Political Matching Made Easy
Which statement more accurately describes your political outlook: “We will all be called before God on Judgment Day to answer for our sins,” or “I don’t believe we will have to answer for our sins on Judgment Day”? It may seem like an odd question. But if you choose the second option, you’re well on…
The Virtual Campaign
O n Labor Day weekend, just as the presidential campaign was shifting into high gear, the Gore-Lieberman “war room” in Nashville faced a meltdown unthinkable even a few years ago. The computer system’s server went down, isolating the press operation from the outside world. The fax machine was no help: In the 2000 race, “blastfaxing”…
Social Security: The Next Generation
If your friends and colleagues seem entranced by George W. Bush’s pitch for diverting Social Security payroll taxes into a collection of personal investment accounts, try snapping them out of it with the word “insurance.” Social Security insures Americans against risks: disability, the death of a working spouse, inadequate pension coverage and savings, declining purchasing…
Should Jews Be Parochial?
O n a warm Sunday in September, Michael Steinhardt, maverick hedge fund operator turned Jewish philanthropist, was showing a group of fellow donors around his private zoo. Located on his 51-acre estate in Mount Kisco, New York, an hour north of Manhattan, the zoo features free-range zebras, miniature horses, guinea fowl, wallabies, antelopes, blue-necked pheasants,…
The Supreme Solution
Who will control the holy sites of Jerusalem? Israelis? Palestinians? Both? It’s an old conundrum–and, as the latest round of violence sparked by a dispute over the Temple Mount area suggested once again, an intractable one. Now another answer is emerging. How about none of the above? Specifically, how about giving up on the idea…
Where Have You Gone, Franklin Roosevelt?
The November 1, 1948, issue of Life magazine is a collector’s item because of a picture on page 37 that is captioned, “The next president travels by ferry over the broad waters of San Francisco bay.” The picture is of Thomas E. Dewey. Of greater significance is an article that begins on page 65 called…
Fighting Al Gore
As Al Gore labors to be seen as a man of the people, the candidate’s demeanor continues to strike some voters as annoyingly confident. “He’s like the kid in school you wanted to beat up because he knows all the answers,” Tom Coveney, a 42-year-old Massachusetts banker, told The New York Times after the first…
Runaway Republicans
R epublican Mike Ferguson is vying for a hotly contested open seat in central New Jersey. He’s running squarely in the center, playing up his commitment to improving the public schools and passing gun control legislation. The one taboo: any talk of George W. When pressed for Ferguson’s views on Bush’s Social Security initiative–or any…
Rousing the Democratic Base
I f Al Gore finds himself standing across from Chief Justice Rehnquist, taking the oath of office in January, it would be fitting if Paul Lemmon were holding the Bible. As Pennsylvania state director for the national AFL-CIO, it’s Lemmon’s job to make sure that the state’s 23 crucial electoral votes end up in Gore’s…
A Better Kind of Wealth Tax
Republicans claim it is unfair to impose a “death tax” on income already taxed during a person’s lifetime. House Majority Leader Dick Armey said that it is like “someone showing up at the funeral home and saying, ‘Hi, I’m from the government, and I’m taking half your money.'” In a Republican weekly radio…
Squeak or Sweep?
A year ago in these pages, I described the 2000 contest as a “parliamentary election.” With both the House and Senate so near the tipping point, the legislature and executive are genuinely at stake at the same time, as they typically are, though in a different way, in parliamentary systems. Indeed, with the Supreme Court…
Comment: Civics as Politics
V oting turnout is very likely to decline again this year. Some of the decline reflects the fact that both candidates are widely seen as boring. But dwindling voter interest also represents a long-term trend. In this issue of the Prospect, “Rousing the Democratic Base” by Robert Dreyfuss underscores what political scientists have long observed:…
Election Blues
A t first, voting was a pleasure. I got to vote for George McGovern. Since then, I’ve voted with genuine enthusiasm for several senators and congressmen (I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to vote for a congresswoman), and a few statewide and local officials. Sometimes my candidates actually win. But today, while I’m…
Swearing Off Soft Money – Sort Of
As the most expensive Senate race in the country ($63.4 million raised by all candidates as of September 20), the New York contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Representative Rick Lazio is drawing almost as much attention as the presidential campaign. Lazio made news by challenging Clinton, in the midst of their first televised…
No Holds Barred
C ongress is supposed to represent the voters, and it sometimes does. Although much of the left opposed welfare reform, the final bill probably reflected what a majority of voters wanted Congress to do. Likewise budget balance. Yet when issues impinge on the power of business, Congress doesn’t always do what the public wants. Since…
Blame Government First
The exploding Firestone tires on Ford vehicles set off significant aftershocks in the media and government. While the car company and the tire manufacturer blamed each other, the Senate Commerce Committee took both companies to task at a high-profile September hearing. Even Republican senators called for increased regulatory power and funding. One could almost sense…
The Liverwurst Solution
G eorge W. Bush and Al Gore are talking the education talk, but neither is walking the education walk. By far the biggest obstacle to upward mobility in this prosperous nation is the lousy schools so many poorer kids attend. But neither candidate comes close to a solution. I think I have one–or the beginnings…
As Reviewed on Amazon
I first delved into the reviews posted by readers on Amazon.com for utilitarian reasons. I will soon be publishing a serious nonfiction book; I wanted to know what kind of attention such a book could expect to get from this particular sample of the reading public. My case study, I decided, would be Susan Faludi’s…
False Alarum
When historians get around to writing the story of American culture at the end of the twentieth century, there will be a place for Stephen L. Carter’s The Culture of Disbelief, a tract for the times that played a small but significant part in the culture wars of the early 1990s. After more than a…
Street Life
I n the midst of a bachelor party on FOX’s new show The Street (premiering November 1), a fast-talking securities salesman named Freddie pulls out a wad of cash in an attempt to persuade two strippers to provide extra services. Standing in bikinis and stilettos in the noisy club, they demand equities. “Blue chips, small…
Placebo Politics
H ealth care is back on the political front burner. Not that anyone is talking about a major overhaul, like the ill-fated Clinton plan that banished the issue from polite political discourse for nearly six years. Instead, both George W. Bush and Al Gore are targeting isolated pieces of the health care system: prescription drug…
Race to the Goal Line
T he scene looks like the boot camp episode that figures in countless war movies. In the dead quiet of night, young men are rudely roused from their sleep. Ordered to run their hearts out, they slip-slide across treacherous terrain, willing themselves not to collapse since they know that anyone who doesn’t make it will…
At the November Polls
ACROSS Swing voters really struggled (6) Lucille returned to vote (6) Lover confused by Associated Press coverage (7) Like a kitschy party whip heading west to Kentucky (5) Lost a seat, perhaps (2,3) Republican tenants save quote (7) Nominee certainly may, and did, put away the dishes? (9) Excited Gore fan, almost completely exhausted (3,4)…
