During the vicious Republican assault on his character, his family and his morals, Bill Clinton managed to achieve record opinion ratings by consistently putting forward progressive policies. Even while he was arraigned for an impeachment trial in the Senate, he was winning the battle of ideas. In the 2000 election, Gore was mauled on issues of personal credibility. That election proved that as well as fighting back against charges it is necessary to maintain a steady flow of new ideas and policies.
So how is John Kerry doing? What will his platform be in 2004, and are there any ideas there to learn from?
John Kerry’s has launched the ‘Real Deal’ for America, a series of measures to get ‘the country back on track’ (thus implicitly stating that Bush has taken it off track – without going negative). He has composed a ‘Complete Action Plan’ for his first 100 days in office. Meanwhile, the Republicans have accused him of looking a bit French.
Bush has been able to deflect much of the criticism for his economic strategies because he has been presenting himself as a wartime leader. Democrats have augmented his leverage by failing to form united ranks in opposition to his policies. One of the key components of Kerry’s plan is a comprehensive series of steps to make America secure again.
Kerry talks about finally beginning the real war on terror, and fighting to win. He will put pressure on Saudi Arabia to stop fomenting extremism, work constructively with reformers in Iran and take a larger hand in the stalled Middle East peace process. He also promises firm action on non-proliferation and rooting out the networks of terrorist finance. He is committed to making use of America’s alliances and existing international structures, chiefly the UN, to combat terrorism. Finally, he is ambitious to build working links with the non-radicalised Islamic world and bring them onside.
Kerry’s domestic agenda is jobs, health and education. All these are high salience areas and areas where Bush is most vulnerable. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (which deals with education) and his attempt to regulate prescription charges for the elderly were designed to sew up his credentials as a president with a social conscience. Both have fallen flat. Meanwhile he is, as is often cited, the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over net job losses.
Kerry makes a great deal of reforming healthcare in his first 100 days. In fact, he has said that he will make his plan for restoring Medicare (which provides healthcare for senior citizens) his first major proposal to Congress. This proposal centres on a few main steps: lower prescription drug costs; no longer herding senior citizens into health management organisations (groupings with can sometimes restrict treatment choices) but leaving decision making in their hands; and expanding prescription drug coverage. Funding for Medicare, as well as social security and protection for children and veterans, will be restored and preserved. This speaks to the concern of the average American who is watching their medical insurance bill rise by over ten percent a year while ever more children fall out of coverage.
Bush’s No Child Left Behind education initiative is under-funded. It simply passes the buck down. The federal government makes large demands of the states and local school boards (which fund education) without giving them extra funds. Kerry promises to propose a new National Education Trust Fund. By mandating funding for the mandated programmes, schools will be able to make good on higher standards. He also says that by the end of his term he would like a four-year college education to be as universal and affordable as a high school education for all American youth.
His Service for College initiative gives students the chance to earn the equivalent of their state’s four-year public college tuition by completing two years of public service. The goal of this program is to enlist 500,000 young people a year for the next decade. Additionally, Kerry plans to curb rising tuition fees by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy and appropriating the money to tax credits that help working people pay for higher education.
But the part of Kerry’s domestic agenda that is showing the most traction right now is jobs. Kerry aims to restore three million of the jobs lost during the Bush administration.
Kerry plans tax credits to help employers with the health care costs of employing new people and an additional credit aimed at manufacturing jobs. He is also picking up on the corporate scandals of the last few years (and the links of many of the protagonists with the Bush administration). People across the US have seen their pensions hit; jobs cut and big companies exporting jobs overseas. Kerry plans to shift ‘corporate welfare’ over to smaller businesses which are far more likely to be the engines of job creation (as they were in the Clinton years). He wants to extend the famous anti-mafia laws, the RICO penalties, to cover corporate malfeasance, thereby making it easier to investigate and prosecute.
Clearly, Kerry hopes that tax credits to promote manufacturing jobs, small business and wider university education will better appeal to the American people’s values than tax cuts that favour the rich.
Kerry has also made it a priority to strengthen the civil liberties that have been challenged during what he calls the ‘Era of Ashcroft.’ As part of legislation to protect against further terrorist attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft has undoubtedly curbed individual rights, including the privacy of attorney-client conversations, e-mails and telephone calls. ‘I’m running for President to make the country we love safer, stronger and more secure,’ he said. ‘I’m asking every American to be a Citizen Soldier again committed to leaving no American behind.’
Finally, on his ‘anti-sleaze’ agenda, he promised to reinstate the five-year ban on senior government figures registering as lobbyists and to insist that any administration keeps and releases records of its contacts with lobbyists.
Kerry also aspires to release the US from its long-term strategic ties to the Middle East, caused by oil dependence. He wants to make America energy-independent of the Middle East within ten years. By investing in energy renewable sources, such as ethanol (distilled from farm crops), solar and wind, he will work to achieve this goal – itself creating 500,000 jobs. Also he plans to reverse the Bush administration’s dismantling of clean air and clean water programs.
Kerry promises to get all of these initiatives under way in his first 100 days. It yet remains to be seen if he has the right policies and the endurance to win the battle of ideas. But now that Kerry has put forth a solid plan, Democrats need to rally around him.