Sometimes, clichés are there for a reason. This is the most important US presidential election in recent history. Moreover, despite the frequent criticism that the Republican and Democratic parties only provide a choice between ‘tweedledum’ and ‘tweedledee’, this election offers America a stark contrast between the untrammelled, radical right agenda of George W Bush and the progressive centrism of Senator John Kerry.
The election is, of course, a choice and not simply a referendum on the incumbent. If it were,there is little doubt that President Bush would be shown the red card by voters in November. Since taking office, he has had two opportunities to prove himself worthy of re-election. He has failed to rise to the challenge of either.
The first came when the Supreme Court anointed him president at the end of 2000. He promised to be a ‘compassionate conservative’ – committed to bringing ‘civility and respect’ to Washington, ‘extending the promise of prosperity to every corner of the country’, and ensuring that ‘no child is left behind’. With the disputed and knife-edge election results, Bush could have chosen to govern from the centre, reaching out to moderate Republicans and Democrats. He could have assembled a cabinet that reflected this goal. He could have chosen to consign his extreme-right vice president to the traditional duties of that office: attending state funerals in far-away lands.
Instead, the president chose a different course, where the accent was on conservatism rather than compassion. He has led a partisan and divisive administration, composed principally of rightwing ideologues led by Vice President Cheney. He inherited a golden economic legacy but blew the surplus on tax cuts for the rich, knowingly running up a huge deficit in order – in the parlance of the conservative movement – to ‘starve the beast of big government’. Under George Bush, every indicator of compassion – lower crime rates, more jobs, less poverty – has been reversed after the gains of the Clinton years.
In place of his promise to govern for all Americans, the president has pandered to the interests of the most unenlightened elements of big business and the prejudices of the most regressive social movements. And in place of the promise of civility, there has been only cynicism, the Republicans attacking the character and motives of anyone who challenges what they appear to regard as their inalienable right to govern.
The second opportunity for Bush came after September 11th. We have no truck with those who question the need for the war against terror. But Bush has squandered much of the sympathy that flowed America’s way after 9/11. In place of leading the world, he has attempted to bully it – riding roughshod over the sensitivities and arguments of America’s allies and inadvertently providing succour to America’s foes. The war on terror will have to be fought by military means where necessary, but it is also a battle for hearts and minds. Under Bush, the US has not even begun to fight that second battle.
We only have to consider the strategic challenges ahead – providing Israel with security and freedom from terror and the Palestinians with a viable state; checking the WMD programmes of states like North Korea and Iran; assisting the new Iraqi government to build an independent and democratic state; and demanding those states that harbour and support terrorists desist from doing so – to wonder whether George Bush is truly up to building the alliances and support needed to meet them.
Many Americans appear to have already reached these conclusions about the incumbent. But what of the man who aspires to be America’s 44th president?
Throughout the year, many have mourned the fact that Senator Kerry lacks a certain Clintonian sparkle. However, Kerry has already begun to show himself as a worthy heir to President Clinton in a number of ways. First, during the winter’s primary elections, Kerry proved himself a fighter who doesn’t give up: like Bill Clinton before him, pure perseverance rescued a flailing primary campaign to win the Democrat nomination. Second, as Bill Clinton did in 1992, Kerry has made an excellent choice in his running mate, Senator John Edwards.
Finally, the Democrat nominee has, like Clinton before him, been willing to confront his party’s perceived weaknesses – on national security, patriotism, crime and the importance of the family. Kerry is right to argue that this terrain does not belong to the right. Indeed, in his convention speech he skilfully skewered conservatives who profess support for family values while denying a decent retirement to elderly people, closing after-school clubs, and cutting the number of police on the streets. In a similar vein, he correctly argued that true patriots do not, as his opponents have done, cut support for military veterans or question the right of their fellow citizens to dissent from the decisions made by government.
Despite the Bush campaign’s attempts to portray him as a ‘flip-flopper’, Kerry’s domestic agenda is in line with New Democrat policy: fiscal discipline and expanded economic opportunity for the working and middle classes, which proved such good policies – and politics – in the 1990s. The principal domestic priorities Kerry has set – reversing the Bush tax cuts on the very wealthy in order to reduce the deficit, increasing healthcare coverage and expanding national service – are both laudable and politically popular ones.
Internationally, Kerry’s promise to make America ‘respected abroad’ suggests his presidency would replace the kind of unilateralism favoured by Bush with a more multilateral approach. This would provide both an opportunity and a challenge for Europe, for the strategic problems that Kerry would face in the White House are much the same, initially at least, as those a re-elected Bush would have to tackle. As president, Kerry will, no doubt, expect nations like France and Germany to provide the kind of assistance that Bush’s unilateralism has allowed them to refuse.
By his manner, his rhetoric and sometimes his actions, George Bush has presented to the world an image of America that its friends know is not its true face. That is why those who recognise that American leadership is both vital, and a force for a good in an uncertain world, will wish John Kerry well on 2 November.