According to polling data, John Kerry can capture a good number of centrists and moderates by staking a tough position on outsourcing and trade. Yet, as Jonathan Tasini writes, he's been painfully silent on the issue. When the dust settles from whatever campaign restructuring the Clintonistas have engineered, Tasini says it's time to talk tough about protecting workers' jobs.
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.
Every conversation I've had in the last several weeks contains at least one expression of dread with the basic theme being, "How can Kerry not be 10 points ahead of this guy?" Indeed, you wonder how objective conditions could be so unfavorable to the incumbent: job losses, health care costs skyrocketing, record consumer debt and federal deficits, not to mention the little matter of a debacle in Iraq.
Kerry's troubles started long before August. I remember walking out of the Democratic convention in Boston, left cold by Kerry's acceptance speech because he barely mentioned the issue that had roiled American public opinion for over two years: outsourcing and trade. He devoted just seven sentences to the issue that had sparked outrage across the country, energizing a broad spectrum ranging from thousands of workers to CNN's Lou Dobbs. He let his most valuable attack line, and a key bridge to undecided voters, slip away.
If you need independent verification for the squandered opportunity, look no further than The New York Times/CBS poll conducted for the Democratic and Republican conventions. The poll sought to illustrate the differences on issues between the two parties' delegates, and, then, where the two parties' delegates stood on issues relative to their rank-and-file voters and the general voting population (which includes independents). The poll results are fairly predictable, with the two parties' delegates split decisively on virtually every issue, and rank-and-file voters of each party separated by a significant margin.
Except for one: trade. The NYT/CBS poll presented the statement, "Free trade must be allowed, even if domestic industries are hurt by foreign competition." Fifty-three percent of the Republican delegates agreed. But once you get beyond the foot-soldiers, the polling reveals something different: only 25 percent of Republican voters agreed with the statement, a fact which puts them in the company of Democratic rank-and-file at 26 percent and all voters at 27 percent. Even Democratic Party delegates polled in at 23 percent, implying that large union representation among the party's delegates only makes a slight difference on this issue.
No one should be surprised by those numbers. If you're a person whose job has been torn away in the past decade by so-called "free trade" or if you live in a town that has lost its factories and tax base because of NAFTA, your reaction to a poll question on free trade will be so visceral it doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or Democrat. You would forget the cultural wedge issues (guns, abortion, gay marriage) that might obscure the economic realities that bind so many workers because all you would remember, at the moment you answered the poll question, are the bills that can't be paid or the personal stories of people you know, perhaps your own story, who have lost out to global competition, which pits workers against one another. In a study conducted by Forrester Research, researchers found that by 2015, 3.3 million services industry jobs, accounting for $136 billion in wages, would vanish from the U.S. and reappear in China, India and Russia; similarly, McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, estimated that, in the next five years, off-shoring could grow as much as 40% a year.
During the Democratic nomination race in November 2003, before a single vote was cast, I wrote, "if the Democrats nominate someone who does not specifically reject so-called free trade, George Bush will be re-elected." The reason was simple: so-called "free trade" has been a failure, a fact that is becoming apparent even to some previous supporters. It had nothing to do with trade to raise living standards for people. It was mostly a complicated set of neo-liberal rules set up to protect corporate and investment interests. And it seemed clear to me that if the Democratic party nominee did not distinguish himself from the president on this issue, able Republican operatives, usually more adroit at controlling the mud-slinging, would have a field day turning the election to their advantage.
But, on this issue, Kerry wrestles with himself. He did vote for NAFTA and was, for many years, counted in the pro so-called "free trade" camp. Yet, he clearly turned his political fortunes around in the Democratic primaries, particularly in Iowa, when he embraced an economic populist tone, typified by his attacks on the corporate "Benedict Arnolds" who, he said, were abandoning communities for low-wage slave labor and tax shelters abroad-partly aided by so-called "free trade."
And, then, once he was close to securing the nomination, one has to assume his high-priced polling and message experts said, "okay, cut out that Benedict Arnold stuff, we need to grab the center." Somehow, the geniuses running the campaign (none of whom probably have ever lost a job to so-called "free trade") have not figured out that the "center" is exactly where the people sit who have been hurt by the corporate Benedict Arnolds and so-called "free trade."
Now, Bill Clinton's operatives are rushing to the rescue. But it isn't just the machinery of the campaign that needs fixing. It's the underlying message and program. There is plenty of time to win the election, but Kerry must raise the trade issue. Kerry must not only say he's against bad trade laws (which Clinton supported) and for side agreements in trade legislation to protect workers. He must say he is against the neo-liberal "free trade" agenda and he must go back on the attack, pointing fingers at the forces of corporate globalization, which have increased inequality and misery here and abroad. Ultimately, he must articulate a new direction that casts the improvement of workers' lives not as an afterthought in a side agreement but as the central reason for international economic relationships.
