The late Lee Atwater, the Karl Rove of his day, once proclaimed to me that "politics is a base game." It was an unintended pun. Yes, politics is "base," as in crude. But Atwater was stressing the other meaning, as in "secure your base"--which is precisely how to understand what President Bush and his Democratic challengers are doing these days.
There will come a time for both parties to seek the support of those famously late-deciding "swing" voters. That will happen in the final days & Co., like to call the nation's "investor-voters." Depending on your definition of "investing," there are at least 50 million of them, and most are Republicans. White House spinners contend that seniors are their real target. Maybe so, but most of them--at least the ones who own stock in any amount--are Republicans, too.
Traveling the country, Bush is telling them what they want to hear: that taxation of dividends should end, and that ending the practice will help revive the ailing stock market. Most of the states he's traveling in are "red" ones that the Bush-Cheney ticket won in 2000.
The Democrats are doing the same thing in mirror image. They are traveling to the heart of their country, their own demographic grassroots. The top issue there is health care--more specifically, the lack of it.
According to the latest research, by the relatively nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, 59 million Americans lack health coverage for a portion of any given year, with 20 million going without it for a full year at a time. Those are powerful numbers, and there is very little overlap between the "investor-voter" nation and the "uninsured" one.
This weekend, in Des Moines, the nine Democrats vying for their party's 2004 nomination will meet for the first time before a labor-union crowd. At a town hall sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), they'll field questions from the rank-and-file. AFSCME officials say that health care is their leading bargaining issue, and questions about it are sure to be prominent.
ALL EYES ON IOWA
What's at stake for the Democrats is primacy in Iowa, where the party's first caucuses will be held Jan. 19. The Iowa caucuses will start the winnowing process. Rep. Dick Gephardt, a union-friendly candidate who won the caucuses in 1988, is playing to the same crowd again. He was the first out of the box with a sweeping health-care proposal. Howard Dean, a physician, followed suit; Sen. John Kerry is coming next.
In one way or another, all of the Democrats are (or will be) in favor of a plan that seeks to reach the El Dorado of "universal coverage."
The AFSCME members, 19,000 of whom live in Iowa, will be listening carefully. And they have a track record of making a difference. In 1991, AFSCME became the first union to endorse Bill Clinton--then a relatively obscure governor of Arkansas--for president.