Is it the economy, stupid?
It is now almost certain that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts will be the Democratic nominee for the U.S. presidential election in November. The clean sweep in Super Tuesday's primaries (March 2) in 10 states indicates that most Democrats prefer the veteran 60-year-old politician to his younger opponent, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Although there are still a few more primaries before the Democratic National Convention in July, the contest for the party's nomination is as good as over.
The stage is now set for the race to the White House, pitting Vietnam War veteran John Kerry against incumbent and self- proclaimed War President George W. Bush.
Many reasons have been cited as to why Kerry has become the preferred candidate within his party. One is that he is considered more electable than the others. Party supporters throughout the Democratic primaries have been concerned more about how to get President Bush out of the White House than the issues the candidates represent. Sen. Kerry won because he is seen as the candidate with the best chance of succeeding in that task. But exit polls conducted for the Associated Press on Super Tuesday's primaries gave a different picture. The finding, cited in the Boston Globe last Wednesday, reported that about a third of the voters said the economy and jobs were the top issues in the election, far outpacing other issues such as health care and the war with Iraq. About six in 10 said they were convinced that free trade was more likely to take jobs from their states, while only two in 10 said they thought foreign trade would add jobs in their states.
The economy, indeed, is an important issue in any election year. Although the U.S. is already on the rebound, it has not created new jobs as fast as growth in its gross national product. Recent studies have shown that the practice of outsourcing jobs abroad is to blame for the lower-than-expected number of new jobs created this past year.
Sen. Edwards exploited the issue in his campaign during the primaries, calling for a rollback of all the free trade agreements that the U.S. government has signed. Kerry did not go as far as Edwards but promised voters that if he were elected president, he would review free trade agreements to make sure that they favored U.S. economic interests, and especially, that they protected American jobs. However tactfully he put his views, the message to non-Americans from the Democratic nominee is loud and clear, and disturbing: Economic protectionism is back in vogue.
President Bush has not responded to the growing claims that free trade has cost America thousands or even millions of jobs. But there is no doubt that he was not going to sit still in the face of criticism at his economic policies. He will have learned from the mistake that his father made. George H.W. Bush Sr. ignored the economy in the 1992 election, which ultimately cost him the presidency in favor of Bill Clinton, who campaigned to victory on an "it's the economy, stupid" platform.
No doubt the economy will sooner or later become a major issue in the 2004 campaign. Tuesday's exit polls remind us that ultimately, it is the bread and butter questions that matter most to Americans. To the outside world, U.S. economic policy probably ranks among the most important issues to watch. The U.S. is the largest economy and its ups and downs are bound to impact the rest of the world.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we have become all too familiar with President Bush's penchant for going it alone, on issues of security, environment and human rights, to trade. Now Sen. Kerry has also made clear his unilateralist economic approach. America could be heading toward economic protectionism, irrespective of whether a Republican or Democrat occupies the White House next year. Domestic demands for economic protection seem too irresistible for either candidate to ignore. Both men are likely to play to the popular sentiment, "putting America first".
But the two candidates would be grossly mistaken to play the protectionist card just to win votes, without considering the huge costs America would incur. The U.S. economy today is too tied to the complex web of the global economy. Any backpedaling on free trade would not only provoke retaliation that would backfire. It would also smack of betrayal, for it was President Bill Clinton who pushed for nations around the world to open up their economies, which led to the globalization phenomena in the 1990s. The U.S., of course, was the chief beneficiary of this economic globalization.
Resorting to protectionism simply because it is the popular thing to do in this election year is not only shortsighted: It is also destructive. An American retreat from the global economy would surely lead to a world recession. The real and long-lasting cost to America, however, would be the loss of its credibility. Never again would the U.S. be trusted as the champion of free trade in the future.