

That is, if Daschle can get it together.

The Senate's Majority Leader, once touted as a soft-spoken man with a terrible swift sword, has been all over the map, so to speak, in trying to gain traction for his party. Unlike born-in-a-manger Ted Kennedy, who called upon Bush to ditch upcoming tax cuts, Daschle gave a mealy-mouthed address in January that didn't say...well, much of anything, aside Democrats-good, Republicans-bad. Recently he questioned whether the administration had an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan?a dumb move since Bush has made it clear from Sept. 11 that the war could take years to finish?and, in glaring contrast to presidential competitor Joe Lieberman, appeared timid about toppling Saddam Hussein's regime. A week later, as U.S. soldiers were killed fighting in Gardez, Daschle reversed course and issued a proclamation of support for the military campaign.

In the meantime, the campaign demagoguery the Democrats had hoped to use in the fall is suddenly disappearing. The Enron financial scandal isn't registering with the public; the economy is improving more rapidly than anticipated; Republicans are polling stronger than Democrats as the party better equipped to handle both international and domestic concerns; and Bush's popularity has yet to erode significantly. In fact, on Monday two polls, conducted by The Washington Post/ABC and USA Today/CNN/Gallup, were released showing Bush's approval rating at 82 and 80 percent, respectively.

There was a lot of hoopla in the Democratic National Committee-sponsored press?The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times?that Bush, and especially his strategist Karl Rove, emerged with black eyes after Bill Simon upset Dick Riordan in California's gubernatorial GOP primary last week. Rove had encouraged Riordan to run, figuring the moderate former L.A. mayor would have the best chance at defeating the unpopular incumbent Gray Davis. Riordan performed miserably on the stump and in debates; was pilloried by a $10 million tv blitz by Davis; and alienated the conservatives who actually vote in primaries. Big deal. When Bush campaigns for Simon?admittedly the underdog?no one but reporters will remember that the White House at first preferred Riordan.

Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory, writing on March 7, gave a typically myopic assessment of Riordan's implosion. In a piece headlined "Rove's Embarrassment," she said: "The stunning results do some damage to Rove's congressional strategy, which was to make the November elections a referendum on George Bush's war leadership." That Riordan was attempting to become a governor, not a member of Congress, is lost on the JFK-era pundit. In addition, she wrote: "The political director of the Democratic State Committee of California, Bob Mulholland, was exulting the morning after: 'This was a train wreck for the White House political strategy, and Bush's coattails are in shreds.'"

Maybe so, but I wouldn't bet a nickel on either party making substantial gains this November.

The GOP can only hope that Daschle, a longshot at best, is the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, although Dick Gephardt, Al Gore or John Edwards would, at this date at least, also appear to reprise Fritz Mondale's race against Ronald Reagan in '84. Pre-Sept. 11, I thought Edwards was the strongest candidate, mostly because he's young and, more importantly, from a Bush base state, North Carolina. However, Edwards has performed like a political amateur in the past six months, appearing on far too many talk shows, smearing Pickering to burnish his liberal credentials for the 2004 primaries and showing up for any and every photo-op with Democratic colleagues. (As well as McCain, it goes without saying.) It's true that Bush hadn't even served two full terms as Texas' governor when he ran for president?just as Edwards is in the middle of his first stint as an elected official?but he'd had ample political experience during his father's presidency.

A more serious problem for the Democrats in the next two years is that Americans?even New Yorkers?admire Bush and remain committed to the multifaceted war, including the upcoming (probably this fall) siege of Baghdad. Last week in St. Petersburg, FL, before a fundraiser for his brother Jeb, Bush spoke about the recent casualties in Afghanistan. Choking up, the President said to the crowd: "We've got the mom and dad of a brave soldier who lost his life, and a brother. God bless you. I know your heart aches, and we ache for you. But your son and brother died for a noble and just cause."

Bush isn't much of an actor, and it's unrehearsed moments like these that demonstrate his resolve and sincerity. A far cry from when Bill Clinton, at a memorial service for Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, was captured on camera yukking it up with a colleague. When Clinton discovered he was being filmed, he immediately donned his funeral mask.

March 11

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