About the Election
Siegel, Fred
Fred Siegel This is the year of the Tory tickets. All four of the men selected to run are the sons of millionaires. The fathers of three of the four were millionaires many times over. They are...
...But no matter who wins, the next president will face the impossible task of dealing with a congress whose members have, like the House of Lords, the security of what is effectively an appointment for life...
...The problem is not merely that the vastly better-financed incumbents almost invariably win (98 percent were victorious in 1986...
...The Democrats had so many fat cats lining up to give money at their names A–L at one table, M–Z at another, to receive their credentials...
...it is that thanks to the power of PAC money to scare away challengers there are likely to be only sixteen (out of 435) serious congressional races in 1988...
...A lot of Californians found that laughable," he said, "because on a bad day this state could buy New York and turn it into a housing development...
...And the second is that despite that distaste, Dukakis has been hard pressed to go over 50 percent support in the polls...
...Meanwhile the number of small donors giving money to the Democrats is down sharply...
...They are being generously supported by their fellow millionaires...
...There are two giant statistics which stand astride the campaign...
...Dukakis won the Democratic primaries by not being Jesse Jackson and he may win the presidency by not being George Bush...
...The big money breeds a comparable arrogance as in the case of a Hollywood highroller annoyed by a Cuomo speech on the problems of the Northeast...
...The first is that 40 percent of the American people dislike the vice-president...
...Fred Siegel This is the year of the Tory tickets...
...If voters on the presidential level are given their pick of millionaires, voters in the PAC-dominated congressional races are often denied even that choice...
...As for the presidential election, the race between those deficit reduction twins Bush and Dukakis is likely to be decided negatively...
...The loss of competitive representation extends down to the state level where, for example, in 1986 not a single member of the California state senate or assembly was defeated for reelection...
Vol. 35 • September 1988 • No. 4
