BY NAOMI CRAINE
As the television cameras rolled, Democratic president
Bill Clinton and Republican Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich stressed their agreement on a range of questions.
The two politicians met in New Hampshire June 11 as
campaigning for the 1996 presidential elections heats up.
The congressional leader praised the president for his support for the anti-democratic "counterterrorism" bill recently approved by the Senate and currently in the House of Representatives. He also commended Clinton for the U.S. occupation of Haiti.
Answering questions from residents in a senior citizens home, Gingrich defended his proposal to slash Medicare, the government medical entitlement program for the elderly and disabled. Clinton said he favored "smaller Medicare reduction," but agreed with cutting projected benefits. "Will I work with them [the Republicans] and try to work this out? Absolutely," the president declared.
So far, Gingrich has not announced his candidacy, but said he will leave the door "slightly open" to making a presidential bid. Clinton has no serious contenders to date for the Democratic nomination. Explaining his four-day jaunt to the state where the first presidential primary will be held, the congressman said, "I'm trying to shape the entire language and ideas of the 1996 campaign."
The Clinton and Gingrich discussion, like the rest of the campaigning for next year's election, reflects how the framework of bourgeois politics continues moving to the right.
The major themes of the 1992 presidential election campaign continue to get prominent play by the main contenders and the big-business media. They reflect the debate among the ruling rich on how to protect U.S. capitalist interests around the world, how to advance the employers' drive against wages and working conditions, how to take back social gains the working class has won, and how to curtail democratic rights.
Buchanan makes another bid
In the last election, ultrarightist Republican candidate
Patrick Buchanan loudly called for "putting America First,"
proclaimed the need for a "culture war," and scapegoated
immigrants for the economic and social crisis of the
capitalist system. He proposed building a wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border.
The fascist-minded demagogue used his 1992 campaign to build a base of supporters willing to not only vote but also act in the streets. He praised National Guard units who, following anti-police rioting in Los Angeles, had taken back the city "block by block." .
A fund-raising letter sent out by the Buchanan for President Committee emphasized his anti-immigrant stance. "The unprecedented flood of illegal immigrants into our nation over the last 15 years leaves me no choice but to call for a 5 year moratorium on even legal immigration," Buchanan wrote in the letter. "One in four criminals in our federal prisons today are illegal aliens," he asserted, blaming immigrants for "massive crime, social disruption, and an enormous financial drain on government services."
Continuing his "America First" campaign, in May Buchanan complained that the Clinton administration's trade sanctions against Tokyo "doesn't even qualify as a spanking."
A recent front-page article in the New York Times stated, "The former television commentator and conservative columnist is a lot closer to driving the race than to being driven out."
Buchanan bragged to the Times that he has "won the battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party." He pointed to various prominent Republican politicians who have picked up the banner on positions he put forward. "Pete Wilson is talking about illegal immigration. And Bob Dole is talking about a culture war for the soul of America.-It's not a Bush party any more, it is a Buchanan party."
Dole, Clinton compete on `values'
Speaking in Los Angeles at the end of May, Dole, the
Senate majority leader and current front-runner for the
Republican nomination, blasted Hollywood for producing
"nightmares of depravity." The music, television, and film
industries "hide behind the lofty language of free speech in
order to profit from the debasing of America," he said,
offering his suggestions of current movies that offer good
and bad "family values."
Clinton's response was to try to take the issue back from Dole by pointing out that he had denounced rap music and violent films earlier in his State of the Union message.
Dole also joined in the bipartisan attack on affirmative action, saying he would like to eliminate programs with quotas for minorities and women. The senator said he welcomed the Christian Coalition's "Contract with the American Family," a package of proposed legislation that includes abortion restrictions and a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in public schools.
California governor Wilson, who is expected to announce a bid for the Republican nomination, has been in the forefront of attacking immigrant rights with his promotion of Proposition 187, which aims to deny health care and education to undocumented workers. He is also leading the charge against the rights of women and oppressed nationalities, signing an executive order dismantling aspects of California's affirmative action laws.
Billionaire Ross Perot, who garnered 19 percent of the vote as a third candidate in 1992, is determined to hold a spot for himself in the race for the White House.
Many of his right-wing themes, such as chopping Social Security and other aspects of workers' social wage, or putting more cops on the street, have been picked up by Clinton and other representatives of big business, Democrat and Republican alike.
In May, Perot invited Clinton, Dole, Gingrich, and other possible presidential candidates to debate at an August conference of United We Stand America, the group he set up following his presidential bid. Dole accepted the invitation. Clinton declined, saying, "I don't think the president should start politicking too soon."
A Perot spokesman said the gathering is to have political figures "come and talk about their vision for the 21st century and how-to make America an economic superpower again."