AUSTIN, Texas -- Best lead paragraph of the New Hampshire primary: "I
expect to live long enough to hear a woman running for president asked what
she would do if she found herself pregnant" -- Ellen Goodman.
This is the year that the abortion issue was supposed to disappear from the
political radar screen.
"Divisive issue," "find common ground," "an issue on which reasonable
people can disagree." George W. Bush, leading contender for the Republican
nomination, has made a specialty out of not saying much on the issue -- or,
more specifically, not reminding the general audience that he wants a
constitutional amendment outlawing abortion.
But since the rhetorical firepower on the Republican side is strongly
pro-life -- Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer double-teaming the wishy-washy
pro-lifers, and Steve Forbes swooping down in Iowa to take advantage of the
zealous pro-life voters there -- it's b-a-a-ack.
Still, there has been rather more significant political news lately than
what television pundits invariably describe as "New Hampshire's
first-in-the-nation primary."
For one thing, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision helpful to
campaign finance reformers by upholding a limit on campaign contributions in
Missouri. The majority opinion, written by Justice David Souter, said,
"There is little reason to doubt that sometimes large contributions will
work actual corruption on our political system and no reason to question the
existence of a corresponding suspicion among the voters."
Justice John Paul Stevens argued, in contradiction to the court's barmy
1988 decision in Buckley vs. Valeo, "Money is property: It is not free
speech." At last, a justice with enough sense not to squat on his spurs.
The anti-reform Republicans keep saying to one another, "I'm sure YOU
couldn't be bought for $1,000." I'm sure they couldn't, but that's not the
kind of money we're talking about.
The financial industry spent $100 million last year in its successful
effort to get Congress to knock down the ban that goes back to the
Depression barring banks, securities and insurance firms from merging.
In order to defeat the Patients Bill of Rights last year, a coalition of
health, insurance and business groups spent $30 million in the first six
months.
For that kind of money, you can buy a whole Congress. Just who do you think
is giving all the soft money and why? Last year, the R's House campaign arm
alone raised a record $17 million in soft money, while the D's raised $16
million. Beloveds, those are not $1,000 contributions.
Another longer-term look at politics was provided by President Clinton's
last State of the Union address -- a vivid reminder of just who has set the
political agenda for this country, and is still doing it. He called for
major new initiatives on education, health care, poverty and practically
every other ill known to the nation. And a tax cut, of course.
When Clinton came to Washington, there were two untouchable lobbies there:
tobacco and guns. No one would take them on -- it was "third-rail politics."
That neither is now untouchable is not a result of societal change; it is
the result of political leadership. Clinton knew going in that he was going
to tackle both. Republicans have been claiming for years, with some
justification, that Clinton "steals their issues."
Clinton has the surest sense of the political polar north -- that is, dead
center -- that I've ever come across. And that means that the most
interesting political development of the month, if not the decade, is
Clinton's astonishing shift on trade.
At the annual summit of the real movers and shakers (I've always wondered
why the conspiracy theorists haven't caught onto this one) at Davos,
Switzerland, Clinton tacked almost against his policies of the past seven
years, or at least in amelioration of them.
To an audience of national leaders and the world's corporate elite,
Clinton, the devout free trader, said, "I think those who heard a wake-up
call on the streets of Seattle got the right message." He went on to urge
more open decision-making on trade issues, to make globalization work for
the poor, to include trade unions (John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO was at
Davos -- a first) and to include NGOs. That's government-speak for
"nongovernmental organizations" -- the human-rights groups, the humanitarian
groups like Doctors Without Borders, environmental groups, etc.
Clinton's argument was that if the economic elite -- which has created,
managed and benefited from globalization -- does not listen to the concerns
of those left out, protectionism will return.
"Don't leave the little guys out," he warned. Since the gap between rich
countries and poor countries keeps growing -- and in fact the World Bank
just completed a study reporting that global poverty is increasing -- the
simplest first step is to simply forgive Third World debt. Much of that is
still a holdover from loans for what turned out to be totally inappropriate
technology that often screwed up the environment as well, leaving the Third
World less than grateful.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out
more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers
and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com
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