Primary lessons Back to where we started SHORT TAKE
McWilliams, Wilson Carey
war situation has merely been restored. The hope that Sarajevo would provide the model for the rest of the Moslem- Croat Federation of Bosnia, not to speak of the Republika Srpska, has...
...Had the Republican race not been so competitive, Bradley's crossover vote might have been larger, but at bottom, Bradley's support was Democratic in a way that John McCain's was not Republican...
...Of course, the Texas governor wound up looking weak and vacuous, Dan Quayle with a smirk...
...There are plenty of worries about Bush's debts to the nominee, is damaged goods, an almost unanswerable reason Republican Right, but no one is worried that he is Ian Paisfor swallowing one's doubts and voting for Al Gore...
...his personal beliefs but his willingness to suppress or mold Partisan Democrats, of course, find considerable comfort those beliefs in the pursuit of short-term political advanin the outcome: George W. Bush, the inevitable Republican tage...
...Multicul- successes as come, and resisting the confor people with a common cultural her- tural immigration in the two most suc- tinuing effort of the Milosevic governitage to want to live in their own state...
...The more dangerous concern is that he is a kind of conGore, who looked like a sure loser at the beginning of the servative hippy, too adaptable to do more than go with the year, has turned into a better campaigner and the favorite to flow...
...the United States, has depended on the places...
...McCain-otherwise a very conservative fellow partisanUnfortunately, the influence of the Right may work to rather than risk any reduction of the party's perennial addiscourage mainstream Republicans from trying to reverse vantage in fundraising or to surrender the improbable (and the tendency toward open primaries...
...nent solution, successfully uniting warson's idealistic notion of national self- The international community's deci- ring communities, is another matter...
...the religious conservatives have demonstrated that while Bradley and Gore talked, more or less seriously, about helpthey cannot nominate a Republican candidate of their choos- ing Americans with low incomes, but that compassionate ing, given any kind of interparty contest, they can proba- liberalism falls short of a devotion to civic equality and combly decide the winner, whatever problems that causes later munity...
...his leadership is flawed, to be sure, but claration...
...Millions of Americans care that contemporary publican circles as a political albatross...
...in any case, serious attention to our radical and escalating inequality...
...The sparks in the Bradley-Gore contest were the result of egos more than issues, and compared to the Republican brawl, the Democratic race was as well-mannered as a cricket match...
...LI in modern times, mostly been the cre- ternative to pressing on to establish lib- © 2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate...
...In the short term, nity will, for the foreseeable future, reSuccessful multiethnic nations have, the international community has no al- main indispensable...
...But when the focus of the campaign shifted from what Bush had done to what he was for, Bush became imWilson Carey McWilliams possibly vague...
...We can at least hope that Al Gore anxieties, however, may cause Republican leaders not to was listening...
...This, I think, has only limited truth in describing events in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries...
...that party's decisions, especially since for the electorate, McCain's campaign reminded us that politics can be both membership involves no commitment beyond a verbal de- for real and for fun...
...If it can be accomplished peacefully, existence of powerful and culturally as- Whether this will provide a permafine...
...Perhaps they were just lucky...
...policy was established...
...servatism," aiming to capture the political center, and he The real winner in Bush's victories is the Christian Coalidid well so long as his alleged use of cocaine dominated the tion and, to some extent, the Religious Right generally...
...It ought to be clear broadly unpopular) promise of a massive tax cut, they were that there is something wrong with allowing people who virtually waving the banner of class, that dirty secret of our are not members of a party to play a possibly decisive role in politics...
...But Bradley's efforts in that direction were only marginally effective...
...cessful immigrant nations, France and ment to exploit ethnic division in both The problem is feasibility...
...This year's bi of a half-forgotten past...
...image by reinventing Bush the centrist will only confirm it, Bush began with a first-rate slogan, "compassionate con- at least for those who are watching...
...After metaphor, was The Empire Strikes Back: a victo- his appearance at Bob Jones University began to be chalry for money, bureaucracy, and technique with lenged, Bush protested that he is not anti-Catholic, a reS no surprises and not much good news for the sponse that misses the broader political point, which is not rebels...
...Last Commonweal 9 March 24, 2000 ing...
...ations of settlers and immigrants, at the eral, ethnically neutral political instituIt would seem a basic principle, or sim- expense of indigenous peoples (the Unit- tions in those societies, counting such ple realism, to say that it is legitimate ed States, Canada, Australia...
...On trade issues, for example, Gore and Bradley were peas in a pod, both defenders of globalization and inclined to meek accommodation with China...
...In that sense, he wasn't Luke Skygan that John McCain won was designed as a protection for walker so much as Princess Leia reminding Obi-Wan KenoGeorge Bush against a conservative insurgency...
...perhaps or half-baked, he was also the only candidate to devote any they recognized Bush's malleable vulnerability...
...His own incapacities aside, this was a matter of strategy, a pragmatic determination to present Bush as PRIMARY LESSONS a candidate who could win precisely because of his lack of What McCain taught us baggage...
...determination for all has come about in sion to establish multiethnic societies in One would like to think so, but it Central and Eastern Europe mainly Kosovo and Bosnia is extremely ambi- would be unwise to count on success...
...he is divided from Al Gore only by paper-thin distinctions...
...through war, persecution, population tious, more so than most were willing to The patience, persistence, and armed transfers, redrawn borders, and with im- admit (or even understood) when the presence of the international commumense human suffering...
...Democrats could have had a similar problem: Bill Bradley Wilson Carey McWilliams, a regular contributor, is the author of attracted Independents and even a few Republicans, though Beyond the Politics of Disappointment...
...And ironically, his campaign's efforts to shake this win in November...
...And ley...
...The hope that Sarajevo would provide the model for the rest of the MoslemCroat Federation of Bosnia, not to speak of the Republika Srpska, has been mostly disappointed...
...He offered a voiceRight, and for Republicans interested in winning elections, sometimes murmuring, often incoherent-calling us back that may be decisive: originally, the open primary in Michi- to democratic politics...
...Some are and Pat Robertson attached themselves to Bush, it appeared hopeful, like those drawn to McCain, some resigned, but to be just this side of surrender, a willingness to accept a all are resentful at the loss of something like a civic birthright...
...American Elections not enough to make the difference between winning and los- 1980-98 (Chatham House...
...Commonweal 1 0 March 24, 2000...
...The reality is that Woodrow Wil- similative national ideologies...
...He argues, however, that "history shows that divided cities and divided communities reunite eventually...
...While John McCain's wit and candor helped him considyear, religious conservatives were in retreat, smarting from erably, voters also were drawn to him by more fundamenthe impeachment debacle and increasingly regarded in Re- tal concerns...
...Democrats emerged from Super-Tuesday relatively united and much amused by the Republicans' troubles...
...When Ralph Reed politics is so thoroughly dominated by money...
...Bradley, after all, in not a man of the Left...
...In a three-way race, a poll taken just before Super Tuesday indicated that Bush and Gore would each get about 33 percent of the vote...
...As he realized late in the day, Bradley's best chance was to appeal to the Liberal Left, where Democratic discontents run strong...
...McCain would get a quarter...
...Yet those Independents and Democrats who cross strong and lively and evidently human, not a script prepackover into Republican primaries do add weight against the aged in focus groups or cyberspace...
...11 multiply such experiments...
...And when he lurched right in order to win South Carolina, Bush reinuper Tuesday, in John McCain's Star Wars forced the belief that he is simply a suit for all seasons...
...candidate who was distancing himself from the Right at just Similarly, while McCain's remedies were mostly inadequate about every turn...
...The poll also indicated that beyond that core third of the electorate, Gore's current support is negative, discontented, and po"Such an obedient dog, that George W" tentially up for grabs...
...And when Republican leaders chose to demonize on...
...media...
...The UN's special representative in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, concedes that Kosovo's Serb and Albanian populations probably "will indeed prefer to live separately for a period...
...Still, Democrats have reason to be watchful, and not just because so many things can go wrong between now and November...
Vol. 127 • March 2000 • No. 6
