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CounterPunch
November
20, 2002
Have You Been Centerized?
by DAVID VEST
So the great Battle for the Center, with everyone
rushing to seem as much like everyone else as humanly possible,
has come down to this: By handing them control of the U. S. Senate,
voters have given the Republicans a green light to loot the country,
with nothing but the occasional filibuster to stand in their
way.
Predictably, the Democrats, gearing up
to fight the last war and eager to do anything but be perceived
as standing in anyone's way, are already blaming Ralph Nader.
The logic goes something like this: if
Nader runs in 2004, it will be his fault the Democrats lost the
Senate in 2002. It makes about as much sense as blaming Nader
for Gore's botched candidacy in 2000, when polls showed that
voters respected Nader and loathed Gore. The fact that just about
everything Nader said in his campaign has been shown to be true,
starting with Enron, just rubs salt in the wound.
At least in 2000 voters got to choose
among Gore, Bush and Nader. In 2002, in most states, they didn't
really have a choice. It was the Republicans or the No One in
Particulars, the Nobodaddies, the Stood-for-Nothing Good-for-Nothings.
In Oregon, a Democrat who never so much
as mentioned the environment in his campaign eked out a win over
a Republican who almost managed to look and sound like everyone
else but couldn't quite get it right. Had the Republicans nominated
anyone but a real Republican, they'd have coasted to victory.
Elsewhere, the symbol of all things Republican
was Jeb Bush, who looked put-upon at having to campaign against
a guy so clueless you'd be disappointed to have him as your waiter,
much less your governor. The Democrats, meanwhile, could find
no more telling symbol than Walter Mondale, who seemed genuinely
surprised to learn he was still alive.
Dick Gephardt woke up to find his presidential
aspirations "comatoast," as a friend of mine would
say.
Nancy Pelosi, the new Dick Gephardt,
had no sooner pledged her undying support of Bush's war effort
in Iraq than she was attacked by other Democrats for being too
far to the Left, out of touch with the mainstream, etc. (With
Democrats like Tenn. Rep. Harold Ford, who needs Republicans?)
Now the Democrats are in disarray, convinced
that it would be suicidal to attack Bush and all clamoring to
see who can sound more supportive of him than the others. It
may soon be the core Republican base's time to start feeling
betrayed. It will be Clintonism in reverse. The right nominated
these people but the center elected them. Holding onto power
is likely to be far more attractive than delivering on promises,
especially in the social agenda.
Here is the real question for history:
who, in the long run, will prove more successful at "centerizing"
his party, Clinton or Bush? Clinton centerized his own party
and radicalized the opposition. However, he didn't energize it
to the extent that they were willing to nominate "one of
their own." Instead, they looked for someone "who can
win" and got Bush.
That appears to be the emerging new Democratic
strategy: not find someone who stands for something, but find
someone who "can win." But Bush is counting on co-opting
his opposition, as he did in Texas, rather than radicalizing
(and energizing) it.
The late George Wallace of Alabama used
to like to say that there isn't a dime's worth of difference
between the two major parties. In Alabama this year, .23 of one
per cent of the vote separated the two gubernatorial candidates.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He is a poet
and piano-player for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band,
The Cannonballs.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Today's Features
Thomas Haidon
The CIA's
Yemen Operation:
a Legal Critique
Lori Korte
a Report from the School of the Americas Protest
Kurt Nimmo
The Committee
for the Liberation of Iraq:
PR Spinning the Bush Doctrine
Carol Norris
Politically Modified Organisms
Ben Tripp
Take Two
Hits and Call Me in the Morning
William Hughes
The Curse of a Monopolized Press
New
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- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
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Memory;
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The Case of the Pompous
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- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
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November 14,
2002
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