BY GREG McCARTAN
Campaigning by capitalist politicians for the U.S. presidency - Democrats, Republicans, and "independents" such as billionaire Ross Perot - went up a notch this month.
Several events highlight the depth and sharpness of their debate, which focuses on how the wealthy can best operate politically as they try to find a way to qualitatively press forward their assault against working people. Many of these political figures seek to draw youth and working people into their framework of how to view the world and how to respond to the economic crisis, which affects every aspect of social life.
Leading Democratic senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey announced August 17 he will be retiring from the Senate at age 52 and is considering entering the 1996 presidential race as an independent. Bradley is reportedly in discussions with Perot and retired U.S. general Colin Powell on possibilities for a 1996 campaign.
Pointing to Bradley's decision in a feature article in the New York Times, Michael Wines concludes, "American politics in the `90's is becoming a haystack caught in a whirlwind, the inchoate product of party alliances shattering and reforming, old orders crumbling, voters clutching here, then there for an ideology to cling to." Wines believes Bradley's decision "foreshadows the end of the Democratic Party as Americans know it today - if not now, within a matter of years."
In making his announcement, Bradley said that it was futile to try to change the government from within his own party, and that his "objective is to try to reconnect people to the political process from outside that political process." He added, "We need to find language and....a way to do that."
Speaking from the point of view of an established bourgeois politician, he noted this is not the "script" followed "for [the past] 30 or 40 years....Neither political party speaks to people where they live their lives," he said. "Both have moved away from my own concept of service and my own idea of what America can be."
Bradley assailed the Democrats for being "enamored of the possibility of a centralized federal bureaucracy in solving very complex human problems." By giving a nod to an "independent" campaign he becomes the latest example of how the two-party system is tending to disintegrate around the edges. Under the pressures of the political polarization bred out of the continuing crises of world capitalism, an increasing number of big-business politicians are groping for a more effective way to rule.
Politicians flock to Perot event
Bourgeois politicians, many of whom are running for U.S.
president, from liberal Democrat Jesse Jackson to
Republican and ultrarightist Patrick Buchanan, flocked to a
political conference organized in Dallas August 10-12 by
Perot's United We Stand America.
The meeting became a political debate among the politicians. Many of the speeches sounded themes against big government combined with proposals on how best to press forward the attacks on real wages, Social Security, and social services benefiting working people, job conditions, and working hours. Their talks appealed to the insecurities - real and perceived - of millions that come from the seemingly insoluble conditions bred by the capitalist crisis.
Banker Pete Peterson, a leader of the Concord Coalition, urged the Perot forces to attack all entitlements, including Social Security, which he called "the mother of all unfunded mandates."
California governor Pete Wilson touted the moves made by his administration to begin to roll back affirmative action programs, such as those by state universities. He also pointed to measures aimed at preventing workers who are immigrants and their children from having access to education, health care, and social programs. Wilson was a central backer of Proposition 187 in California, which passed in the midst of chauvinist appeals.
Indiana senator Richard Lugar cautioned against making "an issue of affirmative action," saying those who attack it "are on the edge of riling up fears that ought not to be riled up." Lugar argued for replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax.
Ovations for Buchanan
Buchanan, as the Wall Street Journal reported, was
accorded "the warmest reception" from the 3,000 people at
the convention, where "he won repeated standing ovations
with his blunt promises to end all foreign aid, cancel the
North American Free Trade Agreement, build a border fence
to keep out illegal aliens, establish term limits for
federal judges, [and] look out for `the forgotten
Americans."
"When I get to the White House," Buchanan told the audience, "NAFTA will be canceled and there'll be no more $50 billion bailouts of Mexico," referring to the massive backing of the Mexican peso organized by the Clinton administration earlier this year in response to the collapse of the Mexican currency on world markets.
"The politicians of both parties sold us out up in Washington, D. C.," he said, claiming to speak for "the single mom in a textile plant in South Carolina" who has been forced "by investment bankers on Wall Street...to compete with Asian workers who have to work for 25 cents an hour."
Writing in the Washington Post, columnist David Broder took up the response to Buchanan, saying it is a "mistake" for the press to "treat his campaign lightly."
"Like George Wallace, he has a deadly knack for finding the most divisive issues in American life, including race, and a growing skill in exploiting them. Its dangerous to pretend that he will disappear," Broder wrote.
Buchanan followed up his reception in Dallas with a third-place finish in a straw poll in Iowa. The New York Times reports that 10,000 people gave the Republican front- runner, Senator Bob Dole, a "polite response." The crowd "saved its enthusiasm for [Republican Phil] Gramm and Mr. Buchanan."
Buchanan, who seeks less to capture the Republican nomination than to build an ultrarightist and fascist cadre to prepare for battles against a working-class movement down the road, has captured significant media coverage over the past month.
Columnist Robert Novak, writing in the conservative National Review, calls Buchanan a "populist Republican" and chastises Republicans "who believe the demonization of him as a crypto-fascist." Admitting Buchanan's syndicated column "explored the outer reaches of nationalism," Novak calls "outrageous" Republican William Bennett's assertion that the presidential candidate is "flirting with fascism."
Conservative Republican senator Gramm, who tied Dole in the Iowa straw poll, has meanwhile been trying to put some life into his campaign. The outcome of the contest was largely a result of the campaigns paying $25 voting fees for supporters to attend the convention. Gramm called the affair a "stunning victory."