Two months ago, Progress assessed the state of the US presidential election and made clear our hope that Senator John Kerry will be victorious when the polls close next Tuesday evening.
We made our choice not simply on the appeal of Senator Kerry, which we believe to be strong, but also on the weaknesses of President George W Bush.
We said then that the President had had two opportunities – immediately after his selection by the Supreme Court in December 2000 and after the tragic events of September 11th – to prove himself worthy of re-election. Given the closeness of the 2000 race, we argued, the President should have sought to govern from the centre and reached across the partisan divide. He failed to meet this challenge. Then, after 9/11, he needed to build new alliances against terror to win not only the inevitable military battles, but also the battle for hearts and minds. He failed to rise to this challenge as well.
As the campaign draws to a close, our convictions of two months ago – before the Republican convention and the general election campaign proper of this autumn – have only been strengthened by what we have seen.
John Kerry’s campaign has continued to show why he has the skills necessary to lead America in these difficult times. In this knife-edge election, he has – even when Bush pulled ahead during September – come back fighting every time, showing a toughness and resilience which belie the Republican attacks on him. Indeed, it is a tribute to Kerry’s campaign that the Republicans have suddenly gone quiet on the charge that the Senator is simply a ‘flip-flopper’ and resurrected the hoary old charge that he is ‘a Massachusetts liberal’.
More importantly, however, Kerry’s campaign has also sought to focus on issues – the economy, healthcare, jobs – other than the ‘war on terror’. By so doing, it has attempted to remind America that if the country obsesses itself with nothing else, the terrorists are half way to victory.
By contrast, President Bush’s campaign will have reminded progressives everywhere of the worst elements of his politics, record and, indeed, his character. The Bush campaign trumpets the moral superiority of its ticket – led by two individuals who, despite their alleged toughness, did everything they could to avoid service in Vietnam. It then has the temerity to question the patriotism and, indeed, distinguished war record of John Kerry. This attitude betrays not only a total lack of shame, but also reveals a breath-taking sense of entitlement which sits ill-at-ease with the leadership of the world’s most powerful democracy.
Indeed, the Republican campaign shows a worrying contempt not only for constitutional niceties but also the ‘rules of the game’ which allow democratic politics to exist. The gerrymandering of congressional districts, attempts to poltioise and interfere with the electoral register and efforts to intimidate newly registered voters are worrying signs of a party which believes its right to govern supersedes the right of a free people to choose their leaders.
The Bush campaign acts in this way because of its worrying belief that the work of the President is somehow ordained by a higher being. ‘I believe God speaks through me,’ Bush told a private religious meeting earlier in the summer. This belief of the President – a blind faith in his own ‘gut’ instincts which is unbothered by the facts – has had appalling consequences both for America and the wider world.
We said in August that the clichés were true: this is the most important election in recent history. Nothing we have heard or seen since leads us to doubt this judgement – or our view that John Kerry’s election this week is critical.
***
In two weeks time, Progress will be holding our annual conference, Building A Progressive Britain. As seen elsewhere (HOTLINK), this high-profile event will bring together a wide range of figures from the progressive movement to lead the debate about a third Labour term.
The conference should not, however, be seen in isolation. It marks the culmination of a year-long debate by Progress on how we go about closing what we have termed the ‘progressive deficit’: the notion that prior to 1997, Britain was a long way from becoming a modern, social democratic country. Our constitution was archaic, Britain was isolated in Europe, our public services unworthy of a nation on the cusp of the 21st century, our economy was afflicted by historical weaknesses, and Britain was scarred by inequality unlike any of our European neighbours.
Aside from our conference in London and the regular features in the magazine on the various aspects of the deficit, we have also taken the debate out to the country, with events in Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester. We are also conducting a survey (HOTLINK), giving you the opportunity to have a say on the shape of Labour’s next manifesto.
As Mind the Gap: Britain’s Progressive Deficit, the publication with which we launched our campaign a year ago, made clear, there has been substantial progress since Labour came to power. Power has been devolved to Scotland and Wales; Britain has led the case for expanding the European Union and liberalising its economy to create more – and better – jobs; public services are receiving substantial new investment and reform; Britain’s economy has had seven years of growth and stability; and substantial strides have been made towards reducing poverty: the cornerstone of closing the inequality gap.
The Progress conference aims, therefore, to take the debate forward: challenging Labour to make a renewed effort to close the progressive deficit in a third term. As we succeed in tackling some of the worst aspects of the deficit, however, new questions arise. How do we adapt public services to a consumer age? How do we ensure that citizens are able to strike the right balance between work and life in the new economy? How, in the face of concerted opposition from the forces of conservatism, do we make equality for all our people a reality in the coming century? How do we best place power in the hands of the people, devolving as much of it as possible to local communities? And, finally, how do win the case for Europe? These questions will be at the forefront of Progress’ conference.