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Bush whacked in US elections
"It was a thumping. I thought we were going to do
fine yesterday. That shows what I know". (George W Bush, 8 November)
LYNN WALSH analyses the US mid-term elections.
THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS were a national referendum on
Bush and the Republicans, who controlled both houses of Congress. Local
issues were pushed aside. CNN analyst, Bill Schneider, reported: "A lot
of voters said, ‘I’m going to vote Democratic’. But they didn’t even
know the name of the Democrat, but they said, ‘I’m going to vote
Democratic because I don’t like Bush, I don’t like the war, I want to
make a statement’." The Democrats had no clear programme, except: "We
are not the Republicans". Clearly, the disastrous war in Iraq was the
decisive issue, with six out of ten opposing the war. About four out of
ten voters said (in exit polls) their vote was a vote against Bush.
The result is Democratic control of both the House
of Representatives and the Senate (from next January). For the next two
years Bush will be a ‘lame-duck’ president. Around the world, as well as
in the US, many millions of people have breathed a huge sigh of relief,
hoping that Bush will at least be checked in his remaining period of
office. "This is the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for
the world", commented the leader of the Socialist group in the EU
parliament.
Twelve years of Republican domination of Congress
has ended. Democrats won 24 of 33 Senate seats up for election, winning
seven million more votes than Republicans. They now control the Senate
51 to 49. In House elections, the Democrats defeated at least 29
Republican incumbents. Normally, around 80% of incumbents keep their
seats, fortified by big corporate donations and gerrymandering of the
districts. The Democrats so far hold 230 House seats, while the
Republicans hold 196.
Against the trend, the pro-war Democrat, Joe
Lieberman, running as an independent, kept his Senate seat in
Connecticut. This was because around 70% of Republican voters voted
Lieberman, while his ‘anti-war’ opponent, Ned Lamont, a
multi-millionaire businessman, more or less abandoned his anti-war
stance.
The Democrats now hold 28 out of 50 state governors.
Also against the trend, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican governor in
California, was re-elected. After the earlier defeat of his right-wing
measures, Arnold apologised to the electorate and stole the Democrats’
policies. The Democrats now control both chambers in 23 state
legislatures, while the Republicans control 16.
Defeated on key issues
WHAT A CHANGE since Bush’s sweeping re-election in
2004! Presenting himself as commander-in-chief in the ‘war against
terrorism’, Bush played on fear of terrorist attacks. The feeble
opposition of the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, and the
political cowardice of the Democrats in general, allowed Bush to get
away with it.
Bush boasted that he had ‘political capital’ and
intended to use it. Karl Rove and other Republican spin-doctors claimed
there had been a massive swing to the right, the basis for a permanent
Republican majority. This political mirage has now evaporated. Rove’s
strategy of mobilising the core Republican vote, especially the
religious right, while trashing the Democrats to reduce their turnout,
did not work this time. Nor did the tactic succeed of using conservative
ballot propositions on religious-social issues to strengthen the
right-wing vote. In South Dakota, for instance, voters defeated an
extreme ban on all abortions by a margin of 56% to 44%. At the same
time, six states, all won by Bush in 2000 and 2004, voted overwhelmingly
for initiatives to raise the states’ minimum wage.
Iraq is the main factor. An overwhelming majority
now sees the war as a disastrous mistake. They have seen through the
phoney argument that the war reduces the threat of terrorist attack
against the US. The immediate resignation of Bush’s defence secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld, symbolised the defeat of the whole neo-con project.
(See: Iraq debacle, No easy exit for US imperialism, Peter Taaffe, page
12)
Next to Iraq, corruption has been a major issue. In
exit polls, three-quarters of voters said corruption influenced their
vote. The recent conviction of Washington lobbyist, Jack Abramoff,
sentenced to five-and-a-half years jail and a $21 million fine, revealed
a web of corruption between corporations, lobbyists and members of
Congress, mostly Republicans. Over 20 members of Congress had received
campaign contributions, free trips, and other perks in return for
corrupt decisions favouring big-business interests. Earlier this year,
the former House majority leader, Tom DeLay, was forced to resign from
Congress, under indictment for flouting campaign finance laws and facing
several congressional ‘ethics’ investigations.
More recently, the scandal around congressman Mark
Foley, involving inappropriate sexual communications with under-age
congressional pages, has further discredited leading Republicans, who
had covered up the abuse for years.
But these are not the only grievances against Bush
and Republican politicians. The administration’s criminally incompetent
response to the catastrophic impact of hurricane Katrina on New Orleans
and the Gulf area has not been forgotten.
The immigration issue also played an important part
in the Republican’s defeat. Playing the anti-immigration card failed to
save Republican seats. Opinion polls show that 57% of voters want
undocumented immigrant workers to be given an opportunity of applying
for legal status and not be deported. Earlier, Bush held out the promise
of some form of legalisation, and won 40% to 44% of the Latino vote in
2004. But he has failed to deliver, while hard-line Republicans have
proposed deportation measures, resulting in the 70% Latino vote for the
Democrats this time.
Moreover, Bush’s ‘success’ with the economy has not
impressed most people. Corporate profits have soared, but real incomes
have stagnated. The gulf between rich and poor has deepened. The typical
chief executive of a big corporation now ‘earns’ more before Monday
lunchtime than a low-paid worker earns in a year. In 2005, the average
CEO received 821 times a minimum wage earner.
No programme, no bite
THE DRAMATIC CHANGE in control of Congress reflects
a vote against Bush and the Republicans, not a positive vote for the
Democrats. In fact, it was in spite of the Democrats, whose election
success is a pale reflection of the deep reservoir of dissatisfaction
and anger among US workers and sections of the middle class. Besides,
only 40% of the electorate voted, though this was a slightly higher
turnout than usual in mid-term elections. In the main, it is the more
affluent strata who turn out to vote. The poorest, most downtrodden
people have no confidence at all in politicians or the political system.
Before the elections, Democratic leaders like Rahm
Emmanuel, a Chicago Representative and chair of the Democratic
Congressional Campaign, pushed to put in place ‘moderate’ and
conservative Democratic candidates. For instance, Heath Shuler, who won
a House seat in North Carolina, is anti-abortion, pro-gun lobby, and
anti-tax (against more social spending). After this election, both the
centrist, Clintonite ‘New Democrats’ and socially conservative ‘Blue
Dog’ caucuses of the Democrats are strengthened. Some of these Democrats
campaigned on the basis of ‘economic populism’, voicing workers’ anger
over job losses and squeezed earnings (without offering any solutions),
but espousing socially conservative sentiment on abortion, gay marriage,
gun control, tax cuts, etc. It is now estimated that, in the new
Congress, the New Democrat caucus will consist of about 50, the Blue Dog
caucus will have about 44, while the Progressive caucus, a dilute
version of New Deal liberalism, will have about 70.
The Democrats rode a wave of anti-war sentiment, but
they have not put forward a clear anti-war position. Their call for
‘redeployment’ of US troops, widely assumed to mean withdrawal from
Iraq, remains a vague slogan. They have no clear plan. Before the
election, Howard Dean, who made his own bid for the Democratic
presidential candidacy in 2004 on the basis of anti-war rhetoric, said:
"We will put some pressure on him [Bush] to have some benchmarks, some
timetables and a real plan other than to stay the course". That was
vague enough. But after the election he said: "We can’t leave Iraq now.
We need to stabilise the situation". Hillary Clinton, who is already
campaigning for the 2008 presidential election, favours stabilising the
position in Iraq, which would mean more US troops.
Comparing the policies of two of the candidates
tipped to run for the presidency in 2008, the editor of the right-wing
magazine, The National Interest, wrote: "Compare the statements of
[Democratic] Senator Hillary Clinton with those of [Republican] Senator
John McCain and you will see a nearly identical approach to world
affairs". (Nicholas Gvosdev, International Herald Tribune, 18 October)
Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, veteran
Democrat, is still calling for relatively rapid withdrawal of US forces
from Iraq, with the deployment of a quick reaction force in Kuwait.
However, John Batiste, a retired army general who vehemently criticised
Bush’s policy and called for Rumsfeld’s resignation, described
congressional proposals for troop withdrawals as "terribly naïve".
"There are lots of things that have to happen to set them up for
success", Batiste said – including sending more troops to stabilise the
situation. ‘Redeployment’ was a successful election slogan, but falls
far short of a viable plan of action. The Democrats are incapable of
ending the war and rapidly withdrawing all US forces.
Democrats have attacked Bush over Iraq and criticise
his draconian restriction of democratic rights at home. They are
promising investigations through congressional hearings, using powers of
subpoena if necessary to get evidence from Bush and his officials.
Turning Capitol Hill into subpoenaville for Bush may well be a powerful
weapon in the Democrats’ hands. But even before the elections, Nancy
Pelosi (now Democratic House leader), announced that impeachment of Bush
was "not on the table" (even though 61% of her San Francisco electoral
district voted for an impeachment resolution). Revealing their lack of
bite, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, a leading Democrat, said: "We
are not going to hold a whole raft of hearings pointing a finger back at
2001". The Democratic leaders are more concerned about preparing for the
2008 elections than seriously holding Bush to account for his ‘crimes
and misdemeanours’.
So, before the elections, they effectively let Bush
off the hook for all the lies and deceptions, all the unconstitutional
and illegal actions, he deployed to launch the occupation of Iraq. And
is it any wonder? The big majority of Democrats in Congress voted for
Bush’s war powers, the repressive Patriot Act and Homeland Security
apparatus, and loyally renewed funding for the war. On 29 September, the
Senate unanimously approved the Pentagon’s $448 billion budget (up 40%
since 2001), including a further $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. As recently as 17 October, twelve Democratic Senators and
39 Democratic Representatives voted for the Military Commission’s Act,
which legalises arbitrary detention and interrogation – in reality, the
torture – of terrorist suspects. It also grants the president
unprecedented new powers to declare a ‘public emergency’ and station
troops anywhere in the US, taking control of state-based National Guard
units, to ‘suppress public disorder’.
The Democrats are equally vague and evasive on
economic issues. They are promising to raise the minimum wage from $5.15
to $7.30. Even this would be a welcome improvement for the poorest
workers, the working poor. But it is really a pathetic increase. The
Democrats say they will empower Medicare (which provides medical care
for retirees) to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs with the
pharmaceutical companies. But they have no plans to establish a
comprehensive, state-financed health system. They will no doubt use
their control of Congress to block any further Republican plans to
privatise social security (the Federal pension system), but such is the
popular opposition that Bush himself was forced to abandon his plans
after re-election in 2004.
For years, many Democrats have denounced Bush’s tax
cuts for the super-rich. They are pledged to block the extension to
Bush’s tax cuts beyond 2010 when they are currently due to expire. But
they are now saying it will take six months to a year to review the tax
structure. Howard Dean "cautioned against expecting the tax cuts many
Democrats want for the middle class [ie blue-collar and white-collar
workers]". (International Herald Tribune, 13 May) Eager to reassure big
business that they are ‘fiscal conservatives’, Dean said that Democrats
support a budget-balancing approach.
Democratic leaders continually promise ‘reform’. But
no one should expect any serious anti-corporate measures or significant
economic improvements for workers. The new Democratic majority will
start from where the Clinton administration left off. Bill Clinton
implemented NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Area) which cost
millions of manufacturing jobs and pushed down US wage levels. He also
slashed welfare benefits for single mothers and their children.
Clinton’s treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, himself a Wall Street
banker, carried through measures of deregulation and tax cuts which
helped foster the dotcom boom and profits bonanza of the late 1990s. The
next few years, however, will not be a repeat of the finance-driven boom
of 1994-2001. US capitalism faces the prospect of deep economic crisis,
for which the Democratic leaders are totally unprepared.
Corporate politics
THE DEMOCRATS ARE the alternative party of US big
business. The whole political system is designed to maintain the
‘Republicrat’ duopoly, and exclude challenges from third parties.
Discontent with one party is then safely channelled into support for the
other.
Both major parties receive huge sums of corporate
finance. In this election Republican candidates spent $559 million,
while Democrats spent $456 million. These figures, moreover, do not
include candidates’ own personal funds invested in their campaigns.
Hillary Clinton, campaigning for a safe Senate seat in New York state,
spent $30 million on her campaign. Overall, the mid-term elections cost
the two parties $2.8 billion.
In the closing stages of the campaign, when it began
to become clear that the Democrats would make big gains, a number of big
corporations began to switch their finance from the Republicans to the
Democrats. Pfizer, Sprint, UPS, Hewlett-Packard, Lockheed Martin, etc,
all made big donations to the Democrats. Undoubtedly, they believe such
contributions will grease their access to congressional leaders and
produce the kind of policies they want.
The close links between big business and Democratic
policymakers is shown by Pelosi herself. Although denounced by
Republicans as an extreme ‘California liberal’, Pelosi received
substantial campaign funds from venture capital firms in Silicon Valley,
a few miles south of her San Francisco district. These firms, which made
millions starting up hi-tech firms which later floated on the stock
exchange with inflated share prices, are campaigning against the
Sarbanes-Oxley Corporate Governance Law, introduced after the Enron and
WorldCom scandals to curb insider trading and other fraudulent
practices. US capital markets, they complain, are losing business
because of these regulations – and Pelosi and other Democratic leaders
are campaigning to dilute the regulations. An editorial in the
International Herald Tribune (13 November) headlined this campaign as "a
shameless corporate bid to soften the rules".
At the same time, labour unions continue to make
massive donations to the Democrats. In the 2004 elections, labour unions
donated $55.4 million, 90% to Democratic candidates. This year it will
have been even more.
In this way, the labour leaders have tied organised
labour to one of the big-business parties. Even though the Democrats
long ago abandoned most of the liberal, social-welfare policies of the
New Deal era, the labour leaders stick to this approach. Time and again,
they have blocked (with one or two honourable exceptions) every move to
break away and build a new, independent party of the working class. So
organised labour remains the ‘tail’ of the Democrats, handing over
millions of dollars but exerting little or no influence on policy.
In these mid-term elections, the Green Party was the
main party standing on an independent, anti-war, anti-corporate
platform. With the system stacked in favour of the two big-business
parties, and with limited funds, most Green candidates got less than 2%
of the vote. In a few cases, however, Green candidates gained
significant support. In Illinois, Green candidate for governor, Rich
Whitney, won 11%. In a two-way contest with a Democrat for a House seat
in Colorado, Tom Kelly won 21%. In Richmond, California, a town of over
100,000 near Oakland, a Green was elected mayor. (See: US Elections, The
Socialist No.463, 16-22 November)
The outcome of the mid-term elections reveals a
glaring contradiction. On the one side, the angry, anti-war mood of the
majority of voters, resulting in a decisive defeat for the Republicans.
On the other, the wavering, pro-business stance of the Democrats,
completely failing to give expression to this mood.
Nevertheless, millions will welcome the Republicans’
defeat. Many will be prepared to give the Democrats time. Many are no
doubt thinking that the Democrats will need to take the presidency in
2008 before they can implement real changes. But in the next few years,
even more than under Clinton’s presidency, the Democrats will
demonstrate their subservience to big business, with little or nothing
to offer the working class. They have no magic solution to Iraq, and
will become embroiled in the disastrous mess that Bush has created.
For those who wish to fight for the interests of
working people, and want to see a fundamental change in the system, the
struggle to build a mass party independent of big business and committed
to anti-corporate policies is top of the agenda.
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