What has so dramatically changed the character of the 1992 election campaign from that of 1988? Undoubtedly it is the growing acuteness of the capitalist economic crisis. One day there's a new plant closing, the next a new bankruptcy.The Bush campaigners have the most difficult time navigating around this crucial issue and are at their wits' end finding new issues when old ones wear thin. One wonders why in the 1988 campaign, when the economic crisis was already on its way, the Democratic presidential team was unable to overcome Bush.
Even then, eight years of Reaganism had brought devastation to the standard of living of the masses. One would have thought the devastation was reason enough for any of the half dozen or so presidential aspirants in the Democratic primaries to soundly defeat Bush.
But that was not the case. And the reasons for it are relevant to an understanding of the present campaign. Moreover, they are exceptionally important in understanding the relationship between the economic crisis and the struggle against racist oppression.
The winner in the 1988 Democratic primaries was then-governor of Massachusetts Michael Dukakis, generally regarded as a liberal. Also running for president during the Democratic primaries was Jesse Jackson. If anybody stood out as the symbol of Black leadership and the leader of progressive causes, it was Jackson.
Considered then, as now, the most prominent leader in the Black community, Jackson had won a considerable number of delegates during the primaries. He was also looked on favorably by the other oppressed nationalities.
Dukakis rejects Jackson as vice president
It seemed incumbent upon Dukakis to seriously consider Jackson as his running mate. The consultations between Dukakis and Jackson ran over a considerable period of time, with much maneuvering on both sides. In the end, however, Dukakis arrogantly rejected Jackson for the vice presidency.
To the amazement of the progressives in the Democratic camp, he chose Lloyd Bentsen--a hard-line, conservative Texas multi-millionaire who fit the title of rightwinger most comfortably.
This turnaround by Dukakis may have astounded progressives but was not entirely a new twist in bourgeois politics. Ideological labels, which capitalist politicians often work hard to attain, are disposed of with ease and facility when expediency demands it. The effect, however, was to appall a great many--not only in the Black and other oppressed communities, but also in the ranks of the progressive movement and bourgeois liberals as well.
The way Dukakis explained it to his liberal supporters and progressive constituencies was that Bentsen strengthened the ticket. Just how? He balanced the ticket, said Dukakis.
During the election for U.S. Senate, Bentsen had run against George Bush and defeated him. Dukakis claimed this showed a capacity to defeat Bush. The fact that Bentsen was a thorough-going reactionary with a dubious public record on racism was said to be of little significance, since he would only be vice president.
Where Dukakis saw opportunity, he overlooked danger.
The Bush campaign managers were intent most of all on avoiding any discussion of the economic situation inherited from the Reagan years. They were most concerned with turning aside the economic issues, and instead raising the ugly issue of racism.
In the summer of 1988, Dukakis had a 17-percent lead over Bush in the polls.
Bush's managers bring out Willie Horton
Soon enough Bush's managers found a means of raising racism. The venal Bush managers in the 1988 campaign, in their effort to avoid the economic issue and any others, brought out Willie Horton. Horton had been convicted of murder and had escaped after having been released from prison under a Massachusetts prison furlough program during Dukakis' term. Ten months later he was arrested for raping a woman and stabbing a man.
The picture of Willie Horton soon became an unavoidable photograph on the television networks. It was a noose around Dukakis' neck. Dukakis had been opposed to the death penalty.
Thus Dukakis was hit from both sides. He had antagonized the progressive and Black movements by his rejection of Jackson for the vice presidency. And now he had to stand tall in defense of his position on capital punishment--since the death penalty is a racist instrument in the hands of the capitalist state. The states execute Black and other oppressed nationalities far out of proportion to their numbers.
Unlike Dukakis, Clinton stands solidly for the death penalty. To make sure there is no misunderstanding on that, he halted his campaign last spring and demonstratively returned to Arkansas to sign a denial of an appeal against the death penalty. He did this to the malicious delight of the racists and the chagrin of his progressive supporters. The latter know only too well against whom the death penalty is directed.
While Dukakis had rejected Jackson as his vice presidential candidate, he made him some sort of coordinator. He gave Jackson the use of a plane so that Jackson's association with the campaign was, if not conspicuous, at least prominent.
Clinton's different strategy
Clinton's racist strategy is on a different level altogether. In the first place his choice of the vice presidential running mate was calculated from the point of view of racism. He chose a Southern white politician, making the team two white male Southerners to have a special appeal to conservative white voters. That was a very important, insidious calculation.
Clinton could very easily have gotten a running mate from the East Coast, West Coast or Midwest, whether liberal or conservative. Some examples are Bill Bradley from New Jersey, Howard Metzenbaum from Ohio, or Jerry Brown from California. That would have been a more regionally balanced ticket.
But that's not what he was concerned with. He was concerned with divorcing himself from the Black struggle altogether. In the primaries Gore was only able to get seven states--all in the South--the same ones that Clinton could get on his own. So where was the advantage? In Clinton's strategy, the advantage lies clearly in divorcing himself from the Black struggle.
But he went further. He utilized the Sister Souljah incident to cut any connection with Jackson. Having done that, he had successfully sidelined Jackson in the election struggle. As of today Jackson has not been seen on television with Clinton in any way. Clinton's appearance at the Black Caucus dinner might have been the occasion for elevating his stature in the Black community, but somehow it missed. Clinton has generally avoided photo sessions which involve Black people, except in Chicago or other areas where he and his managers deem it essential.
What can we learn from all this?
The masses are inexorably driven to the camp that appears to them to be the only road to alleviate the hardships of a devastating economic situation. But once again, the election revives the old myth that presidents and politicians can make prosperity and unmake depressions.
According to this fable, the Republican administrations of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge brought a great wave of prosperity in the 1920s, while Herbert Hoover was responsible for the economic crisis in 1929. Or it was the genius and humanitarianism of Democrat Franklin Roosevelt that saved the country from ruin after 1933.
It will take time, perseverance and relentless determination to demonstrate to the masses that presidents and politicians alone, however good or evil they may be, and even presidents of the Federal Reserve Bank cannot make or unmake capitalist prosperity or ruinous economic crisis. The automatic operations of the capitalist mode of production are responsible for both the stability as well as the breakdown of the capitalist system of production.
If the economic problems ravaging the living standards of the masses could be solved merely by replacing one group of capitalist-minded managers with another, it would have been done a long time ago. But the management is only the surface problem.
In a moment of defensiveness, Bush in the Oct. 7 debate said that the economic crisis is a global phenomenon. That is all too true. But this phenomenon arises out of the global capitalist system. Bush suddenly discovered this system, about which Karl Marx wrote as long ago as 1848. Its nervous system, its central operational situs, is in the United States.
For too long this oppressive world system has been under attack by the oppressed masses of the world only at its periphery. These masses have endured so much oppression and sacrificed so much in the struggle. The current world economic crisis, by its depth and duration as well as its severity, will at last make it possible for the masses here at home to enter the arena of struggle at the very center. And this in turn will be a boon to the oppressed all over the world.