Just as The Hankster readership is on vacation, so are we! Which allow the additional posts....
Today's Talk/Talk with Fred Newman and Jacqueline Salit (which comes out usually on Tuesdays and you can subscribe like I do to the email by signing up on the Analysis tab at independentvoting.org on the upper right corner... I've also linked Talk/Talk to The Hankster blog roll) is entitled "It's Not About Me".
I love this weekly column, not only because Newman and Salit have some very cutting-edge things to say about the whole two-party system thing that rules American politics, but also I just really appreciate the free-wheeling and intimate dialogue. Here are two people who have a lot to say about politics in America. Newman, somewhat of an "elder" in progressive independent politics in the US, having spent the past 40 years trying to create some alternatives to the current political alignment, and Salit, who has built an activist base of hundreds of top-notch indepenendent activists across the country, speak their hearts and minds.
Some of their dialogue from last Sunday:
Newman: ...But the issue is not me. The issue is the American people. If [Hillary] can make that stick, she wins the argument. But can she pull that off when a lot of other people are persisting in saying 'The issue is Hillary, the issue is Hillary?' I don't know. That's the opening for her. But, it's also a trap for her if she doesn't succeed in going through that opening.
Salit: And how does Obama handle this?
Newman: He could say: The issue isn't Hillary Clinton. The issue is the failure of Washington to impact positively on the people of America. Now, that's a little hard for him to say since he's participating in the process of making Hillary Clinton the issue.
Salit: I was struck by Gwen Ifill on the "Meet the Press" panel when she summarized the Democratic race as being about "what do you think about Hillary?" When she first said that, I thought 'What happened to the issues?' But then I realized it was a fairly accurate description. I'm not looking to create an evenly balanced template here, but to what extent do you think that's operative for Rudy Giuliani? .......
Newman: But it is about issues, because [Giuliani's] personal projection translates into a position on national security. Those are the Republican issues. In fact, the Democrats, as some commentators now say, don't even talk about these issues very much anymore. Today's Daily News featured an Op Ed arguing that the Democrats have stopped talking about security and about terrorism. Meanwhile, Giuliani can only talk about that. He doesn't talk about any other issues. He says: I stop crime. I react to terrorism. That's my record. That's what I do. Those are the issues that Americans really care about. Now, that's a pretty big gamble because it's not at all clear that those are the issues that a majority of Americans care most about. The huge drop in Bush's popularity would seem to suggest otherwise.
Salit: Then, what's driving the race on the Democratic side? On "Meet the Press" E.J. Dionne talked about the trade issue. Russert played a clip of the exchange between himself and Hillary on the NAFTA question and his effort to get her to admit that NAFTA was a mistake.
Newman: Wait a second. They don't talk about the trade issue. What you're reporting on is the talk about who was right on NAFTA and who was wrong on NAFTA. That has nothing to do with the trade issue. The trade issue is a totally separate matter. The issue that they're discussing was who was right and who was wrong. .....
Salit: I see what you're saying. But, putting the campaigns aside for the moment, Dionne gave a fairly detailed description of the split within the Democratic Party on the trade question, the split between the old liberal union-based coalition which is anti-NAFTA and anti-free trade and the more middle class, white collar, Information Age base which is pro-free trade.
Newman: ....Wait a second. They don't talk about the trade issue. What you're reporting on is the talk about who was right on NAFTA and who was wrong on NAFTA. That has nothing to do with the trade issue.....
Eventually, the people will vote.... We will vote in an election where we're not happy with the choices. We'll do the best we can.....
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