Election ’98: Two Cheers For Democracy
By Kenny Schaeffer

The 1998 elections appear to mark a significant turning point in American politics. With the defeat of several incumbent Republican Senators, including Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, and the failure of Republicans to make predicted gains in the New York State legislature or the U.S. Congress; with voters electing moderate Democrats over right-wing Republicans for governor in California, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina; with Minnesota voters rejecting both Democratic and Republican nominees to elect, former professional wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura, governor; and with the Green Party and the Working Families Party coming close to achieving permanent ballot status in New York, it is appears that the radical shift to the right in American politics which began in 1968 may be drawing to a close. This impression was confirmed two days after the election, when Newt Gingrich announced that he was giving up his position as Speaker of the House.

1968: Year of Apocalypse

1968 saw a series of traumatic events which transformed American politics. After telling America “You’ve never had it so good” in his State of the Union speech in January, President Lyndon Johnson announced on March 31 that he was not running for re-election, following the strong showing of anti-Vietnam War candidate Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary, and the entrance into the race of Sen. Robert Kennedy. On April 4, Martin Luther King, who had broken with Johnson over the war and was organizing a mobilization in Washington for that summer, was assassinated. In June, Robert Kennedy won the California primary and appeared headed for the Democratic nomination when he too was assassinated. In August, protesters against the Vietnam War and other corporate crimes converged on the Democratic convention in Chicago, only to be beaten and gassed by police under the control of Democratic Mayor Richard Daley. In November, right-winger Richard Nixon was elected president, largely on the strength of his “Southern strategy,” the use of racist appeals to split Southern whites and Northern ethnic working-class voters away from the Democrats.

In 1972, the Democratic Party seemed ready to challenge Nixon’s policies. It nominated Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, who combined core Democratic values of social and economic justice with environmentalism and anti-militarism. But an unprecedented criminal conspiracy to disrupt the Democratic party, orchestrated from within the Nixon White House, succeeded in derailing the McGovern campaign and reducing his program, in the public eye, to “acid, amnesty and abortion.” Ironically, Nixon himself had to seek amnesty after his conspiracy came to light and he resigned.

After the McGovern debacle, the Democratic Party lost its way. In 1976, with the Republicans in disgrace, liberal Democratic leaders flocked to the candidacy of Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, ignoring the popular appeal of Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona. Bayh, like many Democratic leaders misreading the lessons of 1972, was fuzzy around the edges on substantive edges, particularly those involving corporate abuses, while Udall was uncompromising in his support for environmentalism and the labor movement. With left-of-center Democrats split, the nomination went to peanut farmer Jimmy Carter, who espoused grand platitudes. Despite an impressive international human- rights record, Carter essentially had no domestic policy. He took the blame for double-digit inflation and unemployment, which resulted from corporate pursuit of profits unchecked by government. By 1980, Carter was a sitting duck for Ronald Reagan, the “Great Communicator,” who campaigned as the only lifetime union member to run for president, but once elected immediately decimated the air-traffic controllers’ union and the National Labor Relations Board. Edward Kennedy ran against the incumbent Carter in the democratic primaries, seeking to restore the party to its Roosevelt-Kennedy-Johnson social and economic policies, but fell short.

By the 1984 primary season, “liberal” Gary Hart had described the labor movement as a “special interest,” perverting the term coined by Progressives to describe robber barons, polluters and others who sought to subvert the political process in pursuit of greed.

By 1992, the Democratic Party, under the prodding of Bill Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Conference, had moved so far towards the mythical “center” that is was impossible to know what it stood for, although Clinton campaigned as a progressive on issues ranging from universal health care to protection of gays in the military. When he abandoned these “principles” once in office, the electorate soundly rejected him, leading to the Gingrich revolution of 1994. By January 1996, Clinton was promising to “end welfare as we know it,” despite the persistence of deep poverty affecting tens of millions of Americans, and that summer he carried out his threat. The shift of American politics to the right seemed like it would go on indefinitely.

1998: Turning Point

But the 1998 election seems to show that, at a minimum, the drift to the right has been arrested. Why? After Clinton’s ruthless campaign to force NAFTA through Congress—which included painting as unpatriotic union leaders who raised concerns over job security, working conditions and the environment—labor leaders realized that they need to assert themselves, and the AFL-CIO chose the aggressive John Sweeney as its president. Labor’s support for nascent independent political groups like the New Party and the Labor Party is letting Democrats know that union support can no longer be taken for granted. And in many ways, Republican hypocrisy is becoming evident. The inquisition into Clinton’s sex life was simultaneously puritanical and prurient, and the “right to life” movement is murdering doctors.

The ship of state has by no means been set right. George Pataki was re-elected governor of New York with no real challenge by Peter Vallone, who never confronted the Governor’s basic program, such as his assault on rent and eviction protections last year. Republicans still control Congress, and the Democratic Party still seems unsure of whether it believes that government has any role to play in achieving social and economic justice. Democrats’ commitment to public housing and the regulation of private housing is still very much in question. But the broad rejection of right-wing Republicans around the country on November 3, and the continuing growth of a variety of third parties, is welcome news.