E. J. Dionne Jr. - Round Two

E. J. Dionne Jr.
Round Two - November 3, 2000

First, I stand corrected: There is an intelligent conservative who thinks this election makes no difference. Chris Caldwell says flatly, "The election matters less than any in our lifetime." Barbara Ehrenreich agrees. "Neither candidate proposes an 'activist government' and certainly not one lively enough to provide, say, a universal health-insurance program."

Maybe the problem here is what differences people expect -- or seem to hope for -- from elections in capitalist democracies. Would Bush or Gore overturn capitalism? No. Would either completely repeal the welfare state? No. Are both, broadly speaking, free traders? Yes. None of this means they would do the same things in office or have the same effect on the future of American politics.

Perhaps Chris and Ms. Ehrenreich -- I'm being respectfully formal here because I don't know her as well as I know Chris -- don't think it matters much how, or whether, a drug benefit is provided under Medicare. (Elderly people who need drugs certainly don't see this as a "microscopic" issue, as Ms. Ehrenreich suggests, and the cost of the benefit is certainly not microscopic.) Perhaps they don't think the future shape of Social Security matters. Perhaps fiscal policy doesn't mean much to them. Perhaps they think the importance of the Supreme Court is exaggerated. If so, it makes perfect sense for them to argue as they do.

No, this is not an election between a libertarian and a socialist. That's the case not because party bosses or big capital imposed this choice on us but because the vast majority of the voters are neither libertarians nor socialists. They're skeptical of government but also want government to provide benefits they think they need and regulations that can make the marketplace fairer and (believe it or not, Chris) more efficient. The dynamic of this campaign is between the forces of skepticism and the forces of moderate government activism.

(And c'mon, Chris, stop with this "socialism" stuff. Have the regulations imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission made us less capitalist? Do you really think the EPA and the FCC are taking us down the Soviet road? If anything, the regulatory state over the past twenty-five years, under both Democrats and Republicans, has placed more rather than less emphasis on market competition. Even Nader thinks -- or at least thought -- that true market competition can, under certain circumstances, be a check on corporate power.)

Barbara Ehrenreich is certainly right that the problems with Gore's campaign are owing to Gore and not just Nader. I don't know a single Gore supporter who believes otherwise. But it's simply not true that Nader is drawing equally from Bush and Gore. The polls suggest that Nader takes three or four votes from Gore for every one he takes from Bush. Nader supporters in swing states will do as they wish, but they should be under no illusions about the impact of Nader's candidacy. Indeed, whatever effect Nader has on Election Day, he has already skewed the strategies in the closing days of the campaign in Bush's favor. Absent Nader, it's doubtful that Minnesota, Oregon, and Wisconsin would be as close as they are or have received as many candidate visits as they have.

What this comes down to is a disagreement about how change happens within a system that is not based on proportional representation, and thus tends to give us choices between the center-left and the center-right. We can argue about the merits and demerits of proportional representation some other day. Given the system we have, as my friend Harold argues, it's hard to see how the Green strategy will achieve what it sets out to achieve. Certainly the example of conservatives is worth taking seriously: from the Goldwater campaign forward, they achieved substantial change in American politics by working within the Republican Party. Does Ms. Ehrenreich really believe that the Greens could supplant the Democrats and then win an electoral majority? If that's not the purpose of this exercise, what is? Nor is it obvious (to me at least) that if Gore loses, the Democratic Party would move rapidly to the left. And if that did happen, it's doubtful it would win the next election, or the one after that. Coalition politics is difficult and frustrating, but if you care about what works and what's democratic, there is no alternative to building coalitions.

And two particular points: Like Barbara Ehrenreich, I wish national health insurance were on the national agenda. But everybody (on the left, at least) seems to forget that the Clinton Administration tried and failed to get it passed. Lord knows we don't want to argue here about why the Clinton health plan failed. But the left should not pretend that if only Clinton had gone for a Canadian-style system, all would have gone swimmingly. The failure to enact a national health plan was a failure not only of the Administration, but of progressives generally.

And, Chris, I know you don't hang around housing projects with union members, but I don't know of many political organizations that can pay fifty bucks a vote. And your investment banker is not only likely to vote, but with the campaign contributions he makes, he can meet any candidate he wants -- something you can't say of those folks in the projects. Personally, I like what Chris calls "mob voting," otherwise known as democracy. It's worked pretty well.

What do you think? Join the debate in a special conference of Post & Riposte. We'll highlight selected readers' remarks as the Roundtable progresses.

E. J. Dionne Jr. is a senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution and a columnist for The Washington Post. His books include They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era (1996) and Why Americans Hate Politics (1991).