Sarah Palin’s departure from the forefront of American politics is just part and parcel of the continuing kaleidoscope of chaos on the right. In my opinion, her selection as a Vice Presidential candidate was nothing more than a political stunt aimed at capturing the disappointed female supporters of Hilary Clinton. As the current article in Vanity Fair reveals, prominent McCain staffers say that her being picked as a running mate was the single biggest mistake that McCain made in his bid for the presidency. Her selection may have actually led her to think that she had the heft and substance to be a major player on the national scene, but her comments and analytical viewpoints show that she was clearly out of her league and well off of the mark in possessing what it takes to be Vice President of the United States, or Chief Executive. During the 2008 race, Fred Thompson lauded Palin for her prowess as a hunter, saying that: “She could field dress a moose”. That would be a great leadership credential if we were living in the Stone Age, but it is nothing more than an interesting personal anecdote in the twenty first century.

Sarah Palin may well rile up the base of the Republican Party.  That could be a liability as the base can actually derail the G.O.P. in upcoming elections. Republican strategist Mike Murphy recently said: “If the Sarah Palin we perceive today wins the nomination in 2012, the G.O.P. will lose. Most Americans don’t think Palin is ready to be President. The base loving you is not enough to get you elected.” Conservative columnist Michael Gerson, speaking on the News Hour said of Palin: “ She was not ready in 2008” and that,” She really alienated women and the college educated on both coasts and that is not how you rebuild the Republican Party.” The cold, hard reality is that the Republican Party cannot hope to win without the support of independent voters, whom Palin clearly alienates and whose ranks are now at a seventy-year high as a proportion of the electorate. Based on her chronic foot-in-mouth problems, it is not all that far fetched to say that Palin would be more likely to gain votes among independents by posing naked in Playboy than by taking the stage to promulgate her political views.

The real question is if Governor Palin has not just committed political suicide by leaving the political stage at a time when most political observers have suggested that her political future hinged on saying less and studying more so as to get up to speed with regard to the issues and substance that the top job in this country requires. After eight years of George Bush that” aw shucks” approach just doesn’t cut it anymore, unless your only goal is to appeal to the base of the Republican Party. 

Steven J. Gulitti
July 3, 2009
New York City 

As I sit here on May 25, 2009 and reflect on the meaning of this day, just as I do quietly and privately on every Memorial Day, I remember the service and sacrifice of those who went before me, including my own family’s not insignificant contributions in both World Wars and in Korea. Compared to them, my own twenty years of service as a reservist seems insignificant if not trivial. Nonetheless on a day like today, I can’t but help being galled by the recent “road show” undertaken by the former Vice President Dick Cheney with its theatrical, if not alarmist claim, that the current administration has undermined the security of the United States. Mr. Cheney has suggested that Barack Obama would set the country on a course where other Americans will once again find themselves in harms way. I find this political grandstanding nothing less than preposterous, when one stops to consider that it is coming from a man, who when it was his time to serve his country in Vietnam, opted out as he had, in his own words, “other priorities”. In his pursuit of “other priorities”, Dick Cheney would benefit from multiple deferments from military service while other Americans were fighting and dying in Southeast Asia. Cheney’s assertion that Obama has embarked on a “reckless” course of action in seeking to close Guantanamo should be seen as a rather curious statement when one considers that it was Cheney and his Neocon fellow travelers who advocated for a war with Iraq, on the most dubious grounds, thereby engineering the most reckless undertaking in American history.

I can give the Bush Administration a pass for operating beyond the pale of accepted rules of engagement in the period immediately after the September 11 attacks owing to the gravity of the situation and the unknowable state of national security which resulted from those attacks. I can also understand how American intelligence officers at that time, in an effort to forestall another attack, could chose to employ interrogation techniques that can only be categorized as torture. That said, as time passed and the threat environment was revealed to be far less dangerous than had been anticipated the justification for torture and detainment without due process became harder to justify. It is impossible to deny that the existence of the Guantanamo facility along with the abuses at Abu Ghraib would become key factors in the recruitment of new adherents to the radical Muslim jihad and thereby create new and more multifaceted threats to be addressed.

In an address to American troops in Europe during World War II, General George S. Patton would state:” You don’t win wars by dying for your country, you win wars by getting the other guy to die for his.” The corollary line of logic to Patton’s advice for our time is that you don’t win wars by creating new enemies. At this point in time it is a forgone conclusion that the existence of Guantanamo works against our national security interests, as it is the single best recruitment tool presently available to Al Qaeda, thereby contributing to the pool of available enemy combatants. For those who have taken the time to listen to the debate, there is bi-partisan agreement on this fact as evidenced by the recent comments of Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) along with the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, all of whom have agreed that Guantanamo needs to be closed. The crux of the argument revolves around how to relocate the detainees so as not to compromise our security.

With general agreement on the need to deal with the Guantanamo detainees in some other fashion, what then is the motive behind the Cheney “road show” other than the former Vice Presidents seeming need to redeem himself in the eyes of the American public? As has been speculated by the talking classes, Cheney is still smarting from the fact that he and his Neocon clique were marginalized and took a back seat to Condoleezza Rice and the State Department after the 2004 election. Why is it that Cheney just can’t accept that his version of national security may be inapplicable at this point in time or that it is perhaps, less than well founded given the current threat environment? After all, for all of the claims that Bush and Cheney prevented another attack on U.S. soil, the fact of the matter is that this country suffered it’s worst terrorist attack on their watch.  In reality Dick Cheney, with his advocating for War in Iraq and his championing of “enhanced interrogation” and unlimited detention may have done more to endanger the security of the country than Obama ever could by closing down Guantanamo. What will Mr. Cheney have to say if individuals who carry out the next terror attack on the United States admit to interrogators that their motive for joining the jihad was the invasion of Iraq, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, or the existence of Guantanamo?

Steven J. Gulitti

Memorial Day 2009

Now that the topic of Tax Day Tea Parties has faded from even the blogosphere, it is important to examine what these protests were and what they were not. I personally watched Fox News on and off all that day and while some gatherings seemed well attended, many weren’t. The Boston gathering was rather sparse and in Washington D.C. conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingrham said that there were only about a thousand people in attendance when she was present. Of the 364 official Tea Parties, only seven logged attendance of 10,000 or more with the largest reported figure being 16,000 for San Antonio. Depending on what data source you reference, nationwide attendance fell somewhere within a range of 400,000 to 623,000 with one site claiming around 700,000 in total attendance. Leading anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform posted a figure of 578,000. Nowhere did I see a figure breaching the million participant mark. Even a website that billed itself as the online headquarters for the movement would claim that turnout was below one million: “On April 15th, hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in more than 800 cities to voice their opposition to out of control spending at all levels of government.”    

In a time of profound political change, no one should be surprised that there would be dissatisfied elements within the body politic, which from time to time, would resort to political protest to articulate their point of view. But as many in the pundit class would point out, the Tea Party phenomenon was an “orphan movement” with some degree of grass roots origin, which took the G.O.P. and the Conservative Establishment by surprise. While the protests were multifaceted with regard to the grab bag of grievances put forth, what they were not were a spontaneous revolt against the Obama Administration. While some in the ranks of far right media would attempt to paint the Tea Parties as the opening shot in a “citizens movement to stop the drift towards socialism in America”, the majority of conservative columnists pointed out that the Tea Parties were aimed at both political parties. Stephen Moore of the Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, which also owns Fox News, said that the anger behind the Tea Parties originated with opposition to the bailout of the banking sector and would have been there even if the GOP were in the White House on April 15. The organizer of the Chicago Tea Party, John O’Hara, of the conservative Heartland Institute, said it was a coincidence that the Tea Parties came to the surface during the Obama Administration because the problems predate the inauguration of Barack Obama and that both parties are at fault. “Politicians on both sides of the aisle need to listen up”, O’Hara said. Likewise, the leader of the House Republican Conference, Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN), echoed similar sentiments.

Some students of history might jump to the conclusion, that the 2009 Tax Day Tea Parties are only the beginning of a “citizens revolt”, but I for one see this train of thought as just another fantasy on the part of the disaffected along with the crackpots who quietly dream of a military coup to remove the current administration; Texas succeeding from the Union; or even more darkly, reversing course politically by an attempt on the President’s life. While some political revolutions have been spearheaded by a small cadre of activists, such as the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, there was an underlying desire for change among the vast majority of people in Czarist Russia at that time. Even at the beginning of our own revolution only one third of the people supported the undertaking, while one third supported the British and the rest were undecided. America today in no way represents a country ready for revolution through any other means than the ballot box and those on the extremes of political life would do themselves a favor in coming to terms with that reality.

Historically, putting the Tea Parties in perspective is a relatively simple affair. Compared to the anti-war demonstrations of the 1960’s the overall Tax Day Tea Party turnout was miniscule for a nation that is supposed to be experiencing a swelling tide of anti-government sentiment. It is ironic, when you consider how the Right loves to belittle the environmentalists as “tree huggers”, that the turnout for the original Earth Day in 1970 was 20,000,000 or roughly ten percent of the American population at that time, whereas the total participation in the Tea Parties amounted to not even one percent of today’s population. If one uses the lower number of 400,000 as a benchmark of total Tea Party participation, the attendance at the first Earth Day was 50 times larger than that of all Tea Parties combined. If one uses the number of 700,000, which has not been widely substantiated, the number of those attending the first Earth Day is 28.5 times larger.  No matter which metric you use it is hard to claim that the Tea Parties are any type of mass grass roots movement. Beyond Tea Party attendance figures, the current polling shows that Barack Obama continues to enjoy favorable ratings in the 60s with the overall Democratic Party having favorable ratings as high as 56% in some polls. Meanwhile the G.O.P. has an unfavorable rating of as high as 68% in some of the latest polling. The number of Americans polled who says the country is on the right track is presently at 45% up from 12% in October of 2008. This represents the greatest turnaround in this sentiment indicator outside of a period when the nation has been engaged in all out war.

Based on the inherent flaws of polling as evidenced in the 2008 New Hampshire Primary, one would assume that the ultimate poll, elections, would be proof positive in ascertaining the true sentiments of the voting public. It is in the special election of March 2009 to replace Kristen Gillibrand in the New York 20^th Congressional District that we can most closely gauge to what extent the Tea Parties accurately measure the degree to which the public has, or is in the process of, rejecting the profound change of course that the nation has embarked upon. Politically New York State, outside of the downstate Metropolitan area and Erie County is generally Republican and the 20^th is an upstate district, largely rural, predominately white, with a 70,000-voter registration advantage for the G.O.P. The 20^th represents the only type of election district where the Republican Party actually made gains among voters in 2008. The race to replace Gillibrand, who took Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, was framed as the first showdown between the policies of Barack Obama and the Republican Party’s platform of small government, low taxes and opposition to increased federal spending. The national G.O.P. spent heavily on this race, with Michael Steele making two trips to the district along with support on the ground from several top ranking national Republicans. Jim Tedesco, The Republican contender, began the race with a 20% advantage before he came out against the Obama Stimulus Plan. The relatively unknown Democratic contender, Scott Murphy, campaigned in support of the Stimulus from the start. The race, which should have been swept by the Republicans, based on the demographics involved, went down to a recount, which was eventually decided in Murphy’s favor by 726 votes. That said, where then is the empirical evidence of the deep-seated dissatisfaction that the Tea Parties are supposed to represent? What changed between the special election at the end of March and the 15^th of April?  In reality, the Tea Parties collectively represent the proverbial “tempest in a teapot” and would not have received the media attention they did had they not become a political football to be bandied about in the never ending cable television war between the left leaning MSNBC and it’s archrival on the right, Fox News which heavily promoted the Tea Parties and even hosted some of the biggest.

Steven J. Gulitti

May 11, 2009

New York City

In 1281 medieval Japan was spared a Mongolian invasion thanks to a massive typhoon that swept across Kyushu Island, thereby destroying the invading fleet and drowning the Mongolian warriors. The storm was deemed a divine wind or kamikaze, sent by the gods to save the Japanese. In the waning days of the Second World War, Imperial Japan would invoke the legacy of the 1281 typhoon in an attempt to forestall defeat in the Pacific by crashing wave upon wave of kamikazes into allied invasion fleets as they made their way toward the Japanese home islands. Today an ideologically challenged G.O.P. is failing in its effort to forestall the current administration’s recovery plan.  Many commentators on the right have chosen to meet the new political reality with waves of virtual kamikaze attacks through all manner of media.  The recent New York Post comic portraying a monkey shot by two policemen and insinuating that the monkey is Barack Obama is the latest, and most tasteless, example of the Right’s desperation.

Lead by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Phyllis Schlafly and even the venerable Tony Blankley and Pat Buchanan, the public has been bombarded with dire warnings about “the end of America as we know it.” Readers of Town Hall have been treated to a RED ALERT, which warns: “Economic Collapse is Imminent”. Meanwhile, the conservative website Newsmax is soliciting money for the defeat of the three Republican Senators that supported the stimulus, portraying them as “traitors”. While I am all in favor of intelligent political arguments aimed at maintaining some semblance of fiscal sanity and reigning in wasteful government growth, we are at a time and place that requires a course change in our political economy and drastic remedial actions aimed at economic fundamentals. The reiteration of conservative theories for theory’s sake just doesn’t cut it now. Neither does a partisan reinterpretation of the New Deal do much to guide us out of the current economic abyss into which we have stumbled. Conservatives are wont to say that it was World War II that ended the Depression and not the New Deal; in doing so they fail to point out that spending for armaments as well as for public works are one in the same as both are public spending. Consumers don’t purchase bridges nor do they buy aircraft carriers only governments purchase those kinds of products.  Maniacal attacks and fear mongering about “collectivism”, “economic crapshoots” and “savior based economics” do absolutely nothing to get us out of our current predicament and appear only to be aimed at undermining the present administration for political ends. Conservative columnist Lorie Byrd’s recent piece entitled “Obama Voters’ Remorse” appeared on a day when polling averages showed Obama with a 65 percent approval rating, a Congressional Republican approval rating of 34 percent and Democrats on Capitol Hill garnering an approval rating of 48 percent. The day before, while conservative commentators railed against the stimulus package, 80 percent of those polled by Gallup said that passing the stimulus package was either important or very important. Linda Chavez in a piece entitled: “The Audacity of Hope” would claim: ”Indeed, investors have been noticeably bearish since the election.” trying to blame Obama for the current dissatisfaction between Main Street and Wall Street. While the Dow has lost 1327 points since Election Day, it lost 4317 points between May 2008 and November 11^th.  Can we really blame the current administration for our dissatisfaction with Wall Street or is Ms. Chavez just playing games with facts in an effort to undermine Barack Obama for political reasons?

There is a curious trichotomy on the right today. First and foremost, there is something disingenuous in the GOP’s newfound conservative fiscal ethos. For the first six years of the last administration the national debt doubled with George Bush amassing more debt than the previous forty two presidents combined and Dick Cheney claiming: “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.” The very Republicans who opposed the stimulus package were more than eager to spend public money during most of the Bush presidency. That said, in spite of their opposition to the Obama recovery plan, Republicans on Capitol Hill know that given the current situation, increased government involvement in the economy is inevitable. Let us not forget that it was House Republicans that insisted on a partial socialization of banking in the autumn of 2008.  Is the newfound Republican devotion to fiscal responsibility real or merely a political ploy affected to procure the support of the party faithful? Meanwhile, outside of the Beltway there is considerable support for the Obama recovery plan among Republican Governors. But like the suicide pilots of 1945, many conservative commentators seem unwilling to admit that political change is upon us and instead have chosen to incessantly--if not at times recklessly and dishonestly--attack Barack Obama at a time of deepening national crisis. While many of these attacks are cloaked in the garment of “true patriotism” this conservative media assault may very well have the net affect of further undermining the GOP’s appeal among moderate voters without which the party cannot hope to return to power. To quote political commentator Steve McMahon: ”The Republican leadership is stuck between Rush Limbaugh and the American people who want an end to partisan bickering.” In the past, when Republicans have suffered an election defeat when running a pragmatic candidate, they have chosen to turn to ideological purists in the next election cycle. That may be a formula for defeat in 2010, but the G.O.P. may be driven in that direction anyway thanks to a base that is riled up by a conservative media that seems more interested in undermining a popular president for imagined political advantage. Many conservative commentators are now beholden to a misguided belief that conservative dogmatic purity and ideological zealotry are ends in their own right. While the “true believers” may feel tremendous satisfaction in their ideological purity, just as kamikaze pilots did sixty-four years ago, their chances of driving a wedge between the greater body politic and the Obama Administration are less than a sure strategy for victory and may very well derail the Republican Party when voters head to the polls in 2010.

Steven J. Gulitti

New York City

February 22, 2009

Regrettably the Obama Administration has gotten off to a sloppy start both in letting House Democrats take the lead in crafting the stimulus plan and in the tax related problems surrounding several high level appointees. But make no mistake about it; these missteps are not fatal and will not magically vindicate the failed policies of the past. They will not by default somehow lead to the immediate resurrection conservative ideology and their shelf life in the news cycle will be relatively short. If all one did was to heed the political babble of the Hannitys, Limbaughs and Malkins of the world one would think that we had arrived at Jimmy Carter redux but that is emphatically not the case. The folly of such sentiment is apparent in a last minute plea by Dick Morris via The National Republican Trust PAC entitled: “Obama Close to Big Defeat, Help Make It Happen”. The alarm is sounded anew about the supposed threat of “socialism” and among other things, the dredging up once again of Jeremiah Wright as if he has anything to do with the current administration. If one were to only set his or her dial to the right side of the political spectrum one would believe that the election of Barack Obama was some sort of aberration, a visitation if you will, on the American body politic. One of the more interesting outcomes of the last election is the extent to which the conservative punditry has parted company with Congressional Republicans. Conservative commentary has been relentless in its incessant rant about the slippery slope of economic socialization and its penchant for dogmatic purity in a day and age when practical solutions trump ideological debate. In contrast, Republicans on Capitol Hill have embraced the notion of the stimulus plan even while arguing about particular elements contained therein.  

On the verge of a resolution of the stimulus package, conservative commentator David Brooks was quick to point out that Republican opposition to the bill was more in the realm of legislative particulars with ideological arguments largely absent from the discussion. To quote Brooks, “If the stimulus fails, Republicans don’t want their name on it.” Having insisted on a partial socialization of the financial sector during the Bush Administration’s bank bailout the GOP is ideologically hobbled in the midst of the present discussion as to whether or not the government should be involved in stepping in to help right a floundering economy. With the Republican Party losing ground across a large swath of the political landscape, obstructionism at this point in time will only serve to further hinder the GOP in the next election cycle. In spite of the apparent fact that Congressional Democrats have yet to get the message that the public is fed up with earmarks and spending for esoteric pet projects, Republicans on the Hill know that there is no political cover in obstructionism. As the bill winds its way through the Senate, moderate Republicans are showing support and that should be all that is needed to reach a workable compromise.  That said Republicans on Capitol Hill have admirably stood up to the notion of wasteful spending even if that portion of the bill characterized as such amounts to a relatively small sum of the total spending. Moreover, Republicans have been right on the mark in pointing out the lack of stimulus inherent in spending that is two to three years out in the bill. In the final analysis on November 4th the American people voted for a new direction in the American political economy and with that there comes an implicit increased involvement of government in economic activity. Barack Obama may be off to a rocky if not sloppy start, but a new course has most assuredly been charted and fundamentally, Congressional Republicans, if not the conservative talking class are on board for the ride.

Steven J. Gulitti

NYC

February 6, 2009

Historically there are two types of elections in this country, changes in speed or in direction. The election of Barack Obama is unquestionably of the latter and with it comes an inherent change toward a more progressive political climate. His inaugural address signaled the end of the era of Reagan as well as that of the Clintons as the driving force within the Democratic Party. But within this historical realignment there are daunting challenges facing both parties. A key challenge for the Democrats is to avoid falling back into the bad old habit of throwing money at social problems without adequate examination of those problems or insuring intelligent oversight so as to avoid fiscal waste. Likewise, there is the age-old temptation to create voter allegiance tied to steady streams of government largesse. Already the stimulus plan has more than a few questionable spending proposals that will do little to create economic activity but will certainly increase government spending. If these items have been included as bargaining chips that can be traded off for real simulative measures in the final legislation that is one thing, anything else is unacceptable. Democrats should not fool themselves into thinking that the failed Bush Administration will somehow, as if by magic, guarantee the party a free ride into the future. In crafting government programs designed to deal with the current economic downturn or which attempt to bring American social policy into the 21^st Century, progressives need to be mindful of the future entitlement-funding crisis that is looming just over the horizon.

 The ideologically exhausted Republicans face a far more complex set of challenges. While many will pay lip service to the values of small government, free markets and deregulation, there is the undeniable realization that large-scale government participation in the economy, in the near term, is a foregone conclusion both in public spending and financial regulation. Commenting on the proposed stimulus last week Senator Robert Bennett (R-UT) said: “Democrats should break out pieces of the huge stimulus that both parties agree will work and quickly approve them. You could take the $30 billion for roads and bridges that is truly shovel ready and pass that this afternoon. Lets pick those pieces out, pass them right away, and then say, O.K., this is a down payment on the $800 billion.” It’s more than apparent that any Republican, especially one from Utah, who is accepting $800 billion in a stimulus program, is not in opposition to the concept of government involvement in the economy. The real debate across the aisle revolves around cutting taxes vice spending but most economists come down on the side of spending, as tax cuts, while quick to enact, don’t necessarily create immediate economic activity. Consider the Bush tax rebate of last summer, 80 percent of it went to pay down debt or into savings thereby creating little in the way of a spending stimulus. Building public works creates demand for construction materials, puts people to work who in turn spend and the end product is a public good that lasts for generations. On the other hand, outside of tax credits for equipment or facilities, businesses will not necessarily expand output due to receiving a tax break unless they see a demand for their goods or services. In the final analysis, Republicans on Capitol Hill have reverted in form to the role they played in the era before Ronald Reagan, that of advocating a better way to mange government as opposed to being the purveyors of policies that guide the country to the right. In commenting on the House version of the stimulus, Eric Cantor (R-VA) said:” We must reconcile the nation’s need for quick action with the need for prudent policies designed to spur sustainable job creation here in America.” That there is not much in the way of rhetoric about “government being the problem” or relying on the private sector to pull us out of the slump just goes to show you how much the Republicans have had to accept the paradigm shift that has taken place in the American political economy.

Outside the Beltway, on conservative talk radio and in the blogosphere, there is a growing chorus of opposition that centers on the inability to accept the fact that the Reagan Revolution is over and that many of its precepts may no longer be applicable. From Michelle Malkin’s recent article admonishing the GOP to work to undo anything progressive that Obama advocates to Dick Morris suggesting that Republicans insist on “free market measures” as part of any stimulus to the serial draft dodger Rush Limbaugh’s unpatriotic prattle that he hopes Obama fails, there is an element of political dead enders who just can’t accept the fact that things are changing in America. The President addressed this very situation in his inaugural address: “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

It is not insignificant that Republicans picked an African-American as the new face of the GOP. Implicit in this development is the fact that the idea put forth by Karl Rove that there could be a permanent Republican majority is a pipe dream and that the GOP must broaden its base to remain relevant. Moreover, an analysis of voting patterns in the last election showed that even in most Red States there was an increased trend toward voters who choose Democrats. Republicans only gained voters in a swath of the country beginning in Oklahoma and stretching in an arc across Appalachia, that part of America that is the least ethnically diverse, least educated and the most economically depressed. While many on the right admire Rush Limbaugh it is important to note that his following is but 14 million in a nation of 330 million people, roughly 4 percent of the population. Collectively this extreme element on the right further complicates the fortunes of those Republicans on Capitol Hill who know that outright obstructionism coupled with a dogmatic regurgitation of conservative principles will be a formula for failure in the next election cycle, baring an unlikely rapid return to economic prosperity.  In the debate surrounding the stimulus, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) addressed criticism from the right aimed at upending bi-partisan efforts in the Senate: “Anyone who belittles cooperation resigns him or herself to a state of permanent legislative gridlock and that is simply no longer acceptable to the American people.” Thus the Republicans are faced the dual challenges of a pressing need to reassess their core ideology while at the same time containing the self destructive zealots within the extreme right wing of the GOP and the wider conservative movement.

Steven J. Gulitti

NYC

February 1, 2009

In the weeks leading up to the 2008 elections, while conservative radio and television talk show hosts were hoping beyond hope for some narrowing of the gap between McCain and Obama, more serious conservative thinkers were arguing that a return to the political “wilderness” could do the Republican Party a world of good in helping to chart a new path to future electoral success. In the months that have elapsed since the election of Barack Obama I have monitored all manner of editorials and opinion pieces on the right. For the most part the post mortems revolve around whether the Republican Party should move further to the right or whether it should embark on some degree of ideological reform so as to reach out to Hispanics, Blacks and the working class in an effort to broaden its’ political appeal. The majority of opinion favors a “return to the principles of Ronald Reagan”. There has been a wholesale rejection of the Bush Administration and the candidacy of John McCain as representing a self-defeating deviation from the core principles of the Reagan years. Absent from the discussion is the question of to what extent are the essential principles of the Republican Party still relevant and valid in this day and age.

First and foremost is the penchant in conservative ideology for limited government, but to what extent is limited government a viable option in a global world where many problems are national or international in scope. To what extent can the American people reasonably expect state and local government to effectively address issues of terrorism, economic dislocation or healthcare? Does anyone realistically expect that we can return to the age of Calvin Coolidge? Conservative historian Paul Johnson points out that the rise of big government in the West is the result of the institutionalization of modern warfare and does not stem from liberal politics. Conservative columnist David Brooks has pointed out that due to the nature of problems facing America in the 21st century; limited government is just not an option. Even the Neocon William Kristol stated in a recent column:” So talk of small government may be music to conservative ears, but it’s not to the public as a whole.”

To what extent does an overemphasis on free market principles hold any appeal in the midst of the current economic maelstrom? While I am all in favor of a functioning free market where it is proven to be effective, there are more than a few examples as to where it has been an abject failure. Healthcare is the point on the political landscape where conservatives have chosen to draw a line in the sand, the crossing of which will inevitably lead to a “slide into European Socialism”. That our present healthcare system is failing to provide adequate coverage is an established fact. Along with the “socialist threat” a chief conservative opposition to universal health coverage is that the American people don’t want a government official to stand between them and their doctors. What we have instead are insurance company and HMO bureaucrats standing between the people and their healthcare providers while the HMOs and the drug companies reap enormous profits while our ranking in world healthcare continues to decline relative to nationalized systems. We are the only advanced country without universal healthcare, which means that the cost of healthcare has to be priced into every American product and service. This further impedes our competitiveness in a global economy while at the same time it contributes to the image of America as a socially backward country.

The debacle in the housing and financial markets borne of deregulation started in the Clinton years and made all the more perilous during the Bush Administration has put the country on a course that could lead to a prolonged recession if not a depression. Alan Greenspan himself admitted that the very basis of deregulation was based on a “flaw” of having overestimated the free markets’ ability to self correct, stating in his own words that the: “whole intellectual edifice collapsed in the summer of last year.” Republicans continue to stress the virtues of the free market in spite of the fact that House Republicans insisted on what amounts to a partial socialization of the banking system as a quid-pro-quo in their support for the financial bailout.  In their touting of free market economic theories Republicans ignore the established fact that over the past 60 years the economy has performed better under Democratic Administrations as has been pointed out by Princeton political economist Larry Bartels in his new book “Unequal Democracy”. Government statistics have further shown that even the among the rich, the amount of economic remuneration received when Democrats are in office is only marginally less than that received during Republican administrations thereby undermining the conservative claim that taxing the wealthiest hurts the economy. From the trickle down policies of Nixon to supply side economics of Ronald Reagan to the trickle down of George W. Bush, Republican tax policies have led to a shift of the tax burden from wealth to labor creating the largest disparities in income between classes since the 1920s.

In the controversy surrounding the auto industry bailout one conservative after another has called into question the use of taxpayer funds to bailout Detroit while touting the “success” of foreign automakers in the South as an example of the benefits of a properly functioning free market. Absent from the discussion is the fact that billions of taxpayer dollars were spent in the Sunbelt to lure Japanese and German carmakers to the region as well as the fact that those companies are aided in the process of capital formation in their home economies by not having to pay for healthcare in a nationalized system. James Womack of the Lean Enterprise Institute has gone so far as to say that if it were not for the legacy healthcare costs Detroit would be price competitive with foreign carmakers. I suspect that what was really behind the opposition of most conservatives to bailing out Detroit is a desire to cripple the United Auto Workers and further impede the union movement before the Employee Free Choice Act resurfaces in Congress this year. The prospect of 57 million American workers finally achieving union recognition is not on the agenda of the GOP in spite of its supposed desire to reach out to working Americans.

In opposing government intervention in times of economic crisis, Republicans are ignoring the traditional role of the Federal government in fostering economic development that goes back in an unbroken line to the early nineteenth century. Republicans continue to tout the virtues of unregulated free market economics at a time of grave danger regardless of the historical fact that the Great Depression has proved otherwise. I would say that it is highly significant that at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Economic Association there has been a wholesale rejection of Reagan era economic principles with virtually all of those present endorsing greater government involvement in the economy via the levers of public spending and, that spending should play a greater role than tax cuts in the upcoming stimulus package.  In calling for significant and sustained federal assistance in dealing with the current crisis, conservative economist Ben Stein has said: “The private sector is the patient, not the doctor.” 

The cherished conservative wedge issues of “Guns, Gays and God” proved to be non issues in the 2008 election due to both the economic crisis and their declining salience among the non evangelical population at large. The younger the electoral age bracket, the less opposition there is to the rights of gays to marry, even among those voters who identify themselves as Republican. While three states voted against allowing same sex marriage, three states defeated statewide initiatives to ban abortion. Likewise this holiday season saw the issue of the “War on Christmas” as having far less of a media impact than it has had in recent years. To paraphrase Congressional Quarterly’s Jonathan Allen: “The cultural wars are over”. The population as a whole has moved on from the three major conservative wedge issues thereby rendering them far less meaningful in the future.

Even in what had heretofore been the strong suit of the Republican Party, national security, there is evidence of an unraveling. The Republicans have bet the house that the tactical success of the troop surge in Iraq would somehow make up for the fact that we never had a coherent strategy for the war or that the war itself is an unnecessary detour in the wider war on Islamic terror. More than one National Intelligence Estimate revealed that Al Qaeda never made up more than 5 or 7 percent of the insurgents in country and that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was but a copycat organization that is indigenous to Iraq contradicting the mantra that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror. The last N.I.E. dealing with the subject stated that Al Qaeda had reconstituted itself in the Northwest of Pakistan with an August 2008 follow on report stating that the enemy was more secure and more potent than in September of 2001. In a recently published book, “The Inheritance”, David Sanger has pointed out that while we have been bogged down in Iraq, Iran and China have grown stronger; North Korea has gone from zero nuclear warheads to several; Russia is resurgent and the Pakistan / Afghanistan region has grown dangerously unstable. Domestically we have failed to commit funding to enhancing homeland security by ensuring the safety of chemical plants, ports, railways, water supplies and the power grid. We should all be mindful that the 9/11 terrorists turned available American resources into WMDs and that unprotected chlorine plants or railway tank cars carrying chemicals are as potentially dangerous as airplanes. While President Bush likes to point out that since 9/11 we have not had to endure another attack on American soil, the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has skyrocketed since the invasion of Iraq. If this country is subject to another attack it will not directly be the result of Democrats controlling Washington but may very well be the result of a fundamentally misguided Bush era national security and foreign policy legacy.

Controversy and conflict among conservative thinkers reveals just how much trouble the Republican Party could be in over the near term. The validity of its’ core ideals may point to even greater troubles over the long term. From Fred Barnes to William Kristol to Michelle Bernard there have been calls for a new direction and an adjustment of conservative principles while ultraconservative Grover Norquist has said that calls for reform: “Will be cheerfully ignored.” Ms. Bernard has gone so far as to say that the Republican Party has shrunk to a regional party centered in the South and that it lost the 2008 election: “Because its message was disconnected from the majority of Americans.” But is it the message or the principals upon which the message is based that has given rise to this electoral disconnect? Fred Barnes, of the conservative “Weekly Standard”, has said that conservative principles must be adjusted so as to ensure election victories in the future but how far can you travel from your core beliefs before those beliefs become meaningless? The unprecedented government intrusion into the financial system last fall, with Republicans insisting on a partial government equity stake in banking, shows just how far the party’s’ policies have strayed from the twin ideological tenants of free market economics and limited government. This policy departure has in effect eroded the validity of these two very basic conservative concepts. With the exception of arguing what the role of tax policy should be in the stimulus package, the likely Republican acquiescence to Barack Obama’s recovery program will mark a significant shift from the ideas of Ronal Reagan. You certainly don’t hear too much talk lately about “government as being the problem”, especially among Republicans. Quoting conservative Rich Lowry: “The twenty-five year run of free markets, free trade and deregulation are over. We are already into a paradigm shift.”

Many conservatives that I know are hoping that Barack Obama will be a one term President and that as if by magic, the Republican Party will find electoral salvation in: “a return to the principles of Ronald Reagan.” It goes without saying that a channeling of the memories of Reagan into the present political environment would be about as effective as Sarah Palin’s constant rant about Obama being a “socialist” in upending the Democrats. The double whammy of the Wall Street meltdown and the multibillion-dollar misadventure in Iraq will be to the Republicans of this century what the inability to foresee and respond to the Great Depression was to the GOP in the last. While the Republicans can certainly win elections in environments where voters seek to punish the Democrats as opposed to embracing Republican ideas, the GOP could very well find itself relegated to running on the platform that it can better manage government than in winning elections by offering positions that represent an ideological change of course. This was the lot of the Republicans in the postwar period up until the election of Ronald Reagan. For the GOP the journey to the wilderness could be a long one, quite possibly as long as a generation.

Steven J. Gulitti

N.Y.C.

12 January 2009

In his November 2003 speech at the 20^th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, George W. Bush stated: “The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country”.  It was a phrase that he has alluded to throughout his presidency. In his almost messianic fixation with the idea of freedom, George Bush has gone so far as to say that freedom is a “gift from God to every man, woman and child.” Yet for all his rhetoric, President Bush has been curiously silent on and absent from the cause of expanding freedom in the American workplace when it involves the protection of the right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining, a statutory right guaranteed in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

The decline in unionization among private sector workers from a peak of 38% in the mid-1950s is usually considered to be the outcome of several economic and demographic factors which include the decline of manufacturing, rising education among the workforce, the increased number of women workers, union complacency, population shifts and the political reorientation of wage earners borne of the “ownership society”. While the decline of mass manufacturing is certainly a contributing factor as is the anti-union environment existing in Sunbelt “Right to Work” states, there is a much more compelling and substantiated explanation revealed when one goes beyond the accepted rationale of current economic thinking and Chamber of Commerce rhetoric.

 In a compelling essay entitled: “The State of the Unions” (NYT 12/07), Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman details the aggressive anti-union campaign launched by business in the mid-1970s to undermine New Deal labor legislation. A far more detailed analysis by Professor Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon, “Neither Free Nor Fair” (7/07) details the particulars of anti-union tactics as they pertain to the denial of workers’ free speech, subjecting union advocates to economic coercion and intimidation, defamation of union sympathizers, the subverting of the electoral process via delaying tactics and the failure to bargain in good faith in the event that union recognition is achieved. In one half of all the successful election outcomes a collective bargaining agreement was not obtained. Quoting Lafer: “Weak labor laws allow anti-union employers to manipulate the outcome of union elections in a manner that is inherently unfair and undemocratic… Union busting activity in the weeks leading up to a union election resembles practices that our government routinely denounces when performed by rouge regimes abroad.” The lack of effective labor law enforcement on the part of the National Labor Relations Board is another major factor that is often overlooked. A 2005 study by the University of Illinois, Center for Urban Economic Development revealed that 30 percent of employers fire pro-union workers; 49 percent threaten to cease business operations; 82 percent hire union busting consultants and 91 percent subject employees to one-on-one meetings with a supervisors promoting anti-union viewpoints. A 2007 report from The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) came to similar conclusions. The CEPR concluded: “With legal penalties for such actions being so slight, employers can break the law to head off organizing efforts and face almost no real repercussions.” Research by pollster Peter Hart (2006) revealed that 57 million workers expressed a desire to join a union, up from the 42 million as reported in 2002 in The Nation.  57 million workers out of a labor force of slightly over 153 million are by my calculation approximately 37 percent. That number added to the 12 percent that are presently unionized would give you a workforce 49 percent union, a number greater than the percentages of the 1950s and a figure that would refute most of the theories regularly cited as the explanation for the fall off of unionization. It is noteworthy that in the public sector, where anti-union tactics are nearly nonexistent, unionization is near 38 percent and close to 50 percent among culturally conservative police and firefighters. In Western Europe the level of unionization of the private sector workforce is generally at or above 80 percent and this in societies that are subject to much of the same economic and demographics forces that exist in our own. 

 Labor and its progressive political allies have attempted to redress this inequitable situation through the proposed Employee Free Choice Act that would allow for union recognition based on a majority of employees signing an authorization card and foregoing an election. Current law allows for the foregoing of an election if both the employer and the majority of the workforce so agree. In reality, unions are not asking for anything dramatically different from established law with the exception of foregoing an election outright. This is in effect an emergency measure that is required due to the systematic subversion of national labor laws that have been on the books since 1935. Conservatives see in the card check an abrogation of the basic democratic principle of the secret ballot but they don’t want to acknowledge the very real and vicious campaign to deprive workers of their democratic rights that has been underway since the 1970s and which is a major contributing factor in the decline of unionization in the private sector. While peer pressure in the card check process is real, the need to redress the very serious shortcomings which now beset union efforts to represent workers make it the lesser of two evils. In an environment where workers have no reasonable expectation of having their rights protected there is no other choice. To quote Lafer: “NLRB elections fail to safeguard workers’ right to keep their opinions private; and that, on the contrary, the NLRB system results in workers being forced to revel their political preferences long before they step into the voting booth- thus turning the secret ballot into a mockery of democratic process.”

As the Bush Administration draws to a close amid the persistent political prattle about the sanctity of freedom and our obligation to further it in every corner of the world except our own, why is it we tolerate the subversion of the legally sanctioned right to organize and bargain collectively here at home? The Bush Administration and many Republicans on Capitol Hill made no secret of their opposition to the EFCA. This to me constitutes a glaring flaw within our political society and intellectually degrades our claims to be champions of liberty. If we can’t protect the freedom of our own workers how can we claim any legitimacy in promoting it around the world?  How is it we tout the prospect of “Joe the Plumber” owning his contracting company while at the same time we would deprive him of his right to join a union and benefit from collective action? We are presently involved in a military adventure in Iraq, the purpose of which, depending on prevailing political winds, has been defined as a “crusade” for freedom while here at home we allow workers to be “stiffed” out of the gift from the Almighty himself. The economic enfranchisement of 57 million American workers would enhance the freedom of more than twice the population of Iraq. Regrettably, freedom in this world is not on the march but in retreat, and ironically it has a head start in the American workplace. The image of George Bush as a champion of freedom is not laudable but laughable when viewed through the prism of the struggle for worker freedom through unionization on the home front. It is a sham and hypocrisy writ large. With John McCain’s’ stated opposition to the EFCA and unions generally, there is nothing to hope for from a McCain presidency. Working Americans should not let their admiration for McCain’ war record or record of public service cloud their thinking as to just where their own economic best interests lie. The rationale that once justified the idea of workers as Reagan Democrats or that the Republicans would act in the best interests of the workingman has effectively ceased to exist.

Steven J. Gulitti

New York City

November 1, 2008

Nowhere in our public discourse do the dual theories of free market economics and the virtues of limited government get more attention then on the campaign trail. The fusion of political rhetoric with the theoretical justifications for economic and political positions has become a hallmark of the campaign process to the point that the tenants of theory serve as litmus tests in the validation or rejection of a given particular position. While the various libertarian and conservative think tank gurus would have us believe that government involvement in the economy is the problem and that its size inherently curtails our freedom the current financial debacle might give one pause in subscribing entirely to such notions. Advocates of unrestrained free markets and limited government would have you believe that before the New Deal the country once upon a time existed in some Arcadian free market paradise with little government involvement outside of defense, settling the frontier and the collection of external revenue. Since the election of Ronald Reagan the most extreme proponents of these theories have called for a dismantling of the institutions of the New Deal, especially by “starving the beast” via a reduction in taxes. Devotees of these dual theories would have us believe that most everything of benefit that comes out of economic activity emanates largely from the efforts of individual entrepreneurs and private enterprise and that government can play little in the way of a constructive role in fostering economic prosperity. The constant citation of the virtues of unlimited free enterprise and limited government are elements in the background music of the Republican Party during this election cycle, more so than in the last. As it is, the rationale for much of the argument supporting limited market regulation and minimal government involvement in the economy fall rather flat when viewed against an honest appraisal of American history.

Since as early as 1816 when James Madison called for a “comprehensive system of roads and canals” paid for with public funds and a protective tariff to shield American industry from the competitive forces of the British economy, the federal government has been involved in proactive measures aimed at economic development. The naval suppression of piracy and the initiation of maritime aids to navigation were directly tied to fostering marine commerce. The 1824 Supreme Court decision in Gibbons v. Ogden laid out the legal framework for federal oversight of interstate commerce and thereby the regulation of the national economy that has carried forth to this day. The promotion of agriculture by way of the Homestead and Morrill Acts of 1862 gave away public land to farmers and subsidized agricultural education. Federal contracts to supply the Union Army and Navy during the Civil War were risk free with profits guaranteed, one of the critical factors in the creation of the capital pool that would fuel rapid industrialization after the war. Nowhere is the influence of the federal government in fostering economic development more evident than in the assistance given to the railroad and steel industries in the post Civil War period. Referencing “A Concise History Of The American Republic” authors Samuel Elliot Morison et al detail the very real hand of government in the economy at this time: “Internal improvements at national expense found expression in subsidies to telegraph and cable lines and in generous grants of millions of acres out of the public domain to railroad promoters.” Free land to railroad promoters in turn fostered real estate development and the railroad companies received further assistance in the form of protection from the Indians as provided by the U.S. Army.  Likewise steel tariffs allowed what was at the time a most critical industry to flourish as a beneficiary of government economic intervention. Again with reference to the aforementioned source: “An important element in the growth of the iron and steel industry was the tariff, which enabled American manufacturers to compete successfully with their English and German competitors and to pile up fabulous profits.” In fact, much of the history of economic policy in the second half of nineteenth century America revolves around the issue of tariffs and the creation of vested interests that benefited there from. The closing days of the 19^th century would see the creation of The Inland Waterways Commission by Teddy Roosevelt as a vehicle to promote the further development in the West of water power and transportation. The twentieth century would see continued government involvement in promoting economic growth via such developments as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the creation of NASA and the development of the Internet within the Department of Defense. To quote G. Pascal Zachary of Stanford University with regard to the importance of government policy initiatives instituted in response to Soviet advancements in space and their affect on the economy: “The post-Sputnik sense of urgency powered American innovation for decades, igniting the growth of the country’s infant semiconductor and computer industries and laying the foundational technologies for the Internet.”

In his analysis of the 20^th Century, “Modern Times”, conservative historian Paul Johnson stated that the rise of big government among the advanced nations was the result of the “industrialization of warfare” and its institutionalization on the part of those states then fighting in World War I and not as a function of progressive liberal politics.  The collapse of the world economy a decade later would thereby provide an opening to those political progressives who would come to see national government as the primary vehicle for addressing and ameliorating the crisis borne of the Great Depression. While the Depression ultimately came to an end as a result of World War II, the proactive and progressive measures instituted during the New Deal would act to keep the economy on a much more stable and less volatile path for most of the post war period. The present economic crisis, the origins of which can in large part be traced to the policies of financial deregulation derived from a misplaced belief in less government together with the idea that easy credit and convoluted financial products would somehow create an “ownership society”, have brought us to the edge of an economic abyss the dimensions of which are presently unknowable. The notion that reducing government oversight thereby freeing up the financial markets, together with the creation of an economic environment where one could acquire all manner of material goods from homes to i-pods without any consideration of ones’ ability to pay, with an increasing proportion of financial activity being composed of products that few can understand or place a value upon and that somehow such an environment would improve and advance the well being of every American is to me the triumph of faith and folly over reason. Moreover, the blame for this state of affairs cannot solely be laid upon the Republicans and conservatives as the initial impetus for the promotion of easy credit as it relates to home ownership originated in the Clinton Administration.

The current federal bailout of the financial sector is unprecedented more for the ideological shift represented in the mechanics of the intervention than as a departure from prior efforts to insure the stability of the system based solely on the amount of funding involved. From the Penn Central bailout in 1970 through the Savings and Loan Crisis to the bailout of the airlines in 2001 the Federal Government committed a total of 347.5 billion dollars in loan guarantees to American companies. What makes the current rescue plan different is the defacto socialization of heretofore-private financial entities via capital injections through the purchase, by the government, of preferred stock thereby creating a claim on assets which is in reality an equity interest. Moreover, by assuming the role of lender of last resort, the government has affectively reduced the role of the free market as it relates to the financial sector through the elimination of the market risk of not being able to raise the level of capital required to remain in business. It is ironic that in the political debate surrounding the latest financial crisis, it was the Republicans in Congress that insisted that the rescue package should not be in the form of unsecured loans but that there should be some way for the taxpayer to have a vested stake in and quite possibly profit from the bailout. The Republicans effectively insisted on a socialization of the financial sector although for ideological reasons they could not come to use the term.

We are now in an era where the most vexing problems we face are national and international in scope. Be it international terror, the current economic crisis, the need to refurbish our domestic infrastructure, the emerging military competition with China, an aggressive resurgent Russian or the failure of the free market to provide adequate health care, the challenges we face going forward cannot realistically be handled by small government or an economic marketplace characterized by uncontrolled or unmitigated risk. The argument that government plays little or no constructive role in our economic welfare is simply so much ideological prattle and a historical fallacy. The challenge is to increase the efficiency of government and eliminate those areas of federal spending that are truly wasteful. The idea that we can somehow return to the era of Calvin Coolidge and minimal government is simply unrealistic and a political fantasy given the course of our historical development and the challenges we now face. The very underpinnings of mainstream economic thought as championed by the late Milton Friedman, a hero of the conservative movement, are now being called into question within the community of academic economists. Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank has made this very point in an article appearing in Foreign Affairs (Dec 2005) titled “The Ethical Economist”. To quote Stiglitz: “American economists tend to have a strong aversion to advocating government intervention. Their basic presumption is often that markets generally work by themselves and that there are just a few limited instances in which government action is needed to correct market failures; government economic policy, the thinking goes, should include only minimal intervention to ensure economic efficiency. The intellectual foundations for this presumption are weak. In a market economy with imperfect and asymmetric information and incomplete markets-which is to say, every market economy-the reason that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is invisible is that it does not exist. Economies are not efficient on their own. This recognition inevitably leads to the conclusion that there is a potentially significant role for government.”  

I am not so naïve as to proclaim that we are at “the end of history” with regard to the applicability of conservative economic and political theories. Nor do I think that the pendulum of American politics will, as if by magic, shift leftward and remain stuck there for all time. What I would say is that current historical developments have called into question some of the bedrock philosophical tenants of the conservative movement and of the Republican Party and that this crisis of ideology will give rise to serious debate within the party in the very near future. This philosophical dilemma combined with a generally low generic approval rating for Republicans may adversely impact their appeal for several election cycles.

 The campaign practice of conceptually parading around the twin tenants of small government and unrestrained free markets has in our day come to resemble the medieval practice of parading around religious reliquaries, which were believed to contain the bones of a saint or a piece of the crucifix, in front of the populace during holidays so as to reinforce their belief in the mystique of the socio-political system existing at that time. At the conclusion of ceremonies, the reliquaries were returned to the church and it was back to business as usual. Likewise politicians will wax eloquently about the virtues of the market and the relative size of government but after Election Day we will return to a world where the size of government will never again be small and one in which it will continue to be critically involved in economic matters just as it has been since the earliest days of the Republic.

Steven J. Gulitti

N.Y.C.

October 28, 2008

As an old saying goes: “people use statistics like drunks use lampposts, to lean upon” and there is no shortage of people leaning against the latest poll numbers in attempting to make the case, either for or against, the candidate of their choice. With the Real Clear Politics aggregate of poll numbers showing a 5.9 percent advantage for Barak Obama and a 7.7 percent Democratic lead in the generic congressional contest, many liberal commentators are voicing cautious optimism about a major Democratic victory next week. Likewise, supporters of John McCain see a ray of hope within the tightening of poll results between the two candidates, seeing in this development yet another come from behind victory for a man who can only be characterized as a true American hero.

 To quote onetime Clinton operative turned Fox News commentator Dick Morris: “John McCain’s gains over the last five days are remaking the political landscape as Election Day approaches. The double-digit leads Barak Obama held last week have evaporated as all three tracking polls … show McCain hot on Obama’s heels.” McCain supporters continue to focus on the idea that there may be some degree of elemental misgiving on the part of uncommitted voters regarding Obama’s experience. McCain associate Mark McKinnon has predicted that the campaign’s efforts at drumming up support among uncommitted independents in the closing days of the race will make for a major surprise among the professional pundits who have thus far been accused of “being in the tank” for Obama. Moreover, there is the specter of what is known as the “Bradley effect” where white voters show support for an African-American candidate when polled but then fail to vote as such on Election Day.

On the opposite side of the debate, supporters of political change are placing a large bet on poll numbers that have shown clear and consistent majorities of Americans favoring change regarding financial and economic policy, Iraq, energy policy, infrastructure spending, equity in taxation as well as the desire to get the country back on “the right track”, all of which contribute to the assumption that there is no way that Obama and the Democrats can lose. Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball on the last Thursday in October, Democratic Pollster Peter Hart pointed out that in the closing days of the campaign John McCain has had to spend time and money defending those Red States once thought to be safely within the Republican orbit. Not since the defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn has Montana loomed so large on the national landscape. In a state where George W. Bush beat John Kerry by twenty points, John McCain leads by a scant two percentage points just five days before the election. Likewise Obama is giving McCain a run for his money in states like Florida, North Carolina, New Mexico, Indiana and Colorado. But in assessing Barak Obama’s lead so late in the race, political commentator Chris Matthews raises the question:” Is it real or illusionary”.

In all the analysis of poll results we seem to have forgotten the lessons learned in the New Hampshire Primary, which predicted an Obama victory over Hillary Clinton. How accurately do poll results actually reveal what the entire electorate thinks? First and foremost, low-income voters more often than not will be reluctant to participate in polling for fear of being viewed as either uninformed or inarticulate. To what extent are they actually aggrieved by Obama’s comments regarding guns and the bible or to what extent are they likely to put gut patriotism ahead of economics? Polls tend to canvass those who have previously voted. What proportion of the nine million newly registered voters will actually vote? It is assumed that they will vote Democrat but the actual level of their participation is unknowable. Finally, pollsters rely on landline telephone numbers in their canvassing in a society where an increasing proportion of voters only have cell phones and are thus not sampled. In a sense the entire polling process in this election is somewhat like a ship steaming among a string of uncharted islands with the radar on but the sonar turned off. It’s picking up the surface contacts but missing the subsurface picture thus making the total picture somewhat of a mystery that will only be solved after the last votes are counted.

Steven J. Gulitti

New York City

October 30, 2008